Frank Springs new avatar

Many of you great Hudson people know that I went to work for the company in 1931 as the company's first stylist. One of my last projects was the design of the Jet. The stories are true, that I was not happy with the final design selection.

To appease me Hudson executives allowed me to create the Italia and it's big brother the Hornet Italia.



But I still had in mind to make a lower profile Jet. So, we called Murray Body (the company that was building the bodies) and asked them to send over the stampings of an unassembled Jet . From those pieces we built a prototype convertible from scratch. We started by lowering the windshield 2 inches, and lowered the rear floor pan 2 inches so it would still be possible to access the back seat under the lower roof profile.



While the car sat in engineering, we also used it as a styling mule for the stainless adorned Jet Liner. We used it to style the various interior and exterior Jet Liner changes.



At merger time my wife, Clara, arranged for me to get the Hornet Italia prototype. A friend of mine, Victor Ratz, got the Italia prototype, and Virgil Boyd got the convertible prototype. You may remember Virgil as he became president of Chrysler Corporation in the mid 60's.



I am pleased to see that the Convertible has survived, and is being restored. It never had a chance to make a debut at the Detroit auto show, 55 years later it will be at the greatest Hudson show ever in Pontiac. If you plan to drool, bring a polishing cloth.



Happy Thanksgiving, Frank Spring

walt norem wrote:

Ed, maybe you could offset your rebuild costs by selling polishing clothes to those of us who show up without them! I will need more than one!:D

Walt, thats an idea for the club store!