33 Essex Terraplane Eight
terraplane8
Senior Contributor
Finally my new car has arrived at home, all the way from Norway to New Zealand. It is a twin sidemount 4 door sedan in original condition with paint and interior re-done to original specs 25 years ago. It is in excellent condition overall and has a new fully rebuilt engine. The kingpins, a tierod end and a couple of other things needed to be repaired before passing registration which took some time (longer than it took on the boat to get here!).
Last night I replaced the gearbox with a good spare one from a later model as it was jumping out of first and second, surprise surprise. Geoff Clark is kindly going to overhaul the original box for me. The job went smoothly and only took 3 and a half hours or so. The lightness of the gearbox and the spider bell housing made the job really easy, no jack required on the gearbox.
First driving impressions are that it is quite a compact car with nice steering and controls, brakes quite good too. Visibility is excellent with a relatively high driving position looking along the bonnet to the griffin flanked by the headlights. The engine pulls it along easily and it just cruises along so effortlessly and quietly. The exhaust note also sounds great and I must say sounds quite unusual and nicer than the contemporary V8 competition! Really the car is exceptionally quiet, both the engine, gearbox, rear axle and the body which is as tight as a drum, no squeaks or rattles or wind noise. It's not hard to see why it blew the road testers away in 1933, offering so much value and performance for the price.
There are a few items I need to source: owner's manual, speedometer, taillight buckets, blanking plate for grille crankhole, badge on luggage rack in case anyone can help or point me in the right direction.
In conclusion, I can see why this model is so highly thought of - that's why I bought it, because of its reputation even though I had never even seen one in the flesh. After now driving it, it does live up to its name.
Last night I replaced the gearbox with a good spare one from a later model as it was jumping out of first and second, surprise surprise. Geoff Clark is kindly going to overhaul the original box for me. The job went smoothly and only took 3 and a half hours or so. The lightness of the gearbox and the spider bell housing made the job really easy, no jack required on the gearbox.
First driving impressions are that it is quite a compact car with nice steering and controls, brakes quite good too. Visibility is excellent with a relatively high driving position looking along the bonnet to the griffin flanked by the headlights. The engine pulls it along easily and it just cruises along so effortlessly and quietly. The exhaust note also sounds great and I must say sounds quite unusual and nicer than the contemporary V8 competition! Really the car is exceptionally quiet, both the engine, gearbox, rear axle and the body which is as tight as a drum, no squeaks or rattles or wind noise. It's not hard to see why it blew the road testers away in 1933, offering so much value and performance for the price.
There are a few items I need to source: owner's manual, speedometer, taillight buckets, blanking plate for grille crankhole, badge on luggage rack in case anyone can help or point me in the right direction.
In conclusion, I can see why this model is so highly thought of - that's why I bought it, because of its reputation even though I had never even seen one in the flesh. After now driving it, it does live up to its name.
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Comments
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Congrats Sounds like you're going to get no end of enjoyment out of that car. I haven't myself driven one but I know someone who does own a '33 Essex Terraplane 8 coupe and just following that car I was impressed. It easily out accelerated my Step-down...a car that was 20 years newer and from what I read had a better power to weight ratio than the Ford V8s of the time.0
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That's why Dillinger as well as Clyde Barrow tried to steal Hudson 8s in the 30's, they'd easily out run the cop cars...
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I belive we may have the taillight and possible some other parts you may need. Check out the HETpart.com store at store.avaloncity.com.
http://store.avaloncity.com/product_info.php?products_id=6
Look around at all of the 30s stuff as we are not that familar with them. I have shipped to several oversea owners already.
thanks Mike comos the partsguy@hetparts.com.0 -
Aaron, Is that the fellow who had a 33 T 8 Coupe at the Milwaukee Natl. in 1981?. I always wondered what happened to that car.0
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D - well done. Look forward to seeing it in the near future hopefully!
Alistair0 -
tombpa wrote:Aaron, Is that the fellow who had a 33 T 8 Coupe at the Milwaukee Natl. in 1981?. I always wondered what happened to that car.
