The Hudson Motor Car Company was an American automobile company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan which manufactured Hudson and other branded vehicles from 1909 until 1954. The company sold autos in the US and internationally.
In 1954, Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator to form American Motors Corporation (AMC). The Hudson name was marketed through the 1957 model year, after which it was discontinued.
Hudson cars have an unconventional style and many design features that interest enthusiasts and collectors. Some models are valuable, such as the Hudson Hornet.
Origin
A group of businesspeople established the Hudson Motor Car Company. Several had experience in the developing industry and shared a desire to build their own automobile company. The name "Hudson" came from Joseph L. Hudson, a Detroit department store entrepreneur and founder of Hudson's department store. He provided the initial capital and allowed the company to be named after him.
A total of eight Detroit businessmen officially incorporated the company on 20 February 1909. With approximately $90,000 in primary capital provided by Hudson, who was named chairman, the goal was to produce an automobile that would sell for less than US$1,000 (equivalent to approximately $ in funds).
One of the lead "car men" and an organizer of the company was Roy D. Chapin Sr., a young executive who had worked with Ransom E. Olds (Chapin's son, Roy Jr., would later be president of the Hudson-Nash descendant firm, American Motors Corporation in the 1960s). Others with automotive experience included Howard E. Coffin, an engineer; Fred Bezner, a purchasing agent; and James Brady, a mechanic and operations manager.
Advertising for the new car drew approximately 4,000 potential customers to send in $25 deposits. The new company leased a vacant factory on the corner of Mack Avenue and Beaufait Street on the East Side of Detroit. This building was built in 1906 for the Aerocar Company.
The company quickly started production, with the first car driven out of the small factory on 3 July 1909. The new Hudson "Twenty" was one of the first low-priced cars on the American market and became a success, with 4,508 sold in the first year. This was the best first year's production in the history of the automobile industry and put the newly formed company in 17th place industry-wide, "a remarkable achievement at a time" when there were hundreds of makes being marketed.
The increasing sales volume necessitated a larger factory. A new facility was built on a parcel at Jefferson Avenue and Conner Avenue in Detroit's Fairview section that was diagonally across from the Chalmers Automobile plant. The land was the former farm of D.J. Campau. It was designed by the firm of renowned industrial architect Albert Kahn, with , and opened on 29 October 1910. Production in 1911 increased to 6,486. In 1913, there were 47 engineers working in the vehicle development. For 1914, Hudsons for the American market were now left-hand drive.
Expansion Coachbuilder Fisher Body Co. built bodies for Hudson cars (as well as many other automotive marques) until they were bought out by General Motors in 1919. From 1923, Hudson bodies were built exclusively by the Massachusetts company Biddle and Smart. The lucrative contract with Hudson would see Biddle and Smart buy up many smaller local coachbuilders to meet the demand for Hudsons. Peak shipments came in 1926, when the company delivered 41,000 bodies to Hudson. An inability to stamp steel meant that their products were made using aluminum.
On 1 July 1926, Hudson's new US$10 million ($ in dollars ) body plant was completed, allowing the automaker to build the all-steel closed bodies for both the Hudson and Essex models. Biddle and Smart continued to build aluminum-bodied versions of the Hudson line, which Hudson marketed as "custom-built," although they were identical to the steel-bodied vehicles. With the automaker now building in-house, Biddle and Smart saw their work for Hudson drop by 60%. From 1927, Hudson gradually began to use local coachbuilders Briggs Manufacturing Company and Murray Corporation of America to supplement its production, which was expanding domestically and internationally. With car prices falling due to the Great Depression and the costs to transport vehicles from Massachusetts to Detroit becoming too expensive, the contract with Biddle and Smart was terminated in 1930, and Biddle and Smart went out of business shortly thereafter.
At their peak in 1929, Hudson and Essex produced a combined 300,000 cars in one year, including contributions from Hudson's other factories in Belgium and England; a factory had been built in 1925 in Brentford in London. Hudson was the third largest U.S. car maker that year, after Ford Motor Company and Chevrolet. Hudson also offered trucks, but in much smaller numbers: in 1938, they sold 719 trucks and in 1939 they sold 409 of them.
Hudson had many firsts for the auto industry; these included dual brakes, the use of dashboard oil-pressure and generator warning lights, and the first balanced crankshaft, which allowed the Hudson straight-six engine, dubbed the "Super Six" (1916), to work at a higher rotational speed while remaining smooth, developing more power for its size than lower-speed engines. The Super Six was the first engine built by Hudson. Previously, Hudson had developed engine designs and then had them manufactured by Continental Motors Company. Most Hudsons until 1957 had straight-6 engines. The dual brake system used a secondary mechanical emergency brake system, which activated the rear brakes when the pedal traveled beyond the normal reach of the primary system; a mechanical parking brake was also used. Hudson transmissions also used an oil bath and cork clutch mechanism that proved as durable as it was smooth.
