The Car that Started it All: A Journey Back to Simpler Times with Doc Hudson and the 1951 Hudson Four-Door

I still remember the excitement I felt when I first put this car on the road. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Kids would stop in their tracks, eyes wide with wonder, and ask if it was the car from the movie "Doc Hudson." And I'd smile, feeling like a kid again myself, as I drove off into the sunset. That movie came out and suddenly, classic cars were cool. People who might have otherwise driven a Pontiac or a Chevy would stop and stare, mesmerized by the sleek lines and powerful V8 engine of this 1951 Hudson Four-Door.

As I grew older, my appreciation for this car only deepened. It's not just a vehicle; it's a piece of history, a window into a bygone era when cars were built to last and drivers took pride in their workmanship. I've had the chance to drive many classic cars over the years, but there's something special about getting behind the wheel of this Hudson. Maybe it's the way it purrs along, its V8 engine humming smoothly as I shift gears. Or maybe it's the way it handles on the road, its suspension supple and responsive even at high speeds.

But what really sets this car apart is its nostalgic appeal. When I first got my hands on this Hudson, I knew I was in for a treat. Every time I drove it, I felt like I was taking a trip back to a simpler time – one where cars were built by craftsmen, not assembly lines; where drivers took pride in their work and the roads were safe and wide. And as I cruised down the highway, I couldn't help but think of all the people who drove similar cars back in the day: the old-timers who worked on cars for a living, the young folks who just wanted to cruise with friends, and the families who took road trips across the country.

Nowadays, cars like this are harder to find than ever. With the rise of foreign imports and the decline of American manufacturing, it's become increasingly rare to see a car like this on the road. But I'm glad that I've had the chance to experience it for myself. And if you're new to the world of classic cars, I highly recommend taking a closer look at this Hudson. Not only is it a beautiful piece of machinery, but it's also a window into a fascinating era of American history.

One of the things that impresses me most about this car is its reliability. I've taken it on long road trips, and it's never given me any trouble – unlike some of my other classic cars, which seem to break down at the worst possible moment. Maybe it's because Hudson was a major manufacturer in its heyday, with over 350 automobile manufacturers in America back then. Whatever the reason, this car seems to be bulletproof.

Of course, one of the best things about driving an old car is the sense of community that comes with it. Every time I take this Hudson out for a spin, I'm greeted by fellow classic car enthusiasts who appreciate its beauty and reliability. We swap stories, share advice, and marvel at each other's vehicles – all in the name of preserving our shared love of cars.

As I look over the hood of my Hudson, I can see the familiar lines of the American Motors Corporation (AMC) engine that powers it. It's a marvel of engineering, with its overhead valves, hydraulic lifters, and dual exhaust system. And when I shift gears, I feel the satisfying crunch of the transmission as it engages the overdrive – a feature that was all but lost in modern cars.

But what really sets this car apart is its nostalgic appeal. When I first got my hands on this Hudson, I knew I was in for a treat. Every time I drove it, I felt like I was taking a trip back to a simpler time – one where cars were built by craftsmen, not assembly lines; where drivers took pride in their work and the roads were safe and wide. And as I cruised down the highway, I couldn't help but think of all the people who drove similar cars back in the day: the old-timers who worked on cars for a living, the young folks who just wanted to cruise with friends, and the families who took road trips across the country.

One of my favorite things about this car is its easy-to-work-on nature. When I first got it, I was new to classic cars, but even back then, I knew that this Hudson would be a breeze to keep running. The engine is simple enough to work on with basic tools, and the suspension is so responsive that you can easily diagnose any problems. And as I've gotten older, I've found myself appreciating this car's straightforward design all the more – there are no complicated electronics or computerized systems to confuse me.

Of course, one of the best things about driving an old car is the sense of freedom it gives you. When I'm behind the wheel of my Hudson, I feel like I can go anywhere, do anything – as long as the road is clear and the weather's nice. And when I cruise down the highway with the wind in my hair (or rather, the air conditioning on), I feel a sense of joy that I never thought possible.

