Even our car hobby felt her wrath last year, and now recently in 2021, then surely again and again. Last winter, part of Highway 1, south of Big Sur at Rat Creek, plunged into the Pacific again. This summer, the Nürburgring and Spa-Francorchamps tracks need repairs from flooding and the Ring is now used as … Continue reading “Mother Earth is Having Hot Flashes”
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Looking back at the annual invasion by the classic car industry in Monterey CA in August 2019 after the events were cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic — Monterey Car Week will never be the same again. I was lucky to be invited back to the Monterey Car Week in 2019. But complaining again … Continue reading “Has the Monterey Car Week Madness Peaked?”
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It’s been five years since my MG-TC went to New Zealand so it is time for an update about the rest of my hobby. The jaunty pre-war style, right-hand drive MG started my collection in 1975 but the era for enjoying vintage motoring around here has become more dangerous than fun. The collector car market … Continue reading “Crossing the Car Collector’s Finish Line Near the End of a Golden Era”
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Old Cars features a reader’s ’57 Chevy four-door that has been by its owner’s side since 1963.
Joe Griffiths still has the ’57 Chevy that his grandpa gave him way back in 1963.
“This car was given to me by my grandpa in early 1963. I was stationed at Great Lakes Naval station in Illinois awaiting orders to report to Camp Pendleton California. After receiving my orders I drove the car to California and would drive up to L.A. on the weekends were I would show it off cruising Hollywood boulevard with some of my buddies from the base. After a couple of months I meet my wife to be and we dated driving around going to the beach and just enjoying each other’s company. We still drive around in it today after 60 years of marriage. So this car has a special place in our hearts as well as our two children and grand children.”
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Old Cars features a reader’s barn find to beautiful 1939 Diamond T 406 truck.
Gary Unverzagt’s impressive ‘barn find” to beauty queen 1939 Diamond T 406 truck.
Gary added this about his Diamond T…
“It was a barn find, out of West Virginia. It was in pretty rusty condition. I am a retired firefighter and work on old vehicles in my shop about 40 to 45 hours a week. I do all the work myself for the exception of final paint and upholstery. The Diamond T was a frame-off, nut and bolt restoration. I rebuilt the motor, transmission and rear and there were a lot of missing parts that were unable to be gotten and had to be made in my shop. I designed and built the wooden body with no previous wood experience. Because it only goes 40 miles per hour top speed and 10 miles per gallon, I have to trailer going on far away shows.
The original diamond t truck stoped being built in the sixties. Diamond T trucks were bought out by Rio in the sixties. Not to build, but to put them out of business. In their time they were the Cadillac of trucks, headliners and clocks.
I am currently working on a 1949 diamond T with all the modern conveniences.”
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Old Cars features a reader’s 1942 Hudson Traveler Business coupe.
Warren Henderson finally found the Hudson of his dreams.
“Back in 1956 when I was fifteen, my older brother Paul was in the Navy, stationed at Brunswick Naval Air Station, Brunswick, Maine. He asked dad to find him his first car. What dad found was the most beautiful car I had ever seen. Now I had seen plenty of great cars before in my young life. My dad had owned a 1932 Nash Lafayette big six, four door sedan, then a ‘38 Dodge four door sedan, a ‘40 Buick Special four door sedan, a 1953 Pontiac station wagon and now his first ever new 1956 Pontiac Station Wagon; I have two brothers and two sisters, requiring big cars to fit us all in. My uncle George owned a 1934 Hudson Terraplane coupe, that I can still see in my mind’s eye, Aunt Ann and him pulling up in front of our house and getting out those suicide front doors. What dad found was a 1940 Hudson sedan, in beautiful black paint, that shined like a mirror, I love the body on those cars, especially the back (no humpback, like the ’38 Dodge). The interior was every bit as nice as any living room I had ever seen, and the back seat was more comfortable than any couch I ever sat on. This was a low mileage car and dad got it for a good price, the only problem with the car was it needed a new oil bath cork clutch, which meant dropping the drive tube and pulling the transmission to get at it. Oh, did I forget to say that I was no mechanic, I was working alone, and this was the first car I was going to work on. My “garage” was an open field across the road from our house. My lift would be the Hudson’s bumper jack and my jack stands were stones from a nearby stone wall (Hey! I was 15 remember). So, with no knowledge “don’t ask me how I managed to accomplish this”, because even to this day I do not know. Somehow using a Motor’s Auto Repair Manual, working afternoons after high school, I managed to get the transmission out, install the new clutch and get the car back together running like new. I can say that only because my brother Paul never had a complaint about how it ran.
Ever since that day I have always wanted a vintage 1940s Hudson car, and after over 35 years in the classic car hobby, I finally bought one, the car of my dreams a 1942 Hudson Six Traveler two-doo, 3-passenger coupe. I find the ‘42s better looking than even the 1940s, with their new grille and side trim.
In 1942 Hudson made several positive changes and upgrades. Sheet metal “spats” on the lower body now covered the running boards and new wider front and rear fenders, the doors were now curved to minimize their prominence. If you are into driving 1930s and ’40s cars, Hudson was a technical leader of that era and drove very well. Braking, often a complaint of vintage car owners, is not an issue with Hudson’s Double-Safe system, a longstanding tradition of retaining a backup mechanical system linked to the brake pedal, in the event of a hydraulic failure. Wagner Electric invented a dual-cylinder brake system in 1960. This system has a dual master cylinder separating front and rear hydraulic lines. If one line developed a leak, the other line could still work. Double-Safe is especially welcome in vehicles with single-reservoir master cylinders, as all Hudson’s were.
My ’42 Hudson Six Traveler (I believe it was built around the end of October or early November in 1941), is a matching numbers (VIN#, engine# and frame#) and has all its trim pieces chrome plated or bright medal, something that they did not carry through for the remainder of the model year. The six-cylinder Hudson was by far the most often chosen engine option for the 1942, of which only 40,661 were produced. Any 1942 model car is quite rare, but the blackout models are even more rare. Only 5,396 1942 Hudson’s were built, during the war. The “blackout models”, also sometimes referred to as “victory models”, were the cars built on and after January 1, 1942. My Hudson looks and drives the exact same way as the day it left the dealership. Showing a recent total restoration, unfortunately the dealership did not have any documentation as to when or who had done the work. My 1942 Hudson 20T business coupe road test, starting from a stop 1st, 2nd, 3rd gear shifts, speed bumps, steep grade and flat road, just like driving on old Route 66.
Check out the video of the drive
I hope you enjoy my 1942 Hudson story as much as I enjoy owning and driving it.
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Old Cars features a reader’s award-winning 1957 Plymouth Belvedere convertible.
John Paxos’ Belvedere is a sharp award-winning convertible.
John can give you the 4-1-1 on his sweet Plymouth…
” This car was found in Texas in 2000. The car had off-frame restoration that was completed in 2007. It received AACA First Junior, and Senior awards and was selected AACA National Award Winner in 2019. The car is powered by the V-800 Fury engine with two four-barrel carbs, 3/4 race cam and 290 horsepower.”
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Here’s a little information about the beautiful 1953 Bristol 404 Coupe which was on display at the 2022 Concours of Elegance. What a beautiful looking car. What lovely lines. A very odd fin at the back of the car. Have you ever seen a car like this. You can see more Concours of Elegance news, reviews, videos and galleries here.
Created in parallel with the Le Mans class-winning Bristol 450, the 404 was a showcase for the best technologies of the day and a rolling showcase of Bristol’s engineering principles.
Just 52 Bristol 404s were made and this is the first – the original prototype. Prior to the current owner, there have been seven stewards of this fascinating car: the first, Sir George Stanley Middleton White, Chairman of Bristol Cars, who retained the car as his personal transport for over a decade. He insisted that the fin remained in place, even though it was judged “a little too flamboyant” for Bristol’s typical clients. Indeed the current Sir George White fondly remembers being driven to and from prep school in RAE 345, with its huge rear fin, recalling that it dramatically elevated his kudos and street credibility among his schoolboy peers.
RAE 345 played a key role in testing the aero fin potential for the 450 racers and road-going 404s that followed. The lower body mixed aluminium and steel, with a honeycomb sandwich construction for the rear floor, while the upper structure formed a canopy from a wooden framework and door pillars, with the whole encased in aluminium. The design for the nose of the car itself taken from the air intakes of the Brabazon Airliner – behind which sat eight 2650bhp engines, rather more than the 105bhp in the road car.
Aero engineering and racing nous found their way into the road cars – Bristol’s trademark installation of the spare wheel and battery in the front wings, first seen on the 404, were prompted by the desire to centralise mass, occupying the space created for the fuel tanks in the 450 racers.
This vehicle became a very familiar sight across Bristol’s huge Filton site because as well as Sir George’s daily transport, the car was used as a test bed and experimental platform. It went to and from Bristol’s aeronautical and automotive engineering departments for engine upgrades, braking enhancements and other tweaks. All these developments were documented in the factory service records and many of the innovative parts fitted, such as the short-ratio gearbox, remain on the car to this day.
When the car eventually left the family in 1965 the fin was removed. Fortunately the mounting brackets and internal structures remained, so with reference to many period images and drawings, and with the benefit of modern CAD technology, the fin was reinstated and constructed by hand in the traditional manner.
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Recently I was surfing facebook and I saw a comment on a car show promotors’ facebook group that was extremely
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