Essex and Terraplane
In 1919, Hudson introduced the Essex brand line of automobiles; the line was originally for budget-minded buyers, designed to compete with Ford and Chevrolet, as opposed to the more up-scale Hudson line competing with Oldsmobile and Studebaker. Local coachbuilder Briggs Manufacturing introduced their first-of-its-kind closed coach body in 1922 for Hudson's Essex. It was the first closed vehicle available at a price close to its open-bodied brethren. The 1922 Essex closed body was priced at only $300 more than the 1922 Essex touring. Within three years, its popularity enabled Hudson to reduce its price so that both the 1925 Essex touring and coach were priced the same. The Essex found great success by offering one of the first affordable sedans, and combined Hudson and Essex sales moved from seventh in the U.S. to third by 1925.
In 1932, Hudson began phasing out its Essex nameplate for the modern Terraplane brand name. The new line was launched on July 21, 1932, with a promotional christening by Amelia Earhart. For 1932 and 1933, the restyled cars were named Essex-Terraplane; from 1934 as Terraplane, until 1938 when the Terraplane was renamed the Hudson 112. Hudson also began assembling cars in Canada, contracting Canada Top and Body to build the cars in their Tilbury, Ontario, plant. In England, Terraplanes built at the Brentford factory were still being advertised in 1938.Greater London Council, The West London Report, London: Greater London Council, circa 1983.
An optional accessory on some 1935–1938 Hudson and Terraplane models was a steering column-mounted electric gear pre-selector and electro-mechanical automatic shifting system, known as the "Electric Hand", manufactured by the Bendix Corporation. This took the place of the floor-mounted shift lever, but required conventional clutch actions. Cars equipped with the feature also carried a conventional shift lever in clips under the dash, which could be pulled out and put to use in case the Electric Hand should ever fail. Hudson was also noted for offering an optional vacuum-powered automatic clutch, starting in the early 1930s.
Hudson Eight For the 1930 model year, Hudson debuted a new flathead inline eight cylinder engine with block and crankcase cast as a unit and fitted with two cylinder heads. A 2.75-inch bore and 4.5-inch stroke displaced developing at 3,600 rpm with the standard 5.78:1 compression ratio. The five main bearing crankshaft had eight integral counterweights, an industry first, and also employed a Lanchester vibration damper. Four rubber blocks were used at engine mount points. A valveless oil pump improved the Hudson splash lubrication system.
The new eights were the only engine offering in the Hudson line, supplanting the Super Six, which continued in the Essex models.
At the 1931 Indianapolis 500, Buddy Marr's #27 Hudson Special (using a Winfield carburetor) finished the 200 laps in tenth place.
1936–1942
In 1936, Hudson revamped its cars, introducing a new "radial safety control" / "rhythmic ride" suspension which suspended the live front axle from two steel bars, as well as from leaf springs. Doing this allowed the use of longer, softer leaf springs ("rhythmic ride"), and prevented bumps and braking from moving the car off course. The 1936 Hudsons were also considerably larger inside than competitive cars — Hudson claimed a interior, comparing it to the in the "largest of other popular cars" of the time. With an optional bulging trunk lid, Hudson claimed the trunk could accommodate of luggage. The 1936 engines were powerful for the time, from .
The 1939 models joined other American cars in the use of a column-mounted gearshift lever. This freed front-seat passenger space and remained the industry standard through the 1960s, when "bucket seats" came into vogue. Hudson became the first car manufacturer to use foam rubber in its seats. The Hudson Terraplane was dropped. For the 1940 models, Hudson introduced coil spring independent front suspension, aircraft-style shock absorbers mounted within the front springs, and true center-point steering on all its models, a major advance in performance among cars in this price range. The Super Six model was reintroduced as well. Despite all these changes, Hudson's sales for 1940 were lower than in 1939 and the company lost money again. The advent of military contracts the following year brought relief.
The 1941 Hudsons retained the front-end styling of the 1940 models but the bodies were new with 5.5 inches added to their length giving more legroom. A new manual 3-speed synchromesh transmission was quieter with all helical gears. Wheelbases increased by 3 inches, with offerings of 116, 121, and 128 inches, and height was decreased with flatter roofs. Convertibles now had a power-operated top. Big Boy trucks now used the 128-inch wheelbase. In 1942, as a response to General Motors' Hydramatic automatic transmission, Hudson introduced its "Drive-Master" system. Drive-Master was a more sophisticated combination of the concepts used in the Electric Hand and the automatic clutch. It contained a vacuum-powered module on the transmission to switch between second and third gear and a vacuum-powered module to pull the clutch in and out. At the touch of a button, Drive-Master offered the driver a choice of three modes of operation: ordinary, manual shifting and clutching; manual shifting with automatic clutching; and automatic shifting with automatic clutching. All this was accomplished by a large and complicated mechanism located under the hood. They worked well, and in fully automatic mode served as a good semi-automatic transmission. When coupled with an automatic overdrive, Drive-Master became known as Super-Matic. Re-engineering of the frame rear end to use lower springs reduced car height by . Sheet metal "spats" on the lower body now covered the running boards and new wider front and rear fenders accommodated this.
Female designer