1935 RHD Hudson in the UK ID ?

Unknown
Unknown
edited November -1 in HUDSON
Howdy,




I am wondering if anybody might be able to identify the Hudson model seen in these photographs



that I took in Bristol (UK)



on an Independence Day Rally in July.

Relevant answers maybe credited and used in a forthcoming blog.

Thanking you in anticipation of your answers.

Ralph Colmar aka Art Tidesco
Bristol, UK

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«1

Comments

  • Jon B
    Jon B Administrator
    It's a 1935 Terraplane (made by Hudson).

    A Hudson would have the same body but the grille (and a lot of other things) would be different. Here is a 1935 Hudson (also in England): http://www.historics.co.uk/previous-auctions/3rd-march-2011/1935-hudson-sedan.aspx
  • Terraplane33
    Terraplane33 Expert Adviser
    This could be a 1935 Hudson Big Six Saloon, maroon colour, VIN533370, sold by auction for only 1800 GBP
    I do not have any paranormal abilities, I found the information by means of the licence plate. Maybe this plate has moved to another car (don't know how that works in UK)

    as there another one with the same licence plate but different colour :

    [attachment:1]C:\fakepath\1935 Hudson Big Six_001.jpg[/attachment]

    The best is to leave it up to the specialists !
  • Jon B
    Jon B Administrator
    The plate stays with the car in the UK, I'm pretty sure. That appears to be the same Terraplane but with a different paint job. It's identified as a "Hudson" but it's a Terraplane. England had an assembly line in the London suburbs, maybe they produced Terraplanes and badged them "Hudsons!".
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Thanks Jon B and TP33.

    As a rule license plates rarely move from one vehicle to another in the UK, that is not to say it never happens, but it is the exception rather than the rule.

    For reference from the HPI website when entering a UK license plate number it is possible to determine a few details like the make and engine size and if your lucky age and model.

    Thanks again for your help. I'll post a link here when the blog gets posted in a couple of weeks time.

    Cheers

    Ralph aka Art T
  • hudsontech
    hudsontech Senior Contributor
    Uh, with the VIN number (533370) that's a 1935 Hudson, Model 53.


    Hudsonly,
    Alex Burr
    Memphis, TN
  • Geoff
    Geoff Senior Contributor
    Alex is right, it is a 1935 Hudson 6. Essentially a Terraplane, but fitted out a little more luxuriously. My guess is someone is shuffling the plates between two cars to save on registration costs!
  • Terraplane33
    Terraplane33 Expert Adviser
    edited November 2011
    this is the link where I got the VIN from using the licence plate, unfortunately, there is no picture of the car.

    http://www.classic-auctions.com/Auctions/21-02-2004-StoneleighPark-1092/1935HudsonBigSixSaloon-13420.aspx
  • Old Fogey UK
    Old Fogey UK Expert Adviser
    Heck ! I try to keep tabs on all the 34 and 35 cars in the UK but this is a new one on me !
    I don't think it's the burgundy car that sold really cheaply at auction (that was a 35 Hudson Six) because the last I saw of that one a few months back it was red - and for sale at £7500.
    I wonder why someone has put a divider down the windshield a la 1933 DeSoto ?
  • Jon B
    Jon B Administrator
    Okay, I have to admit I'm wrong. It apparently IS a Hudson Six. I did not realize until now that the Hudson Six and Terraplane shared the same grille in 1935. The Hudson Eights had a different grille (with vertical accents). You learn something new every day when you tune into this forum and by the time I'm in my late 90's I should be pretty knowledgeable!
    310_29493187.jpg

    1935 Hudson Six (model 53?) courtesy of John Soneff's website
  • Old Fogey UK
    Old Fogey UK Expert Adviser
    I didn't look at the licence plate on the red car pic above - I guess it is the same car! Mea Culpa....
    I still don't like the "custom" windshield divider and the bumpers look a bit wrong too.
    The Hudson Six was sold in the US in 1935 as well as the UK.
    All the British-built 34 and 35 Hudsons and Terraplanes were gussied up for the UK market with leather upholstery, sidemounts and Lucas 12 volt electrics.
  • Old Fogey UK
    Old Fogey UK Expert Adviser
    If it is the red car, it was ratty when it was red.
  • Browniepetersen
    Browniepetersen Senior Contributor
    I notice that the red one does not have the window divider? I am lining up with the group that says they are different cars.
  • Old Fogey UK
    Old Fogey UK Expert Adviser
    Browniepetersen wrote:
    I notice that the red one does not have the window divider? I am lining up with the group that says they are different cars.

