2007 Hudson Census

Aaron D. IL
Aaron D. IL Senior Contributor
edited November -1 in HUDSON
OK guys I've been thinking about it and I've decided to open the information flood gates on a report I did during Christmas 2007 "The 2007 HET Census". It will give some of you a sense of the KNOWN state of surviving Hudson's, and for all you parts suppliers or would-be parts suppliers it'll give you some rough market research. The most commonly owned model year in the HET club is 1951. Surprising is the very low number of 1948's. (gotta be more out there)



What I did was painstakingly go through the entire 2005-2007 het roster line by line and make corrections as I went that were able to be accurately made from the information available. I put it on an excell spreadsheet and then put together some statistics on the surviving cars that according to the roster at that time the HET club knows about. I did not include personal information about who owns the cars in question. No names or phone numbers or Emails. Just locations of the cars because I was going to use that info to put dots on a map so we could get a visual idea of the geographic distribution of Hudson's around the world. That part of it I didn't get to. I've been thinking about whether or not to painstakingly do it again with the newest roster and then compare those numbers. I have not as yet done anything of the sort. Some of my own conclusions are at the end of the doc so take those for what they're worth whether you agree with tthem or not. The numbers paint a picture of what's happening as any sociologist will tell you.



Why? because of my own curiousity about surviving Hudson's and also because I thought with our 100 year anniversary coming up some solid numbers would help the HET club directors make better decisions in aiding our preservation efforts for the next 50 years. If the club were to pay a consultant to aid our organisation they would've done nothing less. I did it for free.



So there's 2 files one a .doc and one excel spreadsheet. the relavant numbers on the spreadsheet are under the tab "original adjusted" because I had to correct a mistake I made. If you open the files and then close them and either one asks you to "save changes" say "NO" I don't know why it does that, but it does.



You can get your copies of this little pet project free IF you are an HET member. I must be able to verify that in the roster. Just Email me at either



(drop the HET) HETad19789@hotmail.com or if that doesn't get through HEThudnut19@gmail.com and I will give you the report.... the excel data ...or both if requested.



To our next 100 years guys!!

Comments

  • onerare39
    onerare39 Expert Adviser, Member
    Aaron,

    Thanks for the hard work!

    Great information.



    Be sure to request a copy from Aaron



    John
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    Very interesting stats. Thanks Aaron!
  • RL Chilton
    RL Chilton Administrator, Member
    Aaron-

    Sent you an e-mail. I remember some of your findings when this came up in the past. Looking forward to perusing your info.

    If you plan on doing it again with the new Roster and need any assistance, don't hesitate to ask. I've often gone through it and counted a specific type of car, like stepdown convertibles, or 52 Hornets, or '42's in general, that sort of thing. It's time-consuming doing it that way. Nice thing about the spreadsheet, is you can put filters, or more directly, a pivot-table in and have the 'puter process whatever information you'd want to pull out of it.
  • hudsontech
    hudsontech Senior Contributor
    If the roster is available on CD (or DVD) and is searchable, then a count could be a lot faster. Type in what you are looking for, then the computer will find each instance, ie 1952 Hornet Convertible - it will stop at each instance of that search parameter.



    Just a thought.



    I've sent an email for copies myself. Having done a bit of digging into the Hudson genre I appreciate the effort you have put into this project, Aaron.



    Hudsonly,

    Alex Burr

    Memphis, TN
  • Aaron D. IL
    Aaron D. IL Senior Contributor
    Thanks for the positive feedback thus far. Russell I may very well take you up on the offer of assistence if I do it again and compare the numbers to this report. Doing so may show some trends wouldn't that be neat.



    Part of the reason I decided to tediously enter it all manually is because of the mistakes and typos in the roster. I'm not saying they did a bad job of making the roster I'm not saying that, it is afterall a daunting task and I think they deserve praise for it. But we all know that you can't own a (for example) 1948 Hornet because Hudson didn't make one That kind of stuff could be corrected before it is entered into the Roster by having a database that doesn't allow you to enter erroneous info. You could possibly have a '48 Hudson with a Hornet engine in it but that doesn't make it NOT a '48 Hudson and the serial number would corrctly identify what it is regardless of what's under the hood. That's just a lot of little stuff like that I corrected as I entered it into a spreadsheet to make it more accurate because I wanted the numbers to reflect the state of surviving HET cars more accurately.

