Mike’s dad, Heinrich Lamm, bought his first Hudson in 1939 and remained a Hudson stalwart until 1960. Text and photos copyright Michael Lamm 2012
During the 1940s and 1950s, my hometown, La Feria, Texas, had just one new-car dealer, Lafond Motors. Lafond sold one single make: Hudson. So most La Feria families owned Hudsons, mine included. You’d drive along Main Street, and it looked like a two-block-long Hudson parking lot.
My dad must have been Lafond’s favorite customer, because he bought a new Hudson every three years – the usual interval back then – and he never haggled. Whatever Lloyd Lafond said the car cost, my dad paid. And Lloyd also set the trade-in allowance.
Everybody in town loved Hudsons. The factory ran an aggressive racing program, and for three years, 1951-1952-1953, the Fabulous Hudson Hornet won more USAC and NASCAR stock-car events than anything else on wheels. Every time Hudson scored a major victory, and it did so pretty much every weekend, the company would congratulate itself with full-page ads in newspapers across the country, including the La Feria News. I’d study those ads and pore over the pictures, so I got to know the drivers the way today’s teens know sports figures. Hudson race drivers were my heroes.
Champion driver Marshall Teague (tallest) poses at Daytona Beach with his pit crew and the car’s owners.
Marshall Teague was Hudson’s winningest champion, and the other Hudson stars included Herb Thomas and Fonty Flock. They came roaring out of those weekly newspaper ads, beaming in triumph and confident that they’d win again next week, which they usually did. The romance of it captivated me in the same way that the Beatles enthralled teenaged girls a decade later.
Hudson helped field teams large and small. Here Johnnie McGinley’s 1951 Hornet gets a touchup tuning before a race in Detroit.
My dad and mom drove nothing but Hudsons from 1939 through 1960. I shared their affinity for the marque, not only because Hudsons won races but also because I’d worked briefly for Lafond Motors as a sweeper and gofer when I was eight years old. Plus, as you know, my first car was a 1931 Hudson.
The car-buying season had a rhythm in those days. Carmakers would announce their new models each autumn with teaser ads and Oscar-night-like hoopla. About a week before each year’s grand unveiling, dealers would white out their showroom windows. Then, the night before zero hour, they’d set up searchlights, wash the windows and park the new models amid bouquets and banners. Next day people would be lined up outside the dealership, dying to get a closer look.
In La Feria, this annual rite represented Academy Award entertainment of the highest order. We pubescent boys got all excited and couldn’t wait to check out each season’s new Hudsons. On the designated morning, we’d go to Lafond Motors first and, after an hour or so of oohing and aahing, we’d drive over to Harlingen to check out what the other carmakers had hatched: the new Fords, Chevys, Chryslers, Packards, Nashes, Cadillacs, Dodges, Willys, etc. And then we’d compare. Most years, Hudson didn’t fare well in terms of new-ness.
Hudson introduced its unitized stepdown body in 1948. The car’s relatively low stance would help make it competitive on the track.
Hudson kept the same styling for five long years. Most rivals changed body styles every three years. This is the 1949 Hudson convertible, basically the coupe with its steel roof lopped off.
To put Hudson’s model history in perspective: In 1948, the company had come out with a truly advanced design, the so-called “stepdown” body style… very innovative and modern. Its low center of gravity helped make Hudson the race winner it eventually became and, for a time, the Hudson Motor Car Co. enjoyed solid financial success. That same body style continued through 1950, relatively unchanged. But then for 1951, the factory started hyping an “all-new” Hudson, and I was primed for the Second Coming.
Hudson’s “all-new” 1951 models had a revised grille but kept the same sheetmetal. Unitized bodies are more expensive to restyle than body-on-frame types.
I dragged my parents down to Lafond’s for the 1951 unveiling, and there they stood, the new 1951 Hudsons. They looked suspiciously like previous Hudsons. Yes, the 1951s did have an Oldsmobile-like grille, and there was a new series, the Hornet, but basically all 1951 Hudsons looked 95 percent like 1948-1950 Hudsons. As did, disappointingly, the following iterations for 1952 and 1953.
So a couple of years later, everybody in town was looking forward to the 1954 Hudson, which we’d heard was truly going to be all-new and different. Hudson needed a shot in the arm, because by late 1953, the company’s cash flow was ebbing at an accelerating rate. Worse, at least in my mind, Hudson was losing races to Oldsmobile and Chrysler.
Then one sunny afternoon in early September 1953, about a week before new-car announcement time, my high-school buddy, Larry Myers, came to me in study hall and told me he’d already seen next year’s Hudson, the 1954 model. “This one really is all new and different,” Larry assured me. Larry was Lloyd Lafond’s nephew, so he had the inside track.
I asked him, “Where’d you see it?” Behind Lloyd Lafond’s house, came the answer, in Lloyd’s private garage. “Okay, let’s go check it out right now,” I pleaded. This was serious, jumping-up-and-down business.
So after school, Larry and I went to Lloyd Lafond’s home, walked around back, and Larry flung open the garage doors. There it stood, this big, blue-and-cream, brand-new sedan, facing inward. My first view was of the rear. So far not so good. The car looked fat and finless. Fins were important in 1954. This new model had wimpy, after-thought fins on a broad-beamed backside, with a Ford-like, squared-off bustle.
Lamm expected an earth-shattering revamp in Hudson styling for 1954 but felt cheated when he saw an early sedan hidden in the dealer’s private garage. He considered the 1954 update derivative (Olds/Ford) and poorly executed.
Larry and I walked around to the front of the car. Ohmigosh, the front was even uglier than the rear. Hudson had again tried to copy Oldsmobile’s “fishmouth” grille, but this time it lacked any semblance of grace. It looked amateurish. And on each side of the new car, the stainless-steel fender slashes had Ford written all over them. If I hadn’t been such a macho, stoic high-school senior, I would have burst out in tears.
I felt betrayed. What a horrible anticlimax. But my father, who was due for a new car that year, didn’t dislike the 1954 model nearly so much as I did and, because we all loved Lloyd Lafond and Hudsons, my dad bought an ugly 1954 Hornet sedan as soon as he could. He drove it proudly for six years and finally traded it in… his last Hudson… on a new 1960 Volkswagen. The times they were a-changing.
I’ll talk more about my own adventures with early VW Beetles in the next chapter.
Michael Lamm grew up in South Texas. He’s always loved cars and, after graduating from Columbia University in New York in 1959, took a job as editor of Foreign Car Guide, a magazine about VWs. In the mid 1960s, Mike became managing editor of Motor Trend and, in 1970, he co-founded Special-Interest Autos magazine in partnership with Hemmings Motor News. In 1978, Mike began to publish his own line of automotive books. For more information, go to www.LammMorada.com.