Tag: Hudson
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Local pride
The latest Collectible Auto mag features a car that nicely meshes with two of my interests. It’s a carefully maintained ’57 Studebaker sedan, made in Hamilton and bought in Vancouver. The original owner used the car for long trips, so he rigged the front seat to recline Nash-style. When he died in 1980 his grandson…
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More Hudson trivia
A couple more Hudson trivia items. 1. I was wondering if Neals Motors in Australia was just a dealer who modified the cars, or a manufacturer. They definitely modified some trucks into Aussie-style utes. The answer is here. Neals was an assembly plant with a large factory. Presumably they didn’t cast and forge the parts,…
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Who’s communist?
Trump wants to disconnect our auto industry from its foreign branches and “bring it all home”. The impulse is good but the approach is fucked up as usual. Our auto makers had foreign branches FROM THE START. Ford and Buick had Canadian plants a few years after founding, and nearly all makers had Canada plus…
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Status inversions
Earlier I noticed that leather reversed its status rather suddenly in the mid 30s. Buggies had leather seats because leather is waterproof. The earliest automobiles were buggies plus motors, and continued as fully open vehicles with leather seats. As closed cars became more common in the 20s, cloth upholstery became the sign of status. The…
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More anniversaries
Jan 20 is one of my anniversary dates. = = = = = PARTIAL REPRINT: When I got out of prison, my first experience with independent life was in this duplex in Stillwater. I restarted college on Jan 20, 1970. My Zenith Trans-Oceanic helped to pull me out of the walls and back into the…
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Same thing two ways
This morning I noticed two ways of saying the same thing, showing opposite ways of looking at the world and looking at business. First, Conde’s book on Hudson tells the story of the company’s founding in great detail. I summarized it before. The group who founded Hudson started out working at Olds, then split in…
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More Hudson trivia
Bought a Hudson picture book by John Conde, who was the Nash/AMC official historian as well as a PR agent. I first read a Conde book in 1960. When my parents bought a new Rambler, the dealer gave them Conde’s AMC Family Album, and I treasured it and read it for years. It helped to…
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Non-hostile divorce
Most successful companies started as hostile divorces or shotgun marriages (LBOs). In autos, all the big names but Ford and Packard started as splits or buyouts**. Hudson’s origin was unusual. It was founded by salesman Roy Chapin and engineer Howard Coffin. Both originally worked at Oldsmobile. When Oldsmobile was bought by Wall Street types who…
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Random auto thought
Chrysler doesn’t get enough credit for devotion to safety. Imperials and Chryslers had padded dashes every year since 1949. The padding was standard from ’49 to ’54. Might have been optional later, but a quick look at online pictures for every year from ’55 to ’65 shows padding in every picture. Most are attractive, designed…
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Starker comparison
In previous item I contrasted Hudson’s personal approach to GM’s anonymous bureaucracy. Hudson was a stock company but behaved more like a family-run outfit. Hudson’s founder Chapin continued running the company from 1909 until he died in 1936. Then Abraham Barit, who had been with the company from the founding, took over and continued until…
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Hudson’s brake patent
Here’s the 1935 patent for Hudson’s unique lifesaving failsafe brakes. It’s wonderfully clear in both text and diagrams, explaining the purpose of dual safety. NO OTHER COMPANY EVER COPIED IT, EVEN THE ULTIMATE COPIER GM. When AMC produced Nash-based Hudsons for three years, it kept the system on the Hudsons but NEVER TRANSFERRED IT TO…
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How it worked
My current Hudson obsession gave rise to several questions about details. The unique failsafe brake system is vaguely described online but not detailed or diagrammed. I bought a ’48 Stepdown Owners Manual on Ebay for $40 to satisfy my curiosity. The brake system was pretty much how I imagined it. The pedal applies leverage to…
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Up the down flation
Still thinking about upflation, repurposing a product for a higher price. The largest upflators were American cars made in other countries. It’s a good illustration of BASELINES. The same product has a higher status measurement when the yardstick starts at a lower altitude. The Willys Aero succeeded here for only two years. It beat Rambler…
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Just for fun
Still toying with the Prospects. Here’s the definite brand associations in the mid 50s when most of those dealer training films were made. The easy correlations are inside the chart, the more ambiguous ones listed separately. Customer GM Ford Chrysler Independents Conservative Prospect Chevy Ford Plymouth Nash Step-up Prospect Pontiac Mercury DeSoto Studie Luxury Prospect…
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More wiper puzzles
Earlier I tried to pin down the start dates for electric windshield wipers, after seeing that the conventional wisdom about AMC was wrong. The earliest factory-installed electric wipers were Chrysler in 1939, then Packard in ’42, then Ford and GM and Studebaker around ’51. In each case the wipers were optional on top models at…
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