Pickups...UTED!!!

[Deleted User]

G'day all



WOW....



Within the last week I have never seen so many Hudson pickups in my life. There must have been at least a half a dozen of them on ebay!!! Is this normal for the USA where that utes or pickups have a far better survival rate compared to passenger cars? What I mean by that is commercial vehicles provide income for the business there for remain is service for a longer period of time compared to normal company cars or even family cars.



Here in Australia many owners would continue to drive their utes until the vehicle is virtually 30 years old and dead. We have many of these utes on the road and are still very popular. My brother recently purchased a 1976 Holden ute that only has 190,000 kilometres and it will be used to deliver radiators and or Hudson parts. It looks like it only has 50,000 ks on it. This new 1976 Holden ute has replaced TWO 1990 Nissan 4cyl utes that keep on breaking down.

Unknown

Holden's Got to be a LOT better vehicle than ANY crapsen!

Jon B

Careful, don't confuse 'ute' with 'pickup'. In my opinion your Aussie utes were really unique and beautiful (along with the 'sloper' coaches). I like the Hudson factory pickups, of course, but the true 'utes' were really an outstanding design.



As to the reason we seem to have so many survivors over here in the States, I think most people -- even the average non-gearhead -- always realized that Hudson pickups were a little rare. So when someone's Hudson pickup finally got to the end of its normal life, it wasn't unusual to say, 'hey, let's just retire that to the 'back 40' (or the barn), instead of junk it. It might be worth some money someday'.



How else to explain the unusually-high survival rate?

SamJ

Jon B wrote:

How else to explain the unusually-high survival rate?

It IS unusual that 130% of the number manufactured survived. Seriously, though, a lot of the 46/47's I know well were once dealer shop trucks. After '47, dealers kept using them, since Hudson no longer made trucks. Then, AMC didn't make trucks. Some dealers were loath to use, say, a Ford as a shop truck, so the Hudson pickups stayed in service and were well maintained. :cool:

[Deleted User]

Regarding a 46/7 pick-up in Australia and how rare it could be. About 6 years ago I sold a restored 46 Hudson Sedan drivetrain 122" to a club member with a complete front clip. The Aussie built sedan body was not required by this chap as he imported a pick-up cab from the USA. The pick-up body was restored, painted then fitted to the chassis. The front clip was also painted. This chap then went through a divorce and the 46 was left outside unfinished. The paint later blistered all over when he decided to put the 46 into dry storage. Today the car remains in the same spot unfinished.

The chap has (was) been a close friend of our family for over 40 years and has wrecked many Hudson's (stepdowns) over the years. He still has nothing to show for mind you. He got into dept and owed a few thousand $$$ to my twin brothers business. At least we had much of his parts in our care and have sold bits and pieces over the last three years and got a small percentage of that money back.....and we know where the only Hudson pick-up in Australia is stored....hey bro, whats your plans for this weekend....