Production figures

Terraplane33

I believe Essex, Essex Terraplane and Hudson are very well represented here and as there are no detailed production figures (only a kind of yearly total productions) we could try to dig a little deeper into the details by using our VIN numbers.
For example, it's mentionned in the Library that Essex Terraplane Eight VIN numbers are starting with 65000, mine has 73173 so this means probably that at least 8173 were built.
It does not provide detailed information about body styles (sedan, 2d coach, coupe, convertible, flower cars or others) but it's better than nothing.
Maybe we could split the rough numbers more into details this way for all those years ?

hudsontech

I have been researching Hudson shipment/production and serial numbers for over 40 years. So far the only "production" figures that exist, to the best of my knowledge, are from 1946 thru 1957.

The only complete figures are "shipping" figures from 1909 thru 1954. One problem that arises in the years of "production" figures vs "shipping" figures is that they do not, in most years agree (see below). Most likely this is caused by using two different starting dates - ie, prduction figures over the production year Sept thru Dec (some years started in Sept, some in Oct for example) ending a year later. Shipping figures were probably based on "calendar" year, ie Jan-Dec. Tho this could be the reverse, however - I haven't figured it out yet.

In 1933 Model KT 8 E-T serial numbers ran 65001 to 78250; Model KT 8 Deluxe E-T serial numbers ran from 73463 to 7825. This does not mean that all serial numbers were used. Doing some subtracting we find that 13,250 serial numbers were assigned to the KT 8's and 4,788 numbers to the KT 8 DeLuxe series. This comes out to 18,038 KT 8's MAY have been shipped.

Adding in the K Standard Six (8,774), the KU Special Six (16,494) and the KU Deluxe Six (9,630) gives a total of 52,936 units. We know that only 38,150 Passenger cars were shipped - and there were 430 Commercial units also shipped giving a grand total of 53,366.

The descrepency could be the result of the shipping/production figures mentioned above in Paragraph 2.

Researching Hudson serial numbers is sort of like banging your head against a wall. In all to many cases even Hudson produced serial numbers do not agree in various publications. For example what's shown in a parts book may show up differently in a service manual or owners manual. It's a mess. What I finally did was to use numbers, for example from 5 different sources, that matched in at least 2 sources. If I could find 3 that matched that was great - four was gold. I found that sources, such as NADA and Branham's Automobile Reference Books were about 90% the same as Hudson books.


Hudsonly,
Alex Burr
Memphis, TN

Terraplane33

Thanks Alex !
I see the kind of dead end we are in.
Even if we knew the highest KT8 VIN number still existing, it would not mean it is necessarily the last one produced. Any kind of statistic calculation will not mean very much so unfortunately we won't get any further with this...
No matter ! I'm anyway happy with this grandma