Moving to a factory on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Conner Street in , Hudson Motors sought to differentiate itself from hundreds of other auto companies. By they released a signature new engine, the Super Six. This six-cylinder engine offered significantly more power than the four-cylinder configurations common at the time. The large engine and manufacturing quality were competitive gambles.
Hudson was a medium-priced brand, costing more than Fords and Chevrolets, but less than luxury marques like Packard. The new brand born from that merger was American Motors Corporation AMC , which disappeared into a different kind of obscurity.
For a time, however, like the Nash brand, Hudson was a proud American brand of automobiles. Back before a small handful of larger car companies owned all the other brands, the automobile market was wide open. Brands like Hudson had a shot at the big time, but they competed with hundreds of similar-sized brands all vying for the same prize: the big three.
For any manufacturer or business operator, getting off the starting line the first year is hard. When Joseph L. Hudson, former Detroit department store operator invested in his new car company, he hoped for a good start too.
All rights reserved. More on this:. Car reviews:. Up Next. Hudson was also noted for offering an optional vacuum-powered automatic clutch, starting in the early s. Doing this allowed the use of longer, softer leaf springs "rhythmic ride" , and prevented bumps and braking from moving the car off course. The Hudsons were also considerably larger inside than competitive cars — Hudson claimed a cubic-foot 4.
The engines were powerful for the time, from 93 hp 69 kW to hp 92 kW. The 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 s, when "bucket seats" came into vogue. For 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.
In , perhaps in 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.
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. Drive-Master was offered by Hudson until the model year. Despite all these changes, Hudson sales for were lower than and the company lost money again. The advent of military contracts the following year brought relief.
Her contributions to the Hudson included exterior trim with side lighting, interior instrument panel, interiors and interior trim fabrics. She designed for Hudson from into , leaving the company when she married Joe Oros, then a designer for Cadillac. He later achieved renown as head of the design team at Ford that created the Mustang. As ordered by the Federal government, Hudson ceased auto production from until in order to manufacture materiel during World War II, including aircraft parts and naval engines, and anti-aircraft guns.
During World War II Hudson had also an aircraft division which produced ailerons for one large eastern airplane builder. The plant was capable of large scale production of wings and ailerons as well as other airplane parts. On May 22, , Hudson was given a contract for the Oerlikon 20 mm cannon with the Jefferson Avenue Plant responsible to convert the original Swiss drawings to American production standards.
The company produced 33, Oerlikons for the United States Navy with the original mechanism continued in use without major change and with complete inter-changeability of parts until the end of the war. Hudson also manufactured millions of other weaponry and vehicle parts for the war effort. In , the company launched their "step-down" bodies, which lasted through the model year.
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