"Grapes of Wrath" Hudson Unearthed?

Jon B

An article in the Feb. 12 issue of Old Cars Weekly tells of Mr. Gary Wales of California, who has purchased what he believes to be the original movie car used in the 1940 movie "Grapes of Wrath" -- a 1926 Hudson. [Here's a link: http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:KpFA9opEnMMJ:www.collect.com/newsarticle.aspx%3Fid%3D28152+grapes+of+wrath+movie-car&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us ] The article is a bit hard to understand, though.



Mr. Wales says he bought the car, then learned of its past through the former owner. (The car evidently had several owners after it was used in the movie.) The body seemed "too far gone to restore" so Wales decided to rebuild the car as a racer.



Later in the article he says that, as he removed the body, he found it was "a rare and original, aluminum-bodied factory demonstrator car". (Wouldn't this have been a Biddle & Smart aluminum body then? Rare, but certainly no "factory demonstrator".)



Then he goes on to say that the "car is in absolutely wonderful condition"; "We will fit an aluminum body." Which implies that he's back to restoration, not "race-ization". It seems a bit strange that he'd go to the trouble of creating a replica of a B&S body, though, when you can still buy examples of the "real thing" at a reasonable cost. (A member of our local chapter just did that, last summer, purchasing a '26 B & S 4-door, in very decent condition, at an estate auction.)



The whole thing left me scratching my head. Anyone who's seen the movie realizes that the whole rear of the body was removed for the movie; the Joad family turned the vehicle into a truck and piled it high with their earthly goods. So....how did the car get back the rear part of its body after the movie? Indeed, why would 20th Century Fox even hang onto a 14-year-old derelict car, used in a movie that hadn't yet proven itself the classic that this one turned out to be? (Actually, I'm told that two cars were used in the filming, one of them using a Ford V8 engine.)



The big question would be: if someone bought such a famous movie car, why would they want to "restore" it to factory condition by dropping a salvaged rear-half of the body on the frame? Wouldn't the true value and fame of this "survivor" be in the extreme makeover done by the movie studio, for a movie that has been seen by millions of people and garnered numerous accolades over the last 70 years? Why obliterate what made the car famous? Puzzling, to say the least.



I don't mean to be skeptical, and I don't dispute what the car's new owner says. I hope that this indeed does turn out to be the actual movie car. It's just that the article raised more questions in my mind, than it answered!

rambos_ride

Hmmm... what a shame - it's nice to save a Hudson, but I agree, it should be recreated as in the movie.

Here's a good link to Ed 'Big Daddy' Roths Orbitron which was found oustide a Mexican sex shop and faithfully restored - thus preserving it's unique heritage.



http://ratfink.org/orbitron/story.html

Browniepetersen

Thanks, you have just explained why I am building my 39 convertible back to the condition that it was in when it became labeled as a "Martz custom." And you explained it better than I ever have....:)

hudsontech

In this case I think what we have here is a "Sam Spade" moment - as he said in The Maltese Falcon - "it's the stuff dreams are built on, kid!!"



Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

HudsonTech

Memphis, TN

[Deleted User]

As many of those cars as were around in 1940 I doubt if the studios would have removed the aluminum body to put a truck bodied chop job on the chassis. It's more likely they would have bought a car already converted to a truck, they weren't that rare, and used it in the movie. This story doesn't sound right to me. It might have been used in the movies but I don't think it was the Joad truck.



Harry

Richard E.

It very well might have been an aluminum body supplied by Murphy, the custom coach builder in Pasadena, CA. He had a big movie clientle and I believe that he was in business until 1931??

4Hud

Definitely nothing in the article to substantiate the claim to be a famous movie car, just hearsay. It would be cool to see the real one though.

[Deleted User]

Mr. Wales contacted me tonight and is seeking a vacuum tank and horn mechanism for steering wheel. Anybody got a handle on sources or swaps for these parts?



J Cronk

805-987-8187 (H)

[Deleted User]

The article was just in a recently printed Old Cars Weekly.