Essex Station Wagons

hudsontech

I was rooting thru some of my hard files the other day and came across these two photos - if I remember correctly they came from the Carl Weber collection.

There is no info on either photo - the 1930 Depot Wagon is sitting on the rotary the factory had on the roof of the factory.

The Fisk Alden bodied Essex looks almost like a 4-door panel delivery.

From the caption on the Depot Wagon photo I'd take both of these to be 1930 models, tho the Fisk Alden body could be 1931.

Just imagine rolling into a Hudson meet in one of these!!

Hudsonly,
Alex Burr
Memphis, TN

RL Chilton

Possiblyy a prototype for an interested customer that didn't materialize? Similar to the Hudson taxi contract that didn't pan out, I suppose.

I think the Woody is the most interesting, because most literature lists the first Hudson Woody's in '34 (and I think only a couple were made). This one must also have been contracted out, prototype made and then subsequently dropped, at least for the time being.

Thanks for the photos, Alex.

hudsontech

It is my understanding, thru some of my research, that most car companies - Ford, Chevy, etc - supplied chassis only to body builders for special order station wagons (or depot wagons as they were called) for individual customer orders.

I believe in the late 30's Ford built their own wagon bodies - I'm basing that on the fact that canny old Henry bought up a lot of timber in northern Michigan which was used to build his station wagon models, both Ford and Mercury. Ran his own lumbering operation from cutting all the way to milling and finish work.

Hudsonly,
Alex Burr
Memphis, TN

RL Chilton

Henry wasn't one to sub out much of anything, that's for sure.

Browniepetersen

Cantrell, Springfield Body Company, Proctor-Keefe Company, Hercules, and Baker-Rawling were some of the companies building commerical stationwagons in the early 30's. Don Butler's History of Hudson does not show any stationwagons for the late 20's and early 30's, but the body you show is very close to what Cantrell and Springfield were producing at the time. Would be nice to roll into a HET show with one of these.....

Geoff

The pic on the right is a 1929 Dover. Strange beasts because they went back to horizontal shutters, and used 1928 Essex instrument panels, had their own radiator shell, but otherwise were basically 1929 Essex chassis and mechanicals. They had an extra rear cross member which was riveted back-to-back, to give a bit of extra support to whatever deck or body was installed.

hudsontech

Geoff C., N.Z. wrote:

The pic on the right is a 1929 Dover. Strange beasts because they went back to horizontal shutters, and used 1928 Essex instrument panels, had their own radiator shell, but otherwise were basically 1929 Essex chassis and mechanicals. They had an extra rear cross member which was riveted back-to-back, to give a bit of extra support to whatever deck or body was installed.

Ok, I'll buy the Dover with a Fisk Allen body. That's a pretty long body for the chassis. I imagine it was customer ordered.

Alex B