Why On Earth Did You Buy a 1929 Hudson?

Hmmm. Good question. But there's no easy answer.

However, there is a pretty good story.

Cathy and I have been involved with old houses and historic preservation for as long as we've been married. Living in Pasadena, we now own our fourth old house. Built in 1908, it is the youngest house we've ever owned. Ever since we moved in, Cathy has wanted an old car to go with our old house. Her idea of an "old car" was quite undefined. The only thing she knew was that she wanted "a square car," which means, for practical purposes, not built after 1930. (That's when cars began to become streamlined.) Recently, we decided not to keep deferring her dream.

Now, almost every morning on my way to work, I drive past a small used car lot in Koreatown, near Staples Center, (Begin echo chamber effect.) "home of the world champion Los Angeles Lakers!" (End echo chamber effect.) Many months ago, an old "square car" turned up on that lot, with a price sign in the window of $19,230. That was far too much for a car in its condition (see "Koreatown car" below). So I let it pass. But recently, the sign was changed from "$19,230" to "$$9,230." They had lowered the price by $10,000 by changing the "1" to a second "$"! Now, at least, they were in a range where bargaining might be possible. So I stopped in and had a look at it. It was a 1929 Hudson. More than that, I didn't know. But it passed the "square car" test, and it looked like a cool car, although it needed a lot of work.

Enter the Internet. I began searching the internet, and found (why am I no longer surprised by these kind of things?) a list discussion dedicated to Hudsons of 1916 to 1929 vintage. I joined the group, and started asking a lot of questions, to find out what Hudsons were all about, and what might be a reasonable price for this car, and, in fact, what kind of a Hudson is it? (The latter turned out to be not a simple question.) The Hudson discussion group was a friendly bunch, and knowledgeable. They identified this particular car as a 1929 Standard Sedan. I learned enough from them that I got serious about the car. I went back to the dealer, armed with information I'd gathered on the "going price" of old Hudsons and a catalog of the car's ills that would require substantial expenditures to cure. I offered $5,500, contingent on the car passing an inspection by a mechanic. They came down as far as $6,500. So over the weekend, I found a mechanic and set up to meet him at the dealership on the next Tuesday noon. I called the dealer to confirm. And darned if someone hadn't offered $9,000 for the car! It was no longer on the market. (Small note: for months, the Standard Sedan remained on the dealer's lot, swathed in canvas to protect against the sun. It eventually disappeared in October. I wish the new owner good luck in his restoration of the car.)

So it was back to the drawing board. Cathy and I broadened our search both in terms of car types and geography. We went to old car shows. The Great Race Across America ended the summer of 2001 in Pasadena, just a few blocks from our house. So we went up to Colorado Boulevard (home of the Rose Parade) and looked at all those old cars. (A1916 Hudson race car took second this year, missing first place by only three seconds!) We went to old auto shows. And we kept looking on the Internet. We learned a lot. Mostly, we became convinced that we wanted a four-door sedan, not a two-door coupe with a rumble seat, or even a two-door sedan. We decided that a Model A Ford was too small for our tastes, even though Model A's are widely available. And that a Model T, while undeniably "square," was just too primitive for our tastes. We learned that old Packards are wonderful, but too pricey for our budget.

The more we searched, the better the late '20s Hudsons looked. We learned that they are relatively reliable, compared with other cars of that vintage. No real "Achilles Heel" mechanically. Fast and powerful -- capable of 80 mph when new, and presumably if well-restored. Uncommon enough to be interesting, but not so rare as to make parts availability a problem. (Side track: if we had wanted a car that was really unique, but impossible to maintain, we could have gone for a Phelps. Yes! A car of my own namesake! Phelps automobiles were built in Stoneham, Massachusetts from 1903 to 1905. A three-cylinder, 20 h.p. Phelps staked the first-ever claim to the official speed title for a climb up Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, 1 hour and 46 minutes for the 8-mile run. In the '30s, a Hudson owned the same record.)

At the same time, Paul O'Neil, moderator of the Hudson discussion list and owner of five old Hudsons, e-mailed me to let me know of another 1929 Hudson that was available, up in Raymond, Washington. It has been advertised on eBay, but didn't attract a bid high enough to meet the reserve price. We checked out the web site where it was described. It turned out to be a 1929 Town Sedan, a more upscale sedan than the Standard Sedan we'd been considering earlier. Paul also owned a '29 Town Sedan -- one of only a dozen or so still in existence in the US. He kindly offered to let us come down and look at his car, in Fullerton, CA. He even let us drive it a bit. We were hooked! Then we flew up to Portland, OR, rented a car, and drove up to look at the car in Washington. It was beautiful! The current owner had done a show-quality job of refinishing the paint on most of the body, and the upholstery had all been restored to factory-new quality. It still needed quite a bit of work -- actually a lot more mechanical work than we had envisioned. But it had all the makings of a great vehicle for us.

And that's why we are now happy owners of a 1929 Hudson Town Sedan.