I'm Here Thanks To a '49 Stepdown
Next to his Kaisers, my father's favorite car was a 1949 Hudson 6-cylinder four door sedan, a three-speed with overdrive. He can't remember if it was a Super Six or a Commodore, but it was a six as he completely rebuilt the engine. He bored it out .060" oversized and considered it to be a much finer engine than "that piece of junk I had in my '46 Hudson business coupe that only had three main bearings."
He had told me the following story several times, but the significance of it never really dawned on me until recently. You see, I am here writing this thread to you because of that very 1949 Hudson.
In the fall of 1957, my dad was living in Mukwonago, Wisconsin and had just gone through a divorce with his first wife. He was an auto mechanic for Koeffler Chevrolet in Mukwonago (long since out of business) and had met a pretty divorcee named Marilyn who had lived nearby and had three boys. She had recently moved back up to her hometown of Fond du Lac to be near her parents, and Dad had ofted traveled up there to be with her. He would take Wisconsin Route 83 up north of Hartford to U.S. Route 41--old, two-lane 41, which is now Wis. Route 175-- with that '49 Hudson. He liked to tell tales of how he would take those "hairpin curves" on Wis. 83 through Chenequa and North Lake at speeds very disrespectful to the local limits, shall we say; all the while telling of how well that car could hold the road and how he would often outrun the cop in North Lake because his squad car couldn't hang onto the turns like the Hudson could!
Well, one very dark night in that fall of '57, about two in the morning, he was headed back south to Mukwonago on old Route 41. About a mile north of where 83 splits off to the right to Hartford, there was a farmer on a curve who kept Black Angus cattle. The highway makes a curve to the right there; not a sharp ninety, but still pretty substantial; I saw the curve and it is unchanged all these years. As Dad approached the curve at about 75 miles an hour, he put on his high beams-- to suddenly find all those damn Black Angus cattle out all over the road! He had two choices: either hit one head-on and kill himself, or take the left-hand ditch on the outside of the curve and take his chances with the Lord and the Hudson (the inside ditch wasn't an option as there were cattle there, too). He made the latter choice. Narrowly missing the cattle, he went down into the outside ditch, around the curve and back out onto the road on the other side of the cattle. He continued back home to Mukwonago, VERY shaken but unharmed. The only damage to the Hudson was the loss of a fender skirt.
Five years later, in 1962, he and Marilyn were married. Five years after that I came along. Why is this significant? You see, the opportunity to buy that '49 Hudson came purely by chance earlier that year. A Ford dealer up the street from Koeffler Chevrolet had just taken that '49 Hudson in on trade in the spring of '57; and as his '46 was dying a long, expensive death, he couldn't find anything he liked from his employer. He remembered seeing Marshall Teague race in Milwaukee several years prior and loved the look of those Hudson stepdowns, so he traded in the old '46 business coupe. That decision to buy that stepdown '49, with its low center of gravity and high stability in adverse driving conditions, is what kept him alive that night--along with help from the Good Lord, I believe. Perhaps the Lord even gave him the idea to buy that car. If he had been driving anything else, he would have likely rolled it and probably would not have survived to marry my mother and help conceive me.
Now you know from where comes my respect for the Hudson Stepdown.
--Tom Markielewski
He had told me the following story several times, but the significance of it never really dawned on me until recently. You see, I am here writing this thread to you because of that very 1949 Hudson.
In the fall of 1957, my dad was living in Mukwonago, Wisconsin and had just gone through a divorce with his first wife. He was an auto mechanic for Koeffler Chevrolet in Mukwonago (long since out of business) and had met a pretty divorcee named Marilyn who had lived nearby and had three boys. She had recently moved back up to her hometown of Fond du Lac to be near her parents, and Dad had ofted traveled up there to be with her. He would take Wisconsin Route 83 up north of Hartford to U.S. Route 41--old, two-lane 41, which is now Wis. Route 175-- with that '49 Hudson. He liked to tell tales of how he would take those "hairpin curves" on Wis. 83 through Chenequa and North Lake at speeds very disrespectful to the local limits, shall we say; all the while telling of how well that car could hold the road and how he would often outrun the cop in North Lake because his squad car couldn't hang onto the turns like the Hudson could!
