Brands like Ford, Buick, Chrysler, Nash and Chevrolet are named after their mechanically innovative inventors, but that was not the case for Hudson. Hudson was named after the man with the bucks, Joseph Hudson, owner of the very successful Hudson department stores in the Detroit area. The first Hudson was built in 1909 and the last in 1957.
Hudson was a well-respected brand and, according to www.allpar.com, by 1929, it was the third best-selling car in American. In addition to the Detroit plant, Hudson had plants in Canada, England and Belgium.
Hudson had a number of firsts in the auto industry, including hiring the first female designer, Elizabeth Ann Thatcher. Other notable firsts were the dual braking system, the “Super Six” engine and in 1948, the “step down” body design. The 1951 Hudson had the largest, (308 c.i.), most powerful, (145 HP), six-cylinder engine of any American car.
From 1951 through 1954, when stock car racing was really done with stock cars, the Hudson Hornet dominated the track. The combination of the aerodynamic, low center of gravity of the step-down body design with Hudson’s engine made Hudson almost unbeatable. In 1952, when “Twin H Power” (two dual carburetors) was introduced, Hudson won 27 of 34 NASCAR races.
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Unlike a lot of classic car owners, Fremont resident Jerry Griffin did not have a love of Hudson as a kid, nor did his family even own one. In 1992 or 1993, he went to the Towe Auto Museum (now the California Automobile Museum) in Sacramento, which mostly featured Ford vehicles but periodically featured other makes. The day Griffin visited, the featured car was a Hudson. “That’s what I want,” he told a friend.
And so, for several years, Griffin looked for a 1951 to 1954 Hudson. “I met a man from Oregon, who, in 2006, had 30 or more Hudsons in various condition spread over 5 acres in multiple buildings. His plan was to rebuild three Hudsons at a time.” He had just finished putting together a 1951 Hudson Hornet when Griffin bought it in 2006 for $15,500.
“The car was in pretty good shape,” Griffin said. “The former owner had rebuilt the engine and transmission, redone the brakes as well as the interior. It was originally sold in Los Angeles and had three to five owners before I got it.”
This is not a show car, nor does the owner plan on making it one. “The last time it was painted was 1963, and I’m not going to repaint it. I think of it as a ‘people’s car,"” Griffin said. “I like to let kids sit in it and get their picture taken. Kids know about Hudson from the 2006 Disney-Pixar movie, ‘Cars,’ in which Paul Newman was the voice of Doc Hudson.”
The original 1951 Hudson had a GM two-speed Power Glide transmission, but Griffin’s remade car has GM’s Hydra-Matic, a four speed automatic vastly superior to the Power Glide. Hydra-Matic was used in the 1952 and later Hudsons.
There is no power anything. As some collectors say, it has Armstrong steering, an 18-inch in diameter steering wheel and muscle. The car weighs 3,600 pounds and sits on a 124-inch wheelbase. Because of the way the body wraps around the frame, the interior is wide, seating six people comfortably. No cup holders, but smokers can drop their ashes in one of five ashtrays. Even though the car is low, there’s a lot of headroom as the wearing of hats for both men and women was common in the 1950s.
When new, Griffin’s Hudson would have sold for $2,568 ($24,115 in today’s dollars), not including the automatic transmission for $158 ($1,484 today), the electric clock (which never worked very well in any cars of that era) for $24.95 ($234 today), AM radio for $83.76 ($787 today) or the cool outside sun visor for $21.95 ($206 today).
Griffin said the visor, which was a popular option for many cars in the 1950s, can cost the owner about 3 miles per gallon because of its aerodynamics. One windy day while Griffin was driving across the San Mateo Bridge at normal freeway speeds, he felt the wind under the visor trying to lift his car off the ground.
Maintenance of old cars is always a challenge, and finding Hudson parts is a chore. Griffin doesn’t know how much he has invested since acquiring his Hudson. He counted off some of the repair items: “Replaced the wiring for $800, plus labor; replaced the vacuum windshield wiper motor and had a more highway-friendly rear end installed. Oh yeah, then the transmission went bad again, and it needed a new radiator, master brake cylinder and motor mounts.”
But he loves his old Hudson and takes it to local car shows. Shrugging his shoulders, he said, “I’m not mechanical, and old cars are money pits. So I just write checks.”
Have an interesting vehicle? Contact David Krumboltz at MOBopoly@yahoo.com.
1951 Hudson Hornet is a "people"s car, a hit with adults and kids alike.
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