I don’t know if the composition of this shot of two rotund convertibles by Fred Oliver was intentional, but it’s sure working for me. The shape of their tops is almost identical, and there’s a few other similarities. Most of the rest of his shots are of the Hudson Hornet, but that alone makes a great subject, albeit one we’ve covered in much greater detail here.
Somebody should have made a Hudson front end kit for the VW, like all those mid-late ’30s Ford and R-R fiberglass front ends. Never mind…
I’ve long held a deep longing for a Beetle cabrio, but it would have to be a much earlier one, from the ’50s or ’60s. These just don’t do it for me, even if its nose is doing an imitation of the Hudson’s tail.
As is quite obvious, the Hudson’s windshield and header are just a cut-down roof of the coupe version. By the way, the convertible was officially called “Brougham Convertible Coupe”. The convertible coupe moniker was quite common back then, and it helps explain why the earliest hardtop coupes were sometimes called hardtop convertibles. Or maybe it doesn’t.
Convertibles invariably had leather upholstery back in the day, and it was tougher stuff than the material called “leather” nowadays. This stuff was like what they used in those grand old leather club chairs and such. Genuine American cowhide. And a genuine GM Hydramatic teamed up to Hudson’s legendary 308 inch³ flathead six. Does it have Twin-H power?
No sign of that legendary sign. But a most wonderful butt indeed. This is a convertible coupe after my heart, although my deep infatuation with the Hudson six-window sedans would probably win, if I had to make that fateful decision. But then…and this one is just in my kind of condition too.
Love that badge.
And it’s for sale. I bet it’s not dirt cheap, though.
My love poem to Hudson Step-downs:
CC 1951 Hudson Pacemaker: My Fluttering Heart Needs a Pacemaker
I’ve never considered a Bug to be svelte but next to the Rubinesque Hudson that’s how it appears. Just look at the tiny wasp-like waist on that Bug and the pert rear end!
Both are tremendously appealing in very different ways but on a warm day without a ton of sun beating down, I’d bet both would offer a great drive.
Hmm, to someone of my age, the later Beetle engine cover isn’t particularly pert. In fact, it started putting on weight with the wider license plate light/handle in ‘66 (‘67?). But the juxtaposition of these two cars is great; I’m collecting some Curbside Couples for a future post but haven’t found anything like this.
Ok, pert comparatively to the Hudson then! There may be a little middle age spread or maybe it’s the Covid 19 that everyone’s putting on staying inside…
I’ve always thought of Hudsons as a night car, a graveyard-shift prowler. The star sapphire gear lever and chrome dash and column would have been great fun at night, but hell on a sunny day.
I didn’t realize Hudson had power windows! Figured those were pretty much a Big Three accessory.
A history of power windows would be interesting. I would expect that these would be hydraulic, as I think most were at the time. And the convertible top was probably hydraulically powered too, making the whole proposition make sense.
I was also surprised to see the power windows. One thing I’d not want to have to maintain on a 70-year old car.
I got my Connecticut driver’s license at age 16 with a Hudson just like that in 1961, although it was a manual three speed column shift. And I had to do the driving test in a snowstorm! Somehow, I passed and the test included stopping on a hill and taking off from there without stalling or rolling the car too far backwards. Somehow that all sticks in my memory after all these years.
I wouldn’t mind having an old Hudson like that now just to drive around this nutty place we live. It wouldn’t fit too well with all the BMW’s, MB’s and SUV’s everyone is driving around here.
Wowzer, this is one Fabulous Hudson Hornet. That header area over the windshield was the one thing standing between this car and the theoretical perfect stepdown Hudson convertible. Because everything else about this car is just right.
I saw these on the cohort, so glad you pulled this one up to showcase. And ooo, is that a Lincoln Cosmopolitan I see up the other direction from the VeeDub?
That massive windshield header is because of the way the Hudson ‘Mono-bilt’ body is structured including major box unit across the header. When they engineered the convertible, they were adamant the open car would be as rigid as the sedans. It was ungainly but promoted as safer in event of a roll-over accident though that’s a questionable claim.
The concurrent 1949-’51 Kaiser and Frazer convertible sedans have as large a windshield header as the Hudson. In the K-F case, it was the remnant of re-engineering a sedan body into a convertible, a body never designed to be one from the start. Lots of cut-‘n-try, test, slap on gussets and plates to achieve an acceptable level of rigidity, plus specific-to-the-model and very expensive X-member frames from Parish.
Thanks for using my photos, and for helping me to learn more about these cool old cars. Though I’m a rank amateur at best, the composition was intentional. The Hudson showed up on that lot fairly recently, but the VW has been there at least three months, and I placed photos of it in the Cohort back in April.
These are beautiful cars in my opinion, and my son, who is not that interested in cars, thinks they are cool because of their cartoonified Cars versions. Also on that lot, and posted in the Cohort, is a 49 Lincoln Cosmopolitan, a 56 Hudson Wasp , a 59 Vauxhall, and, most recently, a 62 Galaxie Sunliner convertible with a continental kit and a correspondingly less appealing derriere than that of the Hornet.
I hope somebody buys it, and the Lincoln, soon, for they both have open/broken windows. The Lincoln bears the additional ignominy of being fitted with plastic bags in a vain attempt to keep the rain outside. I don’t remember the price, and didn’t take any close-up photos of the signs, but I’ll take a look next time I go by and update the Cohort posting.
That Lincoln Cosmopolitan probably has open windows because they’re also hydraulically powered and have failed.
What is the name of this lot? And did you happen to notice the asking price?
The name of the business is Biggins Auto Repair, in Columbia CT. I don’t recall the asking price, but I will check it out next time I go by, and put it in the Cohort with the photos.
I am curious how much rigidity this car lost in convertible form.
Very little, they added two hundred more pounds of reinforcing box structures and gussets to assure the Hudson convertible was a rigid as the closed models.
This is the first time I’ve ever seen a Hudson convertible with the top up!
Wow does the appearance change. I love the Hudson sedans and coupes from this period but never thought the convertible looked right.
I actually like the styling much better with the roof up.
I used to hear stories about people back in the day buying convertibles for the look and never putting the top down. Now seeing this I get it!
The vertical taillamps denotes this Hornet a 1951 model, a first year of production for Hornet. About 550 convertibles were produced for 1951 so they’re pretty rare birds…
The Twin H-Power was a dealer-installed option from November 1951 and became regular production feature from 1952 onward. The decal was affixed to the body in the production line for 1952 onward. If memory serves me right, the dealer-installed kit didn’t include Twin H-Power decal. Some 1951 Hornet owners would simply buy the decals and affix them to their cars whether theirs had Twin H-Power options or not.
My old classmate in Texas went through several Hudsons (Commodore, Hornet, and Wasp) in the 1980s and early 1990s so I am acutely familiar with those cars. I picked out the favourite Hornet and best of all model years: 1952 2-door sedan (similar to Doc Hudson in CARS).
It has nearly 70 years since someone paid a glamourous more for less in this Hudson – less roof, less doors – and just as long since custardy yellow was as of the minute as the thickets of chrome were.
The glamour, as time faded it, probably protected the car from abandonment: it has survived intact. But its role is now uncertain. Many now would wonder how it ever was a showboat or a bit of an indulgence (indeed, they might think boat rather than show). Now it is large and fading old car, in need of some pricey care, not easy to store or love in that state.
I hope it is bought by a carer. Glamourous youngster it may have been, a bit uppity to the sedans, but as age has mellowed it to a reality where, without a solid hat, it needs more help than they do, it deserves respect. The now-wise old beauty surely has mine.