Let’s Talk About the Rise and Fall of Hudson

By Society Staff –
Reprint with Permission Only

If you hang around our website, read this e-magazine, or talk to any of our staff, you will hear us talk about “orphaned brands”. These are the automotive brands that have passed into the great manufactory in the sky.  We spend the bulk of our time with post WW II brands, mostly because their demise is fresh in our historical minds.

Know this, the brands that slid into oblivion prior to the 21st Century fell away because of bad management and resistance to change. Those that fell away in this Century were the victims of much more sophisticated issues.  Thus, we will focus this series on what fell away during the 1950s – brands that fell away when the industry was in its heyday.

This column will discuss Hudson, a solid brand before WW II, and one that prospered at the onset of the 50s, and then faded so fast many still are surprised why it disappeared. Let’s begin:

It was originally started in 1909 by a group of businessmen headed by Roy D. Chapin and financed by Detroit department store magnate Joseph L. Hudson, whose name adorned the cars. The Hudson Motor Car Company was a successful company – even through the Great Depression and into the Second World War.

In 1946, like most U.S. auto manufacturers, it reentered the post-war automobile market with face-lifted prewar models. Hudson retained both its L-head Six and Eight engines from before the War, with its “Super Six” accounting for two-thirds of the company’s 1946 production. Optional transmissions included “Drive Master,” “Vacumotive Drive,” and overdrive.  Except for some exterior chrome changes, models were essentially unchanged for 1947, and Hudson registered profits in both years.

In 1948 Hudson introduced one of the great, early, postwar designs which, along with unit-body construction, would continue through 1953.  The new model was low and sleek, with a low center of gravity—allowing it to handle exceptionally well for the period. It also featured a dropped floor pan, positioning the passengers lower as well, and it earned Hudson the nickname “Step-down”.  The 1948 car was offered in four models: “Commodore” Six and Eight and “Super” Six and Eight—and now sat on a 124″ wheelbase versus 116” for the immediate postwar cars. 

Postwar sales peaked for Hudson in 1949 at 159,100 units and would decline every year following until it faded into oblivion. Why?

One of the common threads in the demise of the orphaned brands of the 50s is resistance to change. For Hudson, they started out as a success then then slowly eroded any chance of survival.

First was a restyle introduced in 1948 – the “pontoon” look, that was a radical departure from the “fat fender” look started in the mid-30s and retained until almost 1953 by some brands. The pontoon look blends the front and rear fenders into one continuous line and looked very sleek and modern when Hudson introduced it in 1948. It was soon copied by Packard, Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln, with only Chrysler products avoiding it. Hudson retained this styling until it merged with Nash – and then it merely copied the Nash styling until it disappeared.

In the world of auto manufacturing that occurred after 1948, brands that did not offer restyling on what became the 3-year cycle, a design that that did not change was considered stodgy, or worse, downright ugly. Hudson’s hanging on to their 1948 look, through 1954 was a signal that they were on their way out, and that’s exactly what happened.

A point that is often overlooked in this equation, is the choice that Hudson made to go to unitized body construction, where the body and chassis are all in one (like we do things today).  This was a very advanced process that did allow lighter weight and more chassis stiffness – and when combined with the ability to lower the structure (you sat in the frame, not on top of it), Hudsons were lower and sleeker and lighter than their competition.

However, unitized construction requires much more tooling costs to change the body style because you are changing the structure as well as the body sheet metal. That led to the Hudson styling remaining unchanged for seven years – too long to satisfy the consumer.

The second thing that hurt Hudson badly was the refusal to move to a modern OHV V8. It is ironic that their choice to upgrade their Super Six to the 308 CID Hornet L-Head resulted in a quite powerful engine.  Hudson Hornets had 165 HP when most competitors were making no better than 135.

And that Hornet Six, when combined with that lower, lighter and stiffer chassis resulted in a dominance of stock car racing in the US. This convinced the management that they did not need a V8, a death knell for the brand. Hudson management let the gloss of their racing victories (no on could touch them) blind them to the future.

Thus, the two things the consumer of the 50s wanted – flashy new styling and a V8 engine – were overlooked by Hudson management until it was too late and too costly to change. Hudson’s sales started strong in 1948 at 117,400, rose to 159,100 in 1949 and then stayed strong until 1951 and then in the midst of their great racing victories, dropped like a rock.

By 1954, only 51,314 Hudsons were sold, no enough to sustain their operating expenses. And with not money to retool and build a V8, they allowed themselves to become a foster child of American Motors. In 1955 and until their demise in 1957 where only 4,827 cars were sold – they were nothing more that rebadged Ramblers – and pretty ugly ones at that.

While the Hudson story has its own uniqueness, it does not vary much from Packard, the other casualty of the 50s. The story of DeSoto, on the other hand, deserves telling, because its downfall was due to other causes. We’ll get to that story in the near future.

Read More About the 1946-57 Hudsons HERE