Well, one very dark night in that fall of '57, about two in the morning, he was headed back south to Mukwonago on old Route 41. About a mile north of where 83 splits off to the right to Hartford, there was a farmer on a curve who kept Black Angus cattle. The highway makes a curve to the right there; not a sharp ninety, but still pretty substantial; I saw the curve and it is unchanged all these years. As Dad approached the curve at about 75 miles an hour, he put on his high beams-- to suddenly find all those damn Black Angus cattle out all over the road! He had two choices: either hit one head-on and kill himself, or take the left-hand ditch on the outside of the curve and take his chances with the Lord and the Hudson (the inside ditch wasn't an option as there were cattle there, too). He made the latter choice. Narrowly missing the cattle, he went down into the outside ditch, around the curve and back out onto the road on the other side of the cattle. He continued back home to Mukwonago, VERY shaken but unharmed. The only damage to the Hudson was the loss of a fender skirt.
Five years later, in 1962, he and Marilyn were married. Five years after that I came along. Why is this significant? You see, the opportunity to buy that '49 Hudson came purely by chance earlier that year. A Ford dealer up the street from Koeffler Chevrolet had just taken that '49 Hudson in on trade in the spring of '57; and as his '46 was dying a long, expensive death, he couldn't find anything he liked from his employer. He remembered seeing Marshall Teague race in Milwaukee several years prior and loved the look of those Hudson stepdowns, so he traded in the old '46 business coupe. That decision to buy that stepdown '49, with its low center of gravity and high stability in adverse driving conditions, is what kept him alive that night--along with help from the Good Lord, I believe. Perhaps the Lord even gave him the idea to buy that car. If he had been driving anything else, he would have likely rolled it and probably would not have survived to marry my mother and help conceive me.
Now you know from where comes my respect for the Hudson Stepdown.
--Tom Markielewski
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Comments
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Great story. It sounds like several people owe that Hudson a debt of gratitude. Did your father have the Hudson, with its large back seat, right until you were born?
I'd say a celebration is in order. Get out the pierogi's, kapusta, sausage, and rye bread. The accordian and Blatz beer are optional. 
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Dave53-7C wrote:Great story. It sounds like several people owe that Hudson a debt of gratitude. Did your father have the Hudson, with its large back seat, right until you were born? I'd say a celebration is in order. Get out the pierogi's, kapusta, sausage, and rye bread. The accordian and Blatz beer are optional.
Dziekuje (Thanks), Dave! Jak cie masz (How are you)? The Hudson later developed a problem with a stripped-out oil drain plug. My dad welded it-- it was a quick fix at the time-- and intended to replace the oil pan. He never got to it as he traded it off in 1961 at Holiday Olds in Fond du Lac for a copper-over-ivory 1954 Kaiser Manhattan, which still exists today, awaiting restoration, with two other '54 Manhattans, one restored and driveable. I am sure I was likely conceived in the master bedroom and not in the back seat of the Kaiser... dammit.0 -
Tom,
You're welcome, I'm fine. Those Kaisers were some really kookie cars...and I mean that in a good way. It's cool that your family still has cars from way back when. Now you just need to restore them and start some new memories. And while your at it, restore a Hudson or two for good measure. But are you sure about the master bedroom?
Dave0 -
Tom,
I absolutely loved the story... I think it should be put into the next WTN. I'll bet there are other stories out there that need to be told about the safety of these cars. Good luck ...0 -
I can't recall how many stories I've seen in the WTN over the years, about potentially fatal accidents in which Hudson drivers walked away unscathed -- or at least alive -- from their mashed and crumpled Step-Downs. (This includes convertibles, not just closed cars.) In virtually every case the drivers weren't even wearing seat belts. I think Hudson's claim that theirs was a safer car had a basis in reality (due to the unit construction, perimeter frame and general overbuilding of the body) -- it wasn't just advertising hype.0
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I too owe a great bit of gratatude and maybe my life to a 1949 Hudson club coupe.
As pay back, I now have a '50 Super 6 club coupe and have restored it as repayment to the Hudson my parents had back in @ 1952. They had a '49 club coupe and we were comeing back home (To Phoenix) from a California vacation, going up a mountain road, when a hay truck was coming down the road and had lost his brakes!
As he came around a currve that we were coming into, he was going way too fast and his out side wheels were off the ground and would have totally rolled over on us! As "luck" would have it, the cables broke on the load and the entire load of hay came rolling at and on us and pushed us within a few feet of @150' drop off.
We hit the hay pretty hard, the car tossed and bounced, but didn't roll over, but we were buried in the load of hay! My Mom had just handed my baby brother back to my Grandmother in the back seat with me, otherwise he would have been crushed against the dash as she hit it and broke her nose and and you can image the dash was rather hard on the face! Ofcourse, back then no one had seat belts (what were those?) so we all boiunced around a lot inside he car. The doors stayed shut and we remained inside!