    I do have time on my hands to do it again just as so many people I'm looking for work and getting no resume responses so I'm kicking around the idea of running that gauntlet again.

    At any rate I hope it's at least educational for those who choose to take a look at it and I thank you again for the feedback.
  • RL Chilton
    RL Chilton Administrator, Member
    That's an awesome body of work, Aaron. Thanks for sending me the spreadsheet.

    I incorrectly stated in a previous post, 4.5 million cars. Looks to me that that number is vastly incorrect. I know I have read that figure somewhere in the past, and it is obviously wrong, so I apologize for that.

    I loved your summations on the second spreadsheet. One of the glaring points that stuck with me right away is the lack of reporting on club member's parts and the # of potential HET autos that are out there that belong to non-club members. Both of these categories are extra-difficult to come up with accurate data.

    For example, on the first point, Hostetler is listed in the Roster, but no cars are recorded under his name. Obviously, there's 50 cars in the museum and 3-6(?)--(heard different #'s here) waiting on restoration. Additionally, I know of several large-lot owners that do not list all of their HET products in the Roster. Two examples off of the top of my head, one gentleman lists 20 or so cars in the Roster, but in reality owns over 200. Another is a Hudson picking yard in NY that has 75 parts cars (all Hudson), which is not listed in the Roster.

    On the 2nd point, information about Hudsons owned by non-club members is virtually impossible to ascertain. From my dealings over the last 5 years, (which is not very long, I know), but I do have a vast networking that I do with other Hudson owners, club members and otherwise. From my informal data gathering, it is my best guess, or hypothesis that there are between 45-50% more Hudsons than out there than what is in the Roster, and I oftentimes tend to think that my figure is somewhat VERY conservative. This bit of trivia put with your data would put the grand total around 8,000 known survivors. I am still of the belief that there are closer to 10,000. My guess is as good as anyone's, I suppose, but it does take into account some of the leading Hudson mind's opinions, as well as my own.

    Great stuff, Aaron!! Thank you!
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    For instance, I've got 2...and I'm not a HET member. 49 super six Brougham, and a 49 super 8 sedan.



    I'm sure there are lots of us out there.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    Aaron:

    Thanks for gathering and posting this info. I tried to leaf thru the roster a couple of years ago to check one of my models, I can imagine what you have done(I think). I would appreciate the offer of a copy of your spreadsheet and any other info you offer. I am attempting to market the dual outlet exhaust manifold adapter and have no idea of the potential. Email address leave off the het hetpbebop@gmail.com Thanks, Bob
  • lsfirth
    lsfirth Expert Adviser
    hudsoncustom wrote:
    For instance, I've got 2...and I'm not a HET member. 49 super six Brougham, and a 49 super 8 sedan.



    I'm sure there are lots of us out there.



    me too...i also have a '49 super6 brougham that I rescued from a field in Montana that was last licensed in 1956. and I'm not a HET member either....yet :-)



    Lee
  • hudsontech
    hudsontech Senior Contributor
    Awesome piece of work, Aaron - interesting that the comments I sent you in an email this morning are reflected in several posts here.



    As Russell said, I'd be willing to help out in the future. Just drop me an email.



    Maybe what we need is local HET members who know of non-HET owners in their area to go out and get a list of cars - not sure if anybody would be willing to go out and list 200 or so, like the fellow mentioned in a post on here. But if something like that could be organized, it would probably be eye-opening.



    I'm reminded of something John Clement once said - "Organizing HET people to do something is like trying to herd cats!!!"



    Again, Aaron, (and publically - sp??) thank you for the work you've done. It is truly a labor of love and if used correctly will be of immense value to the club.