As I look back on my years of driving this Hudson, I'm filled with gratitude for all the experiences it's given me. From road trips across the country to family outings and casual cruises around town, this car has been there for me through thick and thin – always reliable, always a pleasure to drive. And as I continue to drive it into the sunset, I know that I'll always cherish these memories, and the special bond that's grown between us over all those miles of American asphalt.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou know i imagine back in 1953 when this car came out and you bought one you probably thought well cars can't get much better than this you got three speed with overdrive it's smooth it's powerful it handles nice got a heater it's got a radio i mean this was uh this is living the american dream wasn't that basil with jay leno's garage pandemic edition this is the second time we're in lockdown remember we did a bunch of these pandemic ones and the crew came back and we shot a whole bunch of those but then they came in again and said no you can't do it anymore so we're back again doing the pandemic edition one so thanks for sticking with us through these we certainly appreciate it uh the car we're featuring today 1953 hudson hornet coupe i guess this is the one you know they did do a sort of what they call a california top looking one with the no post but i like this this is the rigid one this is the one that kind of won stock car fame these are legendary cars in the 50s it had the classic step down design i'll show you a couple of hudson posters i have posters paintings that we we did we put them on the wall in the next building i'll take a look and you'll see what's meant by the step-down design where the car is lower than the frame you literally step into a hudson you know most cars from this era the early 50s the roof was up to here you know but this is actually much lower and these won all kinds of races with the hudson hornet twin h power two one barrel carburetors on a 308 cubic inch six cylinder engine uh the most powerful six-cylinder engine in america at the time if i don't know if the world necessarily but certainly one of the best and a wonderful wonderful motor the thing that killed hudson was they didn't develop a v8 they stuck with the six and the six made plenty of horsepower in fact this is a 170 horsepower one i believe the rocket 88 olzembier which was the motor remember cadillac had the overhead valves in 49 but for the working man the hudson rocket 88 that was the engine v8 overhead valves that was i think 165 horsepower it actually had more in fact i wish i could find a very funny video that used to run in hudson dealerships it wasn't a video it was like a reel of tape and it was silent and it shows a guy a guy standing by his hudson you know and they have right next to the the oldsmobile rocket 88 and the hood is up on the rocket e8 and the customer is going when is my car going to be ready and the mechanic's growing these overhead vowels mr johnson they're very hard to adjust i can't well fix that thing you know and then they pan over to the hudson the guy is just torquing the flathead engine the customer is like oh well that didn't take long at all that's right bob these side valve engines you don't have you know why the side valve was superior to the overhead valve which of course it is not but it was a kind of a fruitless attempt to keep something going you know it was a classic case of the last days of old technology were better than the first days of new technology and it might have been true at the time anyway these handled and they can and still handle very well you know i like this era of american automobiles because it just barely predates power steering and power brakes so everything is nicely weighted nicely balanced you know you can feel the road under you it shifts you know you feel it go through the gears it's it's it they're just wonderful driving cars and hudson was the stock car king in the 50s because they handled and they used to say you may get us on the streets but we'll get you in the curves because these were lower and with a lower center of gravity they they handle better i had one when i was in college i bought one and once i buy that it's and i guess in 69 i think i paid 400 for it i love my hudson hornet and uh it got stolen in front of 1754 commonwealth avenue uh in uh in boston and i went out one day and it was just gone you know every couple of days i would go down to the impound yacht of the yard rather to see if the cops had found it you know this one cop said no i haven't found it okay so almost every day i was going to simply after my car turned up no it didn't turn up yet and i there was a cop in the background he kept giving me the eye you know i'm like what's that yeah so i went in one day and the guy i usually saw was busy i saw this guy and i said were you trying to tell me something and he said yeah listen that guy wants your car it's in the back of the impound lot if it stays here 60 days he can buy it you know that's unclaimed property so don't tell him i told you that so he came back and anyway i got my car back so that was kind of nice i appreciate that policeman helped me out and then one thing led to another and i went to california and across the car got sold and i always miss it so when i got here well i've had this in about 25 years this was a nice original car this had 15 000 miles on it when i got it so a nice unmolested example just sat for a long time we restored it it's pretty much as it left the factory it's not a resto mod we haven't done anything to it it's a three speed with overdrive it's got the center post which i like uh it's a very rigid car very comfortable car to drive these are just wonderful automobiles and they were sort of i guess you'd call it the mid-price field maybe equal to oldsmobile or buick certainly not in cadillac territory but a lot of people thought they rode better than the cadillac they were very comfortable cars and this was the first sort of new car of the post-war era you know uh when the war ended uh general motors and ford and everybody else they were still doing warmed up or warmed over i guess is the term uh versions of the pre-war cars the 41 the 42 cadillac and i mean the 46 and 47 looked like it wasn't till 49 50 they started coming out with the really new stuff but hudson was ahead of the game with their sleek styling you know the hornet series ran from about i think what was it 51-54 and this is the one that really made them famous in the four-door and two-door version i have a four-door also that's another story let's uh let's open the hood and show you what we got here take a look at this big twin h power hoo-hoo two one barrels yes siree bob let me open that well there you have it there's your twin h power right there two one barrels and of course the gold engine that's what they did uh 308 cubic inch six volt electrics we haven't really changed anything a more modern radiator cap other than that this is pretty much the way it left this just required cleaning up painting re-chroming uh new rubber new gaskets because it had sat and it had sat for i don't know 30 years something like that when i got it yeah this is this is just the way it is you see the way the works the windshield wipers he's got this wire here nothing fancy here easy to work on easy to service you know that's what's nice about these things will run forever they're just fantastic cars all kinds of interesting touches there's a light in here that lights up it says hudson at night yeah just really neat i put a alternator on it um a six volt alternator just because you want to have bright lights and uh you want the radio to work you know a lot of times with these old six volt systems when you slow down the radio it just goes down your lights go damn you rub it up and it comes back up again but with a six volt alternator it really keeps you can keep the original um all the six volt wiring you know a lot of times guys will will convert it to 12 volt but they don't change the wire people forget this six volt wire and there's 12 volt wire and six volt wire is much thicker and when you put a 12 volt system with six volt wire you get something less than than one than desirable put it that way uh so yeah that was about the only change our six volt alternator and they're available i do need engine mounts on this i ordered them and thought that they would be in by this time but they haven't come in yet so there's a slight vibration from the old um engine mounts uh but i just put a bolt through it to hold it you see the engine it's rubber mounted and these have a bolt to go through it to secure and what happened was the rubber is deteriorated and the bolts the wire got lost or whatever so we put that in there but other than that she's fine this fake hood scoop i think was new for 53. i love the split windshield the nice thing is you if you've got a chip in your windshield i have to place the whole thing you know it's funny to me this looks like a sort of an audi tt it almost looks fairly modern compared to the stuff that's around the 50s from the other companies they were kind of angular and not aerodynamic whereas this has a smooth look i think that holds up very very well it still looks somewhat contemporary you know it's funny sometimes with designs you have to wait 20 years to decide whether it's still relevant like to me i always try to sneak my f1 mclaren into these videos that car could be built today exact same design it doesn't look dated countach looks dated some other cars look dated obviously 59 cadillacs things like that whereas this this is just the proportions are nice it's aerodynamic it's smooth there's nothing garish about it maybe a bit too much chrome for most people but i don't mind that come on let's go around the back of the vehicle and take a look at that i like this big one pound of chrome stuck on here this big thing is this hornet it just makes me laugh and of course there's all this stainless steel trim here nicely done proper bumpers and of course you've got twin h power in it let's take a look at the truck and a good-sized truck in this thing is this is a these are real family cars let's take a look got a couple of suitcases in there put a couple of guys in here everything you need to change your tire no stupid little can of air that goes you know those don't work you got a proper spare right here that's all the original material from the trunk i love the hudson exhaust tip says hudson right on there come on let's take a look at the inside as you can see this cabin is a nice place to be i don't think any at least american manufacturer had interiors as beautiful as the hudson i mean nice materials here look at the door chrome on the dashboard just a nice place to be i like the weather control it says here like you you don't just turn you actually control the weather and i like that idea but it's a huge heater and these old tube radios you know you turn them on the mmm and they warm up and they have a deep rich bass sound to them is it i mean look at all the chrome in this thing boys good size glove compartment you got your your hudson owner's manual service policy okay a special notice read carefully you know hudson was a department store in detroit and uh he was one of the uh people behind funding the company so they named it after it after hudson's apartment so some just some decals there and some other things it's fun to have all this original stuff uh what else can we show you oh your antenna up here you control that turn that of course but everything look at the chrome i mean they just do a nice job and this was not a crazy expensive car this was like i said a medium to slightly higher than that price car but not not in the certainly in cadillac or even buick range so and hudson was quite successful the trouble was as i said earlier they didn't develop a v8 fast enough you know gm was gangbusters and performance and uh eventually just drove the independence out of the market uh hudson merged with nash calvinator to become american motors and that's what happened that's what happened to hudson but uh not many independents survived after world war ii you know at one point general motors had something like 52 of the market and the government thought oh we've got to break this up they've got a monopoly much like henry ford had but like all monopolies it doesn't last the japanese came along and knocked that out of the box and and so you just sort of let the free market uh handle things the way they do i guess i love the way the numerals are i'm not sure what you call that type of script but it's quite handsome it's quite a track easy to read uh this is just a nice driving car because it's that era when um before as i said earlier before power accessories so you just sort of there's a nice weight to the brake there's a night weight to the steering it's a little heavy parking uh but on the road it gives tremendous road feel i mean these are very nice driving cars you know the myth of all 50s cars being big wallowing boats going down the road uh not with hudson these these were uh i think sports cars probably being a bit a bit too generous but they they handle very nice and when we put this up on the left in just a minute you'll see one of the cool features i'll show you something uh that even probably guys that had hudson's didn't know about in the fact that you have hydraulic brakes but you also have a backup mechanical system you have rods that go back to the rear wheels i guess it's a strong wire well you'll see when i put it up in there that should the hydraulics fail that will stop you so that's a pretty cool safety feature um what else sort of the cork inserts that go on the clutch i mean there's a lot of old don't forget this 1953 so you've got a lot of technology from the 20s and 30s in here but by this point the side valve engine had been developed and it was smooth it was reliable pretty much bulletproof you know if you find one of these engines in the field god you can clean it up and get it running in probably half a day you know because there's not a lot to them it's basic simple technology and uh this 308 cubic inch engine was powerful you know six cylinders we don't give the respect in this country that it has in europe and in england but you know all diesels usually are six cylinders because all your power going in a straight line i think that gives you more torque maybe that's one of those old wives tales but i think it's true it's the reason most trucks use a big straight six because you get more torque and more power with it it's certainly true with this i mean i think if you didn't know and got in you would think this was a small v8 it's a big motor 380 cubic inches but let's uh let's start it up we'll take it next door and we'll put it up on the left here you can hear it run once you're warmed up you'll smooth out there's a bit of rocking it's because that motor mount is sort of as i said is bolted down the rubber's gone on it that will be replaced very quickly come on let's take it next door here are those posts posters i was talking about uh or the paintings i should say uh what i do is i take the original hudson ad and then i put my car in it see that's that's the car we're dealing with right now the 53 that is right there but here's what i was talking about here's the step down design can you see the way the frame is lower you see where the car is lower than the frame actually see how the frame goes around the entire car it's not a unibody there's an actual what they call that a perimeter frame i think is what you call but if you kind of study that for a minute it gives you an idea of why the center of gravity is so low and why it handles so well because see the floor is below the frame most cars just sit on the frame whereas this it's about six inches lower so just one of those kind of interesting fun facts but come on let's put it up on the lift and show you what i'm talking about okay we got the hudson up on our sterile coney lifts here i've got my iphone as you can see well the muffler is probably 25 years old that's what we put it on it stays pretty nice under here let me show you what i was talking about with the brakes you have a mechanical backup to the hydraulic system okay okay here's your hydraulic brake right here now should this fail you see this here connect to the brake pedal it'll pull this which pull these which pulls these two levers which run to the back brakes and that will give you that's my hand that will that will uh give you emergency braking if the hydraulic system fails completely you've got that mechanical backup so that's that's pretty cool now see this is i guess you call the semi unibody is that what you call it this unbolts this whole front end can on both uh as you can see here the places where the where it's lower than the actual frame that's the step through design once again there's the hydraulic brakes and then this here see brake will pull this here which pulls this back which it's true that's really the definition of an emergency brake because that's what it is if that fails you've got an emergency uh here's the front end here as you can see we've cleaned it up and done some work over the years this restoration is at least 25 years old if not more i've had this thing for quite a while uh you've got some cork inserts in the clutch kind of a lot a lot of old school stuff here but reliable dependable best handling car the early 50s okay i thought you might get a kick out of seeing some of that let's uh let's take it for a ride you know i imagine back in 1953 when this car came out and you bought one you probably thought well cars can't get much better than this you got three speed with overdrive it's smooth it's powerful it handles nice got a heater it's got a radio i mean this was uh this is living the american dream see that shifts into overdrive i just like the amount of road feel you get from this era let me put this window up so it doesn't affect the audio here we go see how nice and quiet it is in here obviously side valve engines don't rev but you can't beat them for smoothness and torque and just ease of maintenance you know i mean just unbolt the head scrape it clean it put a new head gasket on you're ready to go you know you could overhaul one of these engines in a day no problem see i just get just a trace of but it shifts look at that ah like butter pulls pretty nicely i think this thing was the equal of the rocket 88 back in the day you know when you read the old magazine jaws read about stoplight uh drag races or guys in hudson blow the doors off to the guys with the fancy v8s yeah they're funny a company named clifford used to make all kinds of high performance options for the hudson you know aluminum cylinder heads stuff like that but just so easy to work on generator starter motor pop it out pop a new one i mean just so easy to work on i like a big steering wheel this makes me laugh i feel like you're seven years old sitting your dad's lap driving this thing as i said i have one of these when i was in college and i was just kind of getting started as a comedian and stuff and from boston to the catskill mountains was about i don't know six hour drive something like that and take the hudson drive all the way up there to make 25 and then drive all the way back again but you know it did it you know what helped a lot was certainly the uh the cars movie the pixar movie you know with doc hudson and all that i mean really put this car in the map because little kids never paid attention till that movie came out then i would drive this somewhere and kids would run up and ask if it was the car from the movie you know what you know but yeah that was pretty neat this is a good car to drive during the pandemic you know you don't look like some rich idiot pulling up like i was you know i would see these guys with lamborghinis with open exhausts you know they look like deposed dictators idiot sons driving around annoying people you know when you drive something like this people come up and they're friendly and they smile and they ask questions and want to know what it is and hudson i never heard of that but hudson was a major manufacturer up until the 50s you know around 1916 1970 there was something like 350 automobile manufacturers in america some legitimate some not most would just buy an engine and assemble a car and call it the you know the johnson or whatever it is there are a lot of major ones in there too and i think every year since we've lost probably five or six percent every year since the 20s another one would go out of business in my lifetime of course you've seen buick disappear oldsmobile just disappear saturn all of those companies and of course hudson which became american motors i've got another hudson a 51 a four-door that one we put air conditioning in upgraded a little bit but still kept the basic bones of the car you know it's not something i want to put an ls1 or something in because this ruins the whole character of the car to me it's fun to drive it the way it was intended back in the day and it does a good job you know i i'm not a sports guy so i don't know what the analogy would be maybe you know i know a lot of friends of mine they get the old vintage uniforms for their teams whatever red sox patriots whatever it might be and uh that's what they do yeah and that's kind of what this is you know it's a sort of a different era a different time but you know you can drive a car like this today gets good gas mileage it's easy to work on insurance rates are low when i was a kid junk yards were filled with cars like this most not most of them but a lot of them running and you could you know you could drive them away for 50 bucks but now everything just gets crushed and recycled right away which is kind of sad i mean it pulls so nicely in second gear look at that overdrive is one of the things that just disappeared most modern cars the overdrive is built into the automatic transmission but bank of the day was a whole separate deal you could turn it on or shut it off that's the knob right here under the dash the reason you turn off overdrive is when you're going down like a steep hill so you don't wear out your brakes because brake fade was one of those things that was uh a big problem back in the early 50s the brakes would get so hot they'd lose all their power and you use it so you want the transmission to help you slow down like this thing when i get on a steep grade i just shut off the uh overdrive so it stays in gear so you use engine braking to help you get down the hill but you put your foot in and look at that go look at that i mean i think most people would think this is a v8 if they were riding in it for the first time but i would drive this anywhere you know i take it to san diego or someplace a couple hundred miles away because it is pretty bulletproof i mean it's reliable you can still get cars like this at a pretty reasonable rate and the nice thing is if you if you're new to the old car hobby these are perfect because parts are still readily available cars are relatively inexpensive they're easy to work on you don't have to be a master mechanic just almost any garage tools will get you through i think in one ad they have eight people in this with four across the front and i i see how that's possible but you know even a corner like this a sweeper you know any other car in the 50s should really be thrown against this door and the tires will be screeching whereas this thing handles and drives just wonderfully i'm doing 70 miles an hour i'm having a normal conversation with you but there you go anyway i hope you enjoyed this little trip back to a simpler time and this was a simpler car you know and easy to work on fun to drive good looking hey what more could you ask for stay safe everybody hopefully this pandemic will end soon and i'll see you guys next week thanks uhyou know i imagine back in 1953 when this car came out and you bought one you probably thought well cars can't get much better than this you got three speed with overdrive it's smooth it's powerful it handles nice got a heater it's got a radio i mean this was uh this is living the american dream wasn't that basil with jay leno's garage pandemic edition this is the second time we're in lockdown remember we did a bunch of these pandemic ones and the crew came back and we shot a whole bunch of those but then they came in again and said no you can't do it anymore so we're back again doing the pandemic edition one so thanks for sticking with us through these we certainly appreciate it uh the car we're featuring today 1953 hudson hornet coupe i guess this is the one you know they did do a sort of what they call a california top looking one with the no post but i like this this is the rigid one this is the one that kind of won stock car fame these are legendary cars in the 50s it had the classic step down design i'll show you a couple of hudson posters i have posters paintings that we we did we put them on the wall in the next building i'll take a look and you'll see what's meant by the step-down design where the car is lower than the frame you literally step into a hudson you know most cars from this era the early 50s the roof was up to here you know but this is actually much lower and these won all kinds of races with the hudson hornet twin h power two one barrel carburetors on a 308 cubic inch six cylinder engine uh the most powerful six-cylinder engine in america at the time if i don't know if the world necessarily but certainly one of the best and a wonderful wonderful motor the thing that killed hudson was they didn't develop a v8 they stuck with the six and the six made plenty of horsepower in fact this is a 170 horsepower one i believe the rocket 88 olzembier which was the motor remember cadillac had the overhead valves in 49 but for the working man the hudson rocket 88 that was the engine v8 overhead valves that was i think 165 horsepower it actually had more in fact i wish i could find a very funny video that used to run in hudson dealerships it wasn't a video it was like a reel of tape and it was silent and it shows a guy a guy standing by his hudson you know and they have right next to the the oldsmobile rocket 88 and the hood is up on the rocket e8 and the customer is going when is my car going to be ready and the mechanic's growing these overhead vowels mr johnson they're very hard to adjust i can't well fix that thing you know and then they pan over to the hudson the guy is just torquing the flathead engine the customer is like oh well that didn't take long at all that's right bob these side valve engines you don't have you know why the side valve was superior to the overhead valve which of course it is not but it was a kind of a fruitless attempt to keep something going you know it was a classic case of the last days of old technology were better than the first days of new technology and it might have been true at the time anyway these handled and they can and still handle very well you know i like this era of american automobiles because it just barely predates power steering and power brakes so everything is nicely weighted nicely balanced you know you can feel the road under you it shifts you know you feel it go through the gears it's it's it they're just wonderful driving cars and hudson was the stock car king in the 50s because they handled and they used to say you may get us on the streets but we'll get you in the curves because these were lower and with a lower center of gravity they they handle better i had one when i was in college i bought one and once i buy that it's and i guess in 69 i think i paid 400 for it i love my hudson hornet and uh it got stolen in front of 1754 commonwealth avenue uh in uh in boston and i went out one day and it was just gone you know every couple of days i would go down to the impound yacht of the yard rather to see if the cops had found it you know this one cop said no i haven't found it okay so almost every day i was going to simply after my car turned up no it didn't turn up yet and i there was a cop in the background he kept giving me the eye you know i'm like what's that yeah so i went in one day and the guy i usually saw was busy i saw this guy and i said were you trying to tell me something and he said yeah listen that guy wants your car it's in the back of the impound lot if it stays here 60 days he can buy it you know that's unclaimed property so don't tell him i told you that so he came back and anyway i got my car back so that was kind of nice i appreciate that policeman helped me out and then one thing led to another and i went to california and across the car got sold and i always miss it so when i got here well i've had this in about 25 years this was a nice original car this had 15 000 miles on it when i got it so a nice unmolested example just sat for a long time we restored it it's pretty much as it left the factory it's not a resto mod we haven't done anything to it it's a three speed with overdrive it's got the center post which i like uh it's a very rigid car very comfortable car to drive these are just wonderful automobiles and they were sort of i guess you'd call it the mid-price field maybe equal to oldsmobile or buick certainly not in cadillac territory but a lot of people thought they rode better than the cadillac they were very comfortable cars and this was the first sort of new car of the post-war era you know uh when the war ended uh general motors and ford and everybody else they were still doing warmed up or warmed over i guess is the term uh versions of the pre-war cars the 41 the 42 cadillac and i mean the 46 and 47 looked like it wasn't till 49 50 they started coming out with the really new stuff but hudson was ahead of the game with their sleek styling you know the hornet series ran from about i think what was it 51-54 and this is the one that really made them famous in the four-door and two-door version i have a four-door also that's another story let's uh let's open the hood and show you what we got here take a look at this big twin h power hoo-hoo two one barrels yes siree bob let me open that well there you have it there's your twin h power right there two one barrels and of course the gold engine that's what they did uh 308 cubic inch six volt electrics we haven't really changed anything a more modern radiator cap other than that this is pretty much the way it left this just required cleaning up painting re-chroming uh new rubber new gaskets because it had sat and it had sat for i don't know 30 years something like that when i got it yeah this is this is just the way it is you see the way the works the windshield wipers he's got this wire here nothing fancy here easy to work on easy to service you know that's what's nice about these things will run forever they're just fantastic cars all kinds of interesting touches there's a light in here that lights up it says hudson at night yeah just really neat i put a alternator on it um a six volt alternator just because you want to have bright lights and uh you want the radio to work you know a lot of times with these old six volt systems when you slow down the radio it just goes down your lights go damn you rub it up and it comes back up again but with a six volt alternator it really keeps you can keep the original um all the six volt wiring you know a lot of times guys will will convert it to 12 volt but they don't change the wire people forget this six volt wire and there's 12 volt wire and six volt wire is much thicker and when you put a 12 volt system with six volt wire you get something less than than one than desirable put it that way uh so yeah that was about the only change our six volt alternator and they're available i do need engine mounts on this i ordered them and thought that they would be in by this time but they haven't come in yet so there's a slight vibration from the old um engine mounts uh but i just put a bolt through it to hold it you see the engine it's rubber mounted and these have a bolt to go through it to secure and what happened was the rubber is deteriorated and the bolts the wire got lost or whatever so we put that in there but other than that she's fine this fake hood scoop i think was new for 53. i love the split windshield the nice thing is you if you've got a chip in your windshield i have to place the whole thing you know it's funny to me this looks like a sort of an audi tt it almost looks fairly modern compared to the stuff that's around the 50s from the other companies they were kind of angular and not aerodynamic whereas this has a smooth look i think that holds up very very well it still looks somewhat contemporary you know it's funny sometimes with designs you have to wait 20 years to decide whether it's still relevant like to me i always try to sneak my f1 mclaren into these videos that car could be built today exact same design it doesn't look dated countach looks dated some other cars look dated obviously 59 cadillacs things like that whereas this this is just the proportions are nice it's aerodynamic it's smooth there's nothing garish about it maybe a bit too much chrome for most people but i don't mind that come on let's go around the back of the vehicle and take a look at that i like this big one pound of chrome stuck on here this big thing is this hornet it just makes me laugh and of course there's all this stainless steel trim here nicely done proper bumpers and of course you've got twin h power in it let's take a look at the truck and a good-sized truck in this thing is this is a these are real family cars let's take a look got a couple of suitcases in there put a couple of guys in here everything you need to change your tire no stupid little can of air that goes you know those don't work you got a proper spare right here that's all the original material from the trunk i love the hudson exhaust tip says hudson right on there come on let's take a look at the inside as you can see this cabin is a nice place to be i don't think any at least american manufacturer had interiors as beautiful as the hudson i mean nice materials here look at the door chrome on the dashboard just a nice place to be i like the weather control it says here like you you don't just turn you actually control the weather and i like that idea but it's a huge heater and these old tube radios you know you turn them on the mmm and they warm up and they have a deep rich bass sound to them is it i mean look at all the chrome in this thing boys good size glove compartment you got your your hudson owner's manual service policy okay a special notice read carefully you know hudson was a department store in detroit and uh he was one of the uh people behind funding the company so they named it after it after hudson's apartment so some just some decals there and some other things it's fun to have all this original stuff uh what else can we show you oh your antenna up here you control that turn that of course but everything look at the chrome i mean they just do a nice job and this was not a crazy expensive car this was like i said a medium to slightly higher than that price car but not not in the certainly in cadillac or even buick range so and hudson was quite successful the trouble was as i said earlier they didn't develop a v8 fast enough you know gm was gangbusters and performance and uh eventually just drove the independence out of the market uh hudson merged with nash calvinator to become american motors and that's what happened that's what happened to hudson but uh not many independents survived after world war ii you know at one point general motors had something like 52 of the market and the government thought oh we've got to break this up they've got a monopoly much like henry ford had but like all monopolies it doesn't last the japanese came along and knocked that out of the box and and so you just sort of let the free market uh handle things the way they do i guess i love the way the numerals are i'm not sure what you call that type of script but it's quite handsome it's quite a track easy to read uh this is just a nice driving car because it's that era when um before as i said earlier before power accessories so you just sort of there's a nice weight to the brake there's a night weight to the steering it's a little heavy parking uh but on the road it gives tremendous road feel i mean these are very nice driving cars you know the myth of all 50s cars being big wallowing boats going down the road uh not with hudson these these were uh i think sports cars probably being a bit a bit too generous but they they handle very nice and when we put this up on the left in just a minute you'll see one of the cool features i'll show you something uh that even probably guys that had hudson's didn't know about in the fact that you have hydraulic brakes but you also have a backup mechanical system you have rods that go back to the rear wheels i guess it's a strong wire well you'll see when i put it up in there that should the hydraulics fail that will stop you so that's a pretty cool safety feature um what else sort of the cork inserts that go on the clutch i mean there's a lot of old don't forget this 1953 so you've got a lot of technology from the 20s and 30s in here but by this point the side valve engine had been developed and it was smooth it was reliable pretty much bulletproof you know if you find one of these engines in the field god you can clean it up and get it running in probably half a day you know because there's not a lot to them it's basic simple technology and uh this 308 cubic inch engine was powerful you know six cylinders we don't give the respect in this country that it has in europe and in england but you know all diesels usually are six cylinders because all your power going in a straight line i think that gives you more torque maybe that's one of those old wives tales but i think it's true it's the reason most trucks use a big straight six because you get more torque and more power with it it's certainly true with this i mean i think if you didn't know and got in you would think this was a small v8 it's a big motor 380 cubic inches but let's uh let's start it up we'll take it next door and we'll put it up on the left here you can hear it run once you're warmed up you'll smooth out there's a bit of rocking it's because that motor mount is sort of as i said is bolted down the rubber's gone on it that will be replaced very quickly come on let's take it next door here are those posts posters i was talking about uh or the paintings i should say uh what i do is i take the original hudson ad and then i put my car in it see that's that's the car we're dealing with right now the 53 that is right there but here's what i was talking about here's the step down design can you see the way the frame is lower you see where the car is lower than the frame actually see how the frame goes around the entire car it's not a unibody there's an actual what they call that a perimeter frame i think is what you call but if you kind of study that for a minute it gives you an idea of why the center of gravity is so low and why it handles so well because see the floor is below the frame most cars just sit on the frame whereas this it's about six inches lower so just one of those kind of interesting fun facts but come on let's put it up on the lift and show you what i'm talking about okay we got the hudson up on our sterile coney lifts here i've got my iphone as you can see well the muffler is probably 25 years old that's what we put it on it stays pretty nice under here let me show you what i was talking about with the brakes you have a mechanical backup to the hydraulic system okay okay here's your hydraulic brake right here now should this fail you see this here connect to the brake pedal it'll pull this which pull these which pulls these two levers which run to the back brakes and that will give you that's my hand that will that will uh give you emergency braking if the hydraulic system fails completely you've got that mechanical backup so that's that's pretty cool now see this is i guess you call the semi unibody is that what you call it this unbolts this whole front end can on both uh as you can see here the places where the where it's lower than the actual frame that's the step through design once again there's the hydraulic brakes and then this here see brake will pull this here which pulls this back which it's true that's really the definition of an emergency brake because that's what it is if that fails you've got an emergency uh here's the front end here as you can see we've cleaned it up and done some work over the years this restoration is at least 25 years old if not more i've had this thing for quite a while uh you've got some cork inserts in the clutch kind of a lot a lot of old school stuff here but reliable dependable best handling car the early 50s okay i thought you might get a kick out of seeing some of that let's uh let's take it for a ride you know i imagine back in 1953 when this car came out and you bought one you probably thought well cars can't get much better than this you got three speed with overdrive it's smooth it's powerful it handles nice got a heater it's got a radio i mean this was uh this is living the american dream see that shifts into overdrive i just like the amount of road feel you get from this era let me put this window up so it doesn't affect the audio here we go see how nice and quiet it is in here obviously side valve engines don't rev but you can't beat them for smoothness and torque and just ease of maintenance you know i mean just unbolt the head scrape it clean it put a new head gasket on you're ready to go you know you could overhaul one of these engines in a day no problem see i just get just a trace of but it shifts look at that ah like butter pulls pretty nicely i think this thing was the equal of the rocket 88 back in the day you know when you read the old magazine jaws read about stoplight uh drag races or guys in hudson blow the doors off to the guys with the fancy v8s yeah they're funny a company named clifford used to make all kinds of high performance options for the hudson you know aluminum cylinder heads stuff like that but just so easy to work on generator starter motor pop it out pop a new one i mean just so easy to work on i like a big steering wheel this makes me laugh i feel like you're seven years old sitting your dad's lap driving this thing as i said i have one of these when i was in college and i was just kind of getting started as a comedian and stuff and from boston to the catskill mountains was about i don't know six hour drive something like that and take the hudson drive all the way up there to make 25 and then drive all the way back again but you know it did it you know what helped a lot was certainly the uh the cars movie the pixar movie you know with doc hudson and all that i mean really put this car in the map because little kids never paid attention till that movie came out then i would drive this somewhere and kids would run up and ask if it was the car from the movie you know what you know but yeah that was pretty neat this is a good car to drive during the pandemic you know you don't look like some rich idiot pulling up like i was you know i would see these guys with lamborghinis with open exhausts you know they look like deposed dictators idiot sons driving around annoying people you know when you drive something like this people come up and they're friendly and they smile and they ask questions and want to know what it is and hudson i never heard of that but hudson was a major manufacturer up until the 50s you know around 1916 1970 there was something like 350 automobile manufacturers in america some legitimate some not most would just buy an engine and assemble a car and call it the you know the johnson or whatever it is there are a lot of major ones in there too and i think every year since we've lost probably five or six percent every year since the 20s another one would go out of business in my lifetime of course you've seen buick disappear oldsmobile just disappear saturn all of those companies and of course hudson which became american motors i've got another hudson a 51 a four-door that one we put air conditioning in upgraded a little bit but still kept the basic bones of the car you know it's not something i want to put an ls1 or something in because this ruins the whole character of the car to me it's fun to drive it the way it was intended back in the day and it does a good job you know i i'm not a sports guy so i don't know what the analogy would be maybe you know i know a lot of friends of mine they get the old vintage uniforms for their teams whatever red sox patriots whatever it might be and uh that's what they do yeah and that's kind of what this is you know it's a sort of a different era a different time but you know you can drive a car like this today gets good gas mileage it's easy to work on insurance rates are low when i was a kid junk yards were filled with cars like this most not most of them but a lot of them running and you could you know you could drive them away for 50 bucks but now everything just gets crushed and recycled right away which is kind of sad i mean it pulls so nicely in second gear look at that overdrive is one of the things that just disappeared most modern cars the overdrive is built into the automatic transmission but bank of the day was a whole separate deal you could turn it on or shut it off that's the knob right here under the dash the reason you turn off overdrive is when you're going down like a steep hill so you don't wear out your brakes because brake fade was one of those things that was uh a big problem back in the early 50s the brakes would get so hot they'd lose all their power and you use it so you want the transmission to help you slow down like this thing when i get on a steep grade i just shut off the uh overdrive so it stays in gear so you use engine braking to help you get down the hill but you put your foot in and look at that go look at that i mean i think most people would think this is a v8 if they were riding in it for the first time but i would drive this anywhere you know i take it to san diego or someplace a couple hundred miles away because it is pretty bulletproof i mean it's reliable you can still get cars like this at a pretty reasonable rate and the nice thing is if you if you're new to the old car hobby these are perfect because parts are still readily available cars are relatively inexpensive they're easy to work on you don't have to be a master mechanic just almost any garage tools will get you through i think in one ad they have eight people in this with four across the front and i i see how that's possible but you know even a corner like this a sweeper you know any other car in the 50s should really be thrown against this door and the tires will be screeching whereas this thing handles and drives just wonderfully i'm doing 70 miles an hour i'm having a normal conversation with you but there you go anyway i hope you enjoyed this little trip back to a simpler time and this was a simpler car you know and easy to work on fun to drive good looking hey what more could you ask for stay safe everybody hopefully this pandemic will end soon and i'll see you guys next week thanks uh\n"