Nash-Hudson merger puts the SCOTCH on Prototype American GT

[Deleted User]

Stepdown Hudsons were ready for a make over and the right guy to do the job was Frank Spring... but, the making of AM - or American Motors caused the loss of financial support and the death of that make over. The following link will take those who care to a downloadable PDF file. The file is a scan of a 60s magazine article written about the X-161, the Stepdown Makeover prototype and what might have been.



http://members.aol.com/HudsonTools/HudsonFiles/FrankSpringX16.pdf



Thanks to Rudy Bennett for sharing this copy with all of us.



Have a great time reading about the Big Brother of the Italias we all know as the JET make overs.





Cheers from a very HOT, Heart Of Texas

PAULARGETYPE

Thanks To You Ken





For Showing Us Where They Were And It Is A Great Story I Know I Read A Few Times In The Past But It's Always Good To Reread A Good Story

Unknown

I am not a lover of hashes, but I think it was a better design than a X161 based design.



It just amazes me that everyone likes to think of the hashes like a red headed stepchild, but embrace and love that X161 and the italias. I personally think the italia and the x161 are two of the ugliest cars ever made or designed.



But, one of the neat things about the car definitely has to be the tops of the doors cut into the roofline, sort of like the 63 corvette....



oh well, great resource, certainly was a good read!



but man oh man... what an UGHLEEE car...



yikes...:eek:



I would take ANY stepdown (even a hollywood or a brougham... before I would think of owning either of those)

Unknown

I'd have to second that reply by hudsonkid on the X161. That would never have been successful competing against the 1955 redesigned GM and Chrysler cars. (Even Ford) These were UGLY, even worse than the Hashes. 1955 was a great year for some automakers because of the "new" vehicles presented (and tastfully done with great eye appeal and lots of Mechanical features). Take a look at what sold well in 1955 and place the picture side by side with the X161.



Thanks for the interesting article, though!

[Deleted User]

Remember that is a design prototype and Spring did not get to finish the work on it. Due to lack of funds the car is different on both sides one side has the cut in doors the other side the normal type. The windows in the car were a greenhouse test by Spring for visibilty. The overall look of the car is an expanded Italia I am sure Spring would have smoothed out this design into a better looking car.

Unknown

More like A.E. Barit would have said yuk, that's too radical, and killed the program just like he did with the first design of the step downs. The prototypes would have sat around for a few years until someone got Barit to drive one home, ala the step down. Even then, lots would have to be done to make the designs practical to manufacture and more appealing to the masses. Makes you wonder what would have happened if Hudson had invested in a practical redesign and a V-8.

[Deleted User]

They would have been better to drive Barit home and leave him there. His era was the late thirties he never really made it into the 50's. Its amazing we had stepdowns in the first place. When a company starts saying make me a small car that looks like that new Ford you know you need a change in management.

The factory dynamics at Hudson are fascinating stuff. Due to budget constraints and small design department innovation was borne of necessity and some great things came out of Hudson.

50C8DAN

To each his own but in my opinion the X-161 and what it would have become with some clean up would have been with the times, take a look at the '55 Chrysler and Desotos by Virgil Exner, similar lines and shape. The '53/'54 Studebakers were also that low swept style, not the bulbous shapes of the '55-'57 Chevies and Fords. Except for the '55 Hash, the AMC Hudsons were well not the best styling of the time (trying to be PC here), and Frank Spring thankfully had nothing to do with them. I can't imagine him putting his name on these cars in any way shape or form. If you think the Hashes are better looking than the X-161 you must be smoking some hash! I know there are those out there that love these cars and God lovem, but if Hudson had died in '54 that would have been fine with me. Frank Spring was one of the best of his profession and had he been left in charge Hudson may have lasted a few more years and probably still been on the track with hopefully a V8.

Unknown

Maybe while they were buying those hydramatics from GM, they should have said, "stick an Olds Rocket V-8" on front of those transmissions. Seems that it was a common swap for quite a few Hudson stepdowns. Certainly better than sticking the Packard in the Hashes.

Unknown

50C8DAN wrote:

To each his own but in my opinion the X-161 and what it would have become with some clean up would have been with the times, take a look at the '55 Chrysler and Desotos by Virgil Exner, similar lines and shape. The '53/'54 Studebakers were also that low swept style, not the bulbous shapes of the '55-'57 Chevies and Fords. Except for the '55 Hash, the AMC Hudsons were well not the best styling of the time (trying to be PC here), and Frank Spring thankfully had nothing to do with them. I can't imagine him putting his name on these cars in any way shape or form. If you think the Hashes are better looking than the X-161 you must be smoking some hash! I know there are those out there that love these cars and God lovem, but if Hudson had died in '54 that would have been fine with me. Frank Spring was one of the best of his profession and had he been left in charge Hudson may have lasted a few more years and probably still been on the track with hopefully a V8.

