HMN's '32 Essex-Terraplane Article

StillOutThere
StillOutThere Expert Adviser
edited November -1 in HUDSON
Hemmings.com's article regarding the '32 Essex-Terraplane is found at:
http://www.hemmings.com/hmn/stories/2012/03/01/hmn_feature1.html

It repeats the absolute inaccuracy of auto writer Bill Vance who wrote many years ago in Canada's Auto.CA site that the floor pan is WELDED to the frame to provide early unit construction. WRONG!

The HMN article states:
"This was only one aspect of a redesigned frame that eliminated some heavy central I-beam cross members in favor of a new floor pan that was welded directly to the frame's side rails in 20 locations."

This is absolutely wrong. It would be ridiculously impractical to try to stick weld a painted body floor pan to a painted car frame on a moving assembly line where the chassis already had exhaust system and brake cables and fuel line already running through it.

The '32 Essex-Terraplane most certainly had a newly engineered frame with a generous X-member with belled, oval stamped strengthening holes, all saving considerable weight over previous designs. This design was adopted by Hudson cars as well for 1934. However the floor pan was BOLTED to the frame at some 20 positions and not welded.

One of my pet-peeves is when automotive writers do inadequate research and find incorrect, undocumented, non-factory statements and then regurgitate them in their own writing perpetuating inaccuracies and making a sham of, in this case, Hudson engineering history. And that is what Matthew Litwin has done on Hemmings.com and gets paid for doing so.

Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown
    That very article, and another that appeared in HCC, really threw me a curve. I have been planing to do a "frame up" restoration on my '33, and this really had me scratching my head! I talked to another '33 owner who removed his body from the frame, and never heard of such a thing. Thanks for setting the record straight!
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    In Don Butlers book, The History of Hudson, page 145 states "A pressed steel panel on top of the chassis served as the body floor pan,and unified body/chassis construction was claimed"
    Clear as mud!
  • StillOutThere
    StillOutThere Expert Adviser
    5433HET wrote:
    In Don Butlers book, The History of Hudson, page 145 states "A pressed steel panel on top of the chassis served as the body floor pan,and unified body/chassis construction was claimed"
    Clear as mud!

    Hudson did specifically name the '32 Essex Terraplane many-bolted body to frame "Unit Construction". They weren't the first to do that in the auto industry but with the X-member frame, it was an amazingly rigid platform for its day. And without doubt the ET use in '32 and big Hudson application in '34 and all later cars were the forerunners of the thinking that developed into Stepdown "Mono-Bilt" construction as the principles were carried out to the max.
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