Tomba - I'm not sure if it's the same car you saw or not...quite possibly. But it is a dark green '33 Essex Terraplane 8 rumbleseat coupe belonging to Linton Richard and is now in the process of a restoration. There's only a few of these cars listed in the registries I think HET only knows of 4-5 cars.0 -
Does anybody know what happened to the T8 roadster that Harry Jones owned in Reno? When Harry passed on in the mid 80's his collection was sold off piecemeal. His was copper colored with a tan top and brown interior. Just curious...0
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I have one,(the 1 in the picture) there was the one in Chgo. one in Ohio, One in NY. One in Ind. that came from Colo. and I am sure there are a lot more out there. I understand from an old gezzer that they didnt make a lot of coupes and a lot were busted up racing. Try finding parts, the only things I have personally found at swap meets in 40 years are 1 headlight and a waterpump.0
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i BOUGHT HARRY JONES 32 DShUDSON 8 COUPE. IT WAS NOT A TERRAPLANE, BUT FULL HUDSON. ALSO BOUGHT HIS 52 HOLLYWOOD, BILL ALBRIGHT FONTANA, CA0
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The tailamp buckets from a late '40's Willys jeepster are the same as the ET's (Willys bought them as leftovers?)0
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I know that Lorain Reese was selling a T8 R/S coupe earlier this year. It was a two tone gold/brown colour with brown vinyl interior, with a rear mounted spare. In tidy condition.0
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"Finally my new car has arrived at home, all the way from Norway to New Zealand..... "
Congratulations. A devotion to Hudsons above and beyond the call of HET duty.0 -
Congratulations on your new purchase, and please, post some pics if you get a chance . . . would love to see it.
RL Chilton0 -
Very nice looking ride!
I love the IOWA license plates! That will make for some good conversation starter where you live!0 -
terraplane8 wrote:
Very Very nice Car..And I notice that the steering wheel is on the...."right"....side.:) Also love the garage colors...Xmas is here!!!!!! When a car is shipped that far is it in a special container? Or Is it with other cars or things ? Thanks Ron0 -
It was in its own container, secured so it couldn't move and with plenty of silica gel to absorb moisture. In fact the shipping went pretty smoothly, the trouble started here when I had to jump through the registration hoops.0
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Terraplane8: Thanks for the pictures. The car is absolutely beautiful! Someone fill me in, now, please. I recently saw a '37 Terraplane and it had a "ghost shifter" attached to the steering column. Was this an option? If so, was it a dealer option or a factory option? I'm asking because I noticed the '33 did not have one . . .
Russell0 -
I'm not sure what this 'ghost shifter' is that I've heard a couple people talking about in the Forums. Could you mean Hudson's "Electric Hand" pre-select, vacuum-electric remote shifter? This consisted of a small control box mounted to the steering column, with its own miniature chrome shift lever, which controlled a power unit mounted on the side of the transmission. The unit was manufactured by Bendix, and Cord also had a similar unit. The Electric Hand was offered as an option for Hudsons and Terraplanes from 1935 through 1938 (possibly 1939?).
The Electric Hand was definitely designed for use by live humans, however -- not phantoms.0 -
Jon B wrote:I'm not sure what this 'ghost shifter' is that I've heard a couple people talking about in the Forums. Could you mean Hudson's "Electric Hand" pre-select, vacuum-electric remote shifter? This consisted of a small control box mounted to the steering column, with its own miniature chrome shift lever, which controlled a power unit mounted on the side of the transmission. The unit was manufactured by Bendix, and Cord also had a similar unit. The Electric Hand was offered as an option for Hudsons and Terraplanes from 1935 through 1938 (possibly 1939?).
The Electric Hand was definitely designed for use by live humans, however -- not phantoms.
Jon B:
Yes, I believe that is what I'm talking about. I'm sure the "ghost shifter" is a slang term, but it is my understanding that when the arm on the column was activated, the gear shift on the floor moved "by itself", i.e., changed gears, hence the "ghost".
And thanks for the info!
Russell0 -
KGAP has tail light buckets... email kgaphet@aol.com0
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Technical description of Hudson's Electric Hand - "Hiring a bulldozer to crush a butterfly". There is a whole section of the workshop manual devoted to servicing this mechanism. Considering the transmissions of the '30's Hudsons were the smoothest and quickest shifting gearboxes in the world, this was an unnecessary technical add-on in my opinion. However if you have one , and it works, good on you if you can keep it that way! Considering that these gearboxes had no synchronising mechanism, there must have been some horrendous crunching occurring when the electric hand malfunctioned.
Geoff.0 -
I'm told if you have an electric hand unit you could speed shift quicker than you could by hand with a standard shift. Not sure if that's true though0
This discussion has been closed.
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