    Hudsonly,

    Alex Burr

    Memphis, TN
  • onerare39
    onerare39 Expert Adviser, Member
    I'll bet Charlotte Sargent has the most current roster information in Excel format already. That would be a great starting point, then edit and sort as needed. I don't know if the club has a policy about releasing this information though. charlottesargent@cox.net



    John
  • Aaron D. IL
    Aaron D. IL Senior Contributor
    edited November 2013
    Yes, I also asked about acquiring the information gathered to make the roster quite some time ago (denied) - Seems inconsistent that the roster in book format is freely disseminated, but the information in a computer (application) file format is not...



    I don't know if this has been done or thought of, but it might be a good idea for the "HET Club Registry" persons to get a copy of these files (in particular the Excel spreadsheet) and do a comparison with what they have on record (?)...



    Also: The Excel spreadsheet had my heart racing for a few minutes - saw a "92" Hudson Pickup listed in Altoona, IA. Thought for a few minutes that it might be that long sought after Pacemaker prototype (only a photo left to prove that it actually existed). Looked it up in the 2008-2010 Roster - still listed as a "92", however reading the name, I know this truck - it is actually a 98 series (Big Boy)...



    Great info! Spent a couple of hours fiddling with the spreadsheet... :rolleyes: :p:)



    Yeah that spreadsheet is kinda fun to play with. I usually have done so when we get posts on this forum like "How rare ar 1939 Convertibles???" LOL



    On the issue of the membership chair's data I did get special permission to use it for my study and was released to me without personally I dentifying info of members and on the condition that I would not do so. I included some numbers off that sheet uncorrected on the .doc file. The problem was the same as the roster though...a lot of incorrect info on cars and the layout was not such that I could extract the info I wanted as easily. So I did it all manually on my own layout but used those numbers for a little comparison.



    On the issue of cars outside the club. The only technological way I could think to account for them is to put up an online database. The fields could be made such that someone registering their car (even if they're not in HET) would prevent inaccurate information from being entered. (i.e. no 1947 Hornets). Maybe a field to enter if they're in HET or not and then we might get some idea of cars outside the club. This still would not count for owners that are not online but it might give us enough cars for a statistically significant sample which would allow one to make at least an educated guess. Heck most numbers now our "experts" come up with are educated guesses anyways. None of us really know the exact number of cars out there. Just that it's probably lower than us Hudnuts would like it to be. LOL



    It would also be nice to have a list where off all the serial numbers and you could enter in one and see that cars status and it might look something like this:



    4A1001 crushed

    4A1002 unkown

    4A1003 being restored

    4A1004 restored

    4A1005 original

    4A1006 crushed



    I know that looks boring...but if you wanted to know it would be kinda cool. esp if someone had sequential serial numbers to someone else's car in the club. In the course of my study I couldn't find any that came off the assembly line together.
  • Aaron D. IL
    Aaron D. IL Senior Contributor
    Maybe if labeled and entered as MOD (modified) it would open up the restrictions on the entry fields of a database. That way accounting for non-factory or custom bodied cars. I dunno there has to be some logical way to do it so that no surviving Hudson even if modified is left out of the count. If serial numbers were entered and you entered on that already exists a database could keep it from being re-entered, but maybe not keep certain info from being changed about it if for example it no longer sports a Hudson engine.
  • Sarah Young
    Sarah Young Senior Contributor
    One nice thing about having my website, it's given non-club members the opportunity to contact me and share pictures and information on their Jets which I've been able to pass on for the Jet roster. I always respond with information on the club and contact info for the local chapter.
  • Browniepetersen
    Browniepetersen Senior Contributor
    lsfirth wrote:
    me too...i also have a '49 super6 brougham that I rescued from a field in Montana that was last licensed in 1956. and I'm not a HET member either....yet :-)



    Lee



    Lee and others,

    The Hudson National will be in Washington (short drive for you Lee) this summer (first of August). Member or not, hope to see you there. Always like making new friends and seeing who I am talking with on this Forum.....
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