First off, it amazes me that in one line you aim to be politically correct, then accuse someone of smoking "hash" for their opinion that differs from yours in the next line... :rolleyes:



wow...



The good part is that I don't care to tiptoe around the daisies... I'm not PC, so I'll tell you like it is....



I reality, the Hash, isn't that far off of the design of the X161, if you think about it. Just because we all like hudsons doesn't mean that we cannot argue that some of the designs that were drawn, mocked up, actually made into metal, were ugly. Even though he gave us the stepdown, Frank Spring wasn't a genius, and not everything he oversaw the design of, was gold. And, if Frank Spring was so great, I got to imagine that GM or FORD, or even Chrysler, would have had him on the payroll. They each had far more resources to pay a designer whatever they wanted, to secure the best talent. But they didn't, because they didn't view him as a threat to their market. They could see the writing on the wall for Hudson, and knew it was a matter of time.



Surely, they could up the ante far greater that hudson, who was limping along by the early 50's. The real problem, is that I think that Frank used up all of his great designs by the end of WWII, and really had nothing left. He was old, and not in touch with what the hip styling was of the day. Remember, he was with Hudson for a long time, and it's kind of hard to get rid of an old friend. I bet the management of Hudson didn't want to risk the chance that Frank had one good design left in him, and let GM, FORD, or MOPAR snap him away. I imagine they took care of him fairly well. The last good design, obviously, it was not the Italia, or the X161, which he in fact, had full reign over the design of both vehicles, after his jet proposals were tossed in favor of something similar to a "arly 50's ford, but smaller", as Hudson top brass put it...



It is always fun to do the "coulda, woulda, shoulda," but guess what, history has already been written, and the way it was written, is unfortunately, not the way we always would like it to have been played out.



If the NASH merger wouldn't have done Hudson in, surely the X161 concept would have. The proposal was slated for the 1957 model year. No one on here can honsetly say that they think that car is better looking than anything else that was offered by the big 3 in 1957. The design shows without a doubt that Hudson was out of touch with what the public wanted. (edit* and some of thie credit for being out of touch should go to the management of Hudson, especially Barit*) BTW, they sold what, a million 57 Chevys, and even more 57 Fords... I think that was more than the entire production run for the stepdown series.



I guess the final arguement here would be if that design was so great, how come no one ever picked it up, and ran with it, hired Frank on, or something....



I know that Frank met his demise in 59 behind the whell of a Met, but surely somebody should have recognized the revolutionary design of the X161, and tried to adopt styling cues from it?



I figure the same people that like the X161, are the same people that probably bought wood grained Matadors, Pacers, Hornets, and Gremlins as well. :cool:



And in closing, I can see why you like the X161, after all, don't all of you stepdown 8 guys secretly wish to have a hudson 6 anyway?

Unknown

Amen to that Hudsonkid! That's a heap uh mighty powerful testifyin' you did.:D

Unknown

Dave53-7C wrote:

Amen to that Hudsonkid! That's a heap uh mighty powerful testifyin' you did.:D

Thanks! :cool:

Unknown

50C8DAN wrote:

To each his own but in my opinion the X-161 and what it would have become with some clean up would have been with the times, take a look at the '55 Chrysler and Desotos by Virgil Exner, similar lines and shape.



:rolleyes: Well maybe. Here is a 55 DeSoto. I have a convertible like this and it is my favorite car.:D Even Virgil Exner got canned when Chrysler moved on to new ideas.



http://photos.aaca.org/showphoto.php?photo=5457



Have a nice day

Steve

50C8DAN

Ok, I don't think this is worth a getting all torked up about, frankly Hudson has been gone for over 50 years (counting 1954) or almost if you consider 1957. My comments were my OPINION and mine alone, with some sprinking of humor.



As for my PC Hash comment, that was my attempt although poor as it may have been at humor using the word hash, nothing more nothing less. If you did not get it sorry about that.



To put it bluntly and not PC the '56/'57 Hudsons had to be some of the ugliest cars, IN MY OPINION, to hit the highways in the late 50's, although a lot (but not all) of cars of the time were, IN MY OPINION, pretty sad designs period. The sales numbers for the Hashes speak for themselves. Some cars that were outstanding were doomed by management, take the '53/'54 Studebaker 2drs (one of the most beautiful automotive designs ever IN MY OPINION), management went chrome crazy in '55 and then completely left the design, except for the Hawks in '56. It is hard to say who was out of touch with what by the late '50s.



As others have commented, the X-161 was a styling exercise carried out in early '53. It was not the final product for '57 and two years more work were to be carried out before the final product would have taken place. By that time it would have seen many changes, but IN MY OPINION it would have not resulted in what the Nash designers came up with (sadly Nash also had some nice designs in prior years as well!). The fact that some of the design elements in the X-161 were ahead of any of the other companies is a testament to Frank Spring's thinking (see this link for more information on the X-161: http://www.hudsonclub.org/article/Magazine/AQArticleItalia.pdf). Maybe not a genius but someone that could do a lot with continual management interference, as well as meager funds at best. Before you take pot shots of the guy being over the hill I would suggest you read the AQ article that contains some information about the man: http://www.hudsonclub.org/article/Magazine/AQArticleDesiginingSD.pdf This guy was a true renassiance man of many talents. He designing OHC engines in the '30s for auto applications (ahead of the times?), besides being an industrial designer. I would like to think true innovators do not run out of designs, take Rayond Loewy (of Studebaker design fame) for example, this man was designging products for NASA in the '60s and '70s and the guy was in his 80s!



When Hudson merged with AMC we do know that Frank Spring was given a retainer by AMC, but we do not know the extent at which he was consulted, nor do we know if he had other offers from other companies. Perhaps someone knows more about this? However, from what I have read I do not think he was done as a designer, although I sure would have been if I had to deal with crap he did. As I mentioned before, if one looks at the '55 Chrysler line it has a very strong resemblance to the X-161 lines. Again we do not know where the design for Hudson would have ended up by '57. I will let it go at that.



As for Hudson 6 envy. I think you will find there are a number of us splasher 8 Stepdown guys that are plenty happy with what they have. I have owned my car for over 20 years and I have passed on numerous Hornets over the years. I will take your comments about 6 envy and the liking of Matadors and the like as your attempt at Humor Hudsonkid! I will have no other comments on this thread, enough said.

[Deleted User]

Actually other car companies did try to hire Spring. If you read about Spring a couple of things emerge. One he was a total eccentric. He came from a rich family and was educated in Europe. Given the choice of the freedom he had at Hudson or working in a "Design Studio" of the bigger car dealers he would have never have done it. He rode to work on a Motorcycle and flew planes and from all accounts flew planes like a barn stormer. He did have quite a rep in Detroit and that probably worked against against him though I doubt you would have ever seen Spring work for a bigger company he just wasn't wired that way.

As stated the X-161 would have never looked like that in production for one thing it would not have had a hand built aluminum body from Italy. It would have curves more condusive to steel presses. But as also stated before, is an interesting design study much the way the early 40's design of the stepdown echoes the finished car but does not look like the production car.

I personally think that Springs big downfall was that he was too enthusiastic about european design he believed that a good design should last with minimal change to update it. Of course that did not jive with the tastes of the buying public. That said he was a real innovater and some of the design cues you saw in the big three were direct lifts from his work. I sometimes wish someone could get Chip Foose to build the stepdown the way Spring originally saw it with the wrap around dash and the grill that Pontiac would later use.

And yes all of this is my opinion. And no I did not like the Matador or Pacer I was too busy hotrodding my pinto.

Unknown

51hornetA wrote:

I personally think that Springs big downfall was that he was too enthusiastic about european design he believed that a good design should last with minimal change to update it. Of course that did not jive with the tastes of the buying public. .

I think that this may be the wisest, and most proper way of expressing everything in this thread so far. The american public was not ready for the european influence on their cars, and quickly became unpopular.



Other than the price, how come the Italia's didn't sell like hotcakes? THey couldn't almost give away those last 10 they made....



I think we need a poll....

Unknown

Did the Italian design houses crank out the most butt ugly designs of the 50's on their own or were they just building from the (butt ugly) designs of others?

[Deleted User]

Dave, man those houses turned out the Ferrari 265 Gt and the Facel Vega two of the sweetest designs ever. Depends on what you like. Not everyone is a winner. Some of the stuff coming out of detroit in the 50's made me shake my head and you wonder to yourself did these guys know they were design such horrible cars. That said also some really awesome cars so I guess as in all things its hit or miss. I still cry myself to sleep at night with nightmares of the Packard Hawk.

Unknown

I'm not saying that Italian designs were bad in general. But as you say, some designs were sweet and some were not. Oh ya, great, mention the Packard Hawk:mad: Now I'm going to have nightmares.:eek:

Unknown

Dave53-7C wrote:

I'm not saying that Italian designs were bad in general. But as you say, some designs were sweet and some were not. Oh ya, great, mention the Packard Hawk:mad: Now I'm going to have nightmares.:eek:

at least the taillights are good for customizers... :eek: :eek: