The "Fabulous" Hudson Hornet

My very first car, a 16th birthday present from my parents, was like a "dream come true".  Not only was it a Hudson (my very favorite automobile for obvious reasons), but it was a convertible as well.  Alas, the gift was "de-activated" two days later, after a speeding ticket in downtown Le Mars.  (Needless to say, my Dad was not happy!)  So, for two whole gut-wrenching weeks, the car sat in the showroom at "the shop" if only to remind me of my transgression.  (Grandpa secretly paid the fine, which to this day, I don't think anyone else ever knew!  😀

Well, that was my first "story" about my fabulous Hudson Hornet.  Story #2 didn't have quite the happy ending as the first.  The above photo is my car parked in our driveway in SE Le Mars.  Notice that hill that it's parked on?  Well, that "little incline" caused quite a ruckus in our neighborhood in the spring of 1961.  

Forgetting my saxophone, I quickly drove home to retrieve it.  Putting the hydro-matic gearshift down in to reverse, I ran into the house to get my horn.  All of a sudden, I hear this scream from my