    Not necessarily, people can do some weird things when "restoring" a car. Maybe the latest owner really wanted a 1933 DeSoto ! :lol:
    Also the registration plate on the red car is the same as on the black car. In England, it is highly unlikely that the plate would have been swapped from one '35 Hudson to another due to the complex licensing plate/vehicle registration system we have here. Hence, I think they're one and the same car but now repainted - it was in need of new paint last time I saw it.
    What I can say is that the black car isn't the same black car Jon Battle linked to (see his posting above).
    That one was actually a US built left hand drive 1935 Hudson Eight Club Sedan (very rare ?) and it was auctioned over here back in the Spring after being used as a prop in the recent Captain America movie. From memory, I think it sold for around the 5000 Pounds mark.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Thanks again to everyone who has contributed to ID'ing this model just to confirm is a 'Model 53' the same / similar to the 'Big Six' one perhaps an internal Hudson code the other the name under which the model was marketed ?

    Also does anyone have any years of manufacture or production numbers for the 53/Big Six ?

    Relevant answers may be credited and used in a forth coming blog.

    Thanking you again in anticipation of your answers.
  • hudsontech
    hudsontech Senior Contributor
    edited November 2011
    Art Tidesco wrote:
    Thanks again to everyone who has contributed to ID'ing this model just to confirm is a 'Model 53' the same / similar to the 'Big Six' one perhaps an internal Hudson code the other the name under which the model was marketed ?

    Also does anyone have any years of manufacture or production numbers for the 53/Big Six ?

    At this point in time there are no known manufacture or production figures for pre-1946 cars. It took me nearly 35 years of digging to come up with 1946-1957 production figures.

    The only figures that are available for all years are shipping figures. The 1935 Hudson shows a total of 29,476 cars shipped. That would be from the Detroit factory. Again, it is not known, to the best of my knowledge, if the shipping figures included knock-down's going overseas, but assume it would.

    Somewhere somebody probably has a bulletin in their literature collection giving us production figures - but so far that hasn't surfaced either. Maybe someday it will - I certainly would like to add such info to my research data, but I don't hold out much hope.

    Hudsonly,
    Alex Burr
    Memphis, TN
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Thanks Alex,

    So I'm guessing the definitive story of Hudson has not yet been written ?
  • Old Fogey UK
    Old Fogey UK Expert Adviser
    edited November 2011
    The car in the pic you posted, Art, was made in 1935 only. Technically speaking, I think Hudson marketed it as a Suburban Sedan due to the built out trunk ("boot" to us English).
    However, I've seen an ad in a copy of Autocar from 1936 that shows that one London Hudson dealer was still selling new old stock '35 Hudsons and Terraplanes well into the Spring of 1936 - at substantially discounted prices compared with the new 1936 models.
  • hudsontech
    hudsontech Senior Contributor
    Art Tidesco wrote:
    Thanks Alex,

    So I'm guessing the definitive story of Hudson has not yet been written ?

    That's one way of putting it. So many records from the Hudson Company were simply tossed into the nearest landfill. However, that said much was saved by John Conde. I'm not sure but I think a lot of the stuff he saved, along with other material, may be found in Chrysler Corporation files or the Detroit Public Library collection.

    There are other library collections out there, but someone has to take the time and effort to dig it all out and the problem there is time and money. For example I'd love to go play in the Detroit library - I have the time, but do not have the money that it would take to sustain a lengthy visit. HET club historian Dave Kava has been thru the collection, but didn't really have the time to dig it all out.

    I keep plugging my effort to build an online library for the club and am slowly doing so with the help of Gregg Maroney and his mate Kathy Burrington. I know there are people in the club who have material, but getting them to loan it to me to copy is an uphill battle. The old "I'll drop Alex a note sometime" syndrome.

    Hudsonly,
    Alex Burr
    Memphis, TN
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I hear where you are coming from Alex :-)

    I'm trying to gather material on motor racing in Zambia from 1945 to 1995, the material is all out there but pulling it all together ! Uh ! Requires much patience :-)
  • PaulButler
    PaulButler Administrator
    edited November 2011
    YJ comes up as being a Dundee registration plate and in that form (e.g. YJ nnnn) was used between June 1932 and January 1948 and a quick search found this :

    YJ 2474 R. D. Low, Westleigh, Kevill Street. 21.0 HP Hudson Saloon Blue. 7th May 1935
  • Old Fogey UK
    Old Fogey UK Expert Adviser
    Paul Butler wrote:
    YJ comes up as being a Dundee registration plate and in that form (e.g. YJ nnnn) was used between June 1932 and January 1948 and a quick search found this :

    YJ 2474 R. D. Low, Westleigh, Kevill Street. 21.0 HP Hudson Saloon Blue. 7th May 1935

    How did you manage to find that out, please ? Can you point me to the appropriate website ?
  • PaulButler
    PaulButler Administrator
    I put the registration number into google ; selected the "UK pages only" option and about third in the list appeared this:

    www.fdca.org.uk/YJReg%202001to3000.pdf which is "Dundee Vehicle Registrations 1932 - 1947" for the index marks YJ2001 - YJ3000 as part of the Friends of Dundee City Archives

    The transport bit is here:

    http://www.fdca.org.uk/FDCATransport1.html

    Interesting reading ; I hope to find more like it.

    The document also has these in it:

    YJ 2314 Jamie H. Robb, 38 North Street, Dundee. 28.8 HP Hudson Saloon Havest Gold. 25th Mar 1935

    YJ 2427 James Robb, 12 Park Road, Dundee. 28.8 HP Hudson Saloon Steel Dust. 25th April 1935

    YJ 2664 Peter Dunn, 9 Lamerton Terrace, Dundee. 21.6 HP Hudson Saloon Sun Tan. 1st July 1935
  • Old Fogey UK
    Old Fogey UK Expert Adviser
    edited November 2011
    Did you have to pay a fee for the information ?
    I've tried to get information on old cars I've previously owned from sites like this and have always come up against a pay wall.
    It would be interesting to know who the dealer was who sold the cars you mention.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Amazing find Paul thank you.

    Out of curiosity I had a look on Google Maps for the address but drew a blank. Too bad they did not have post codes on those days.
  • PaulButler
    PaulButler Administrator
    I know what you mean ; £25 seems to be the norm however not for these and for that we need to thank The Friends of Dundee Archives.

    I've been looking at what else they have on their in terms of transport and it makes great reading.

    One of the best informational web sites I've seen.
  • PaulButler
    PaulButler Administrator
    It might be worth dropping the web site a mail and see what else they may have.

    They may well be able to pinpoint the address for you ; it's possible of course that it no longer exists.

    The actual web site is , as I said before, one of the most interesting one I've found
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I did drop Dundee council a line and they came back with a little more information turns out Mr RD Low first names Robert Duncan actually lived on Neville Street in the Downfield District of Dundee which still exists.

    Turns out that he was a journalist !

    Though Wiki reveals that he was something all together more interesting it turns out Robert Duncan Low worked for DC Thompson & Co and co created the Scottish vernacular comic strips Oor Wullie and The Broons with illustrator Dudley D. Watkins.

    Robert was responsible for launching the story papers Adventure (1921) The Rover (1922) The Wizzard (1923) The Skipper (1930) and The Hotspur (1933).

    In 1937 he became managing editor and over saw the launch of The Dandy and the following year the Beano for which with artist Ken Reid he created Roger the Dodger in 1953 when he oversaw the launch of The Topper.

    I'm absolutely gobsmacked that such a vehicle could have belonged to some one who played such a significant role in the lives of so many children in the UK.
  • PaulButler
    PaulButler Administrator
    Ralph how marvellous is this and how much it adds to the history of this car!

    It is indeed nice to know that this car belonged to someone who was involved in publications that brightened up my childhood years :-)
  • PaulButler
    PaulButler Administrator
    Old Fogey UK wrote:
    Did you have to pay a fee for the information ?
    I've tried to get information on old cars I've previously owned from sites like this and have always come up against a pay wall.
    It would be interesting to know who the dealer was who sold the cars you mention.

    We need to ask Sheldon (37CTS) if he has any dealers listed in Dundee in his book at all. He told me he had 10 in the UK so you never know
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I know what you mean knowing the owner of this car has made an impact on many of our lives at such a young age is almost incomprehensible.

    I wonder if that is why the car was painted maroon in an earlier incarnation ? Would maroon have been a standard colour ?

    Any info on who the dealer, in Dundee or there abouts, that supplied the car might have been would be more than welcome B)
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