It took the hay truck driver another 5 miles before he could stop and he was really scared when he got a ride back up to see what had happened!
We were banged up some and had hay all over us and inside our clothes, but we survived. Somehow, hay was even inside our suit cases when we opened them up later.
The State Hwy Trooper said that we were extreamlly lucky and that the Hudson probably saved our lives since it had a low center of gravity and was built like a tank!! He said the very same thing happened just the week before, at the same location and a family in a Ford had been killed when the hay hit there car and rolled it over the isde and down the hill. (Love those Hudsons!!!!!)
There's more to the story of how it took 3 different abulances to to get us to the hospital, the 1st one vapor locked before it got to us, the 2nd had a flat ( and no spare) after it picked up and then the third got to us just after a fella stopped and loaned his spare and put it on, and the same time the 1st caught up, so we had 3 ambulances with sirans going through a samll town just as churches were getting out - the local people thought that a major cartastophe had occured!
The Hudson was towed to a garage and after we got out of the hospital, my Dad taped and wired a head light on the car, pulled a fender away from a tire, and a few other make shift repairs and drove the Hudson another 400 miles home. The Hudson was worse for wear, but made it home and got some much needed repair. The body shop couldn't believe that the car had been hit by a load of hay!! There's metal in them there Hudsons!!!
That's my Hudson story, and I'm sticking to it!!!
Have a great Day and DRIVE THOSE HUDSONS!!!! - Don't let them sit!!
Tom C (Hudsonnut)0 -
These Hudson history stories are excellent I for one want to hear more. And yes they should go in the WTN. Maybe Sam will drop by this thread and lift these for a article "How Hudson saved my life"0
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My 1950 Hudson Pacemaker Brougham saved my hide when a drunk driver hit me with 2 friends in the car in his Giant new Ford F-350 Pickup. He came across a curbed median strip perpendicular to me and turned into my right side and shaved the whole right side of my Hudson open like a sardine can inches away from my buddy's head even ripping out the center pillar. We all walked out with only a few minor cuts and bruises. Any less of a car I wouldn't be here now. It was America's safest car then and it still is!.
My story was in the WTN way back. The judge let the drunk driver walk despite a prior conviction for DUI. And photo evidence.
Wreck PIC HERE: http://groups.msn.com/HudsonEssexTerraplaneBulletinBoard/replacement50pacemakersedan.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=2402
I've heard other stories of people who survived horrible accidents only because of their choice of transportation at the time. It was a last minute thing that I decided to drive my Hudson to my friends house.0 -
Funny how the judges let people like that get away with what amounts to nothing less than attempted murder. If we had a no tollerance policy for drunk drivers, many lives (and Hudsons) could be saved. Pictures of your car suggest that someone should be dead or severely injured. The old Hudson gave its life for you and your friends. It's a wonderful twist of fate that you drove the Hudson that night and were where you were. Just think if people in a lesser car were hit by the drunk driver.0
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I'm not sure that I can attribute my creation or existance to a Hudson surviving an incredible accident, However... My dad did drive Hudsons almost exclusively when he and my mother started dating. Had he driven a lesser brand, maybe she would have been less impressed and ditched him? Or maybe the lesser brand car would have broke down once too often?
Also, maybe if they would have driven a '46 Chevy on their wedding day instead of a '46 hudson, things wouldn't have worked out so well.
I'll never know, but since I knew what a Hudson was before I recognized any other car brand, it makes them important to me now. Steel dash and all, I feel very safe riding around in one.
Matt0 -
I took the initiative today and mailed out my application form and check to the HET Club, so I have officially become a Hudsonista. I would like to take the advice of some of you and submit this story regarding my Dad's '49 Hud to the WTN. I think it would make great reading for lots of folks who may have similar "my-Hudson-saved-our-lives" kind of stories. To whom should I mail this so it gets printed in the next issue?
Thanks,
Tom Markielewski "Martin200"0 -
Martin200 wrote:I took the initiative today and mailed out my application form and check to the HET Club, so I have officially become a Hudsonista. I would like to take the advice of some of you and submit this story regarding my Dad's '49 Hud to the WTN. I think it would make great reading for lots of folks who may have similar "my-Hudson-saved-our-lives" kind of stories. To whom should I mail this so it gets printed in the next issue?
Thanks,
Tom Markielewski "Martin200"
You've nearly shamed me into finally buying my membership! Welcome and Great Stories!0
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