Dating a Terraplane by S/N?

[Deleted User]

Rec'd a call from fellow in NV - a neighbor has a Terraplane of unknown year. The vehicle has S/N of 20899, and a tag saying made in Canada(?!). Any ideas on how to determine year of manufacture? Thanks, J. Cronk - SoCal Chapter

tigermoth

the 1930-1939 master chassis parts book does not show serial numbers in the 20,000 range. i suspect this book only shows US built serial numbers. in 1934 the KU terraplane model, US built had a starting serial number of 21500. perhaps the 20000 series were the canadian built KU's of the same year????? 1934 ??? tom ok, perhaps i spoke too soon. i have the mechanical proceedure manual for 1934 to 1937 and it shows the starting canadian serial numbers for those years were as follows: 1934 52000 for 112" Wheelbase , 76000 for the 116" Wheelbase. 1935 C51101 , 1935 deluxe C52101, 1936 deluxe 61C101, custom 62C101 , 1937 commercial 70C101, deluxe 71C101, super 72C101.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for response. While reading your post, the owner called up, said it was actually a Hudson, not Terraplane, and was looking to verify its 1928(?) year of manufacture. So, we'll try this exercise again.....

Hudsonly,

Jon C.

Jon B

Alex Burr's helpful Hudson technical page is at http://groups.msn.com/HudsonGeneralSpecifications/_homepage.msnw? and if you'll look to the left margin you'll find links to lists of serial numbers for different years of Hudsons, Essex or Terraplanes

Unknown

1928 Hudson standard wheelbase models serial numbers started at 12,270 so that sounds more like it. They made around 50,000 cars that year in the Hudson marque, and 225,000 Essex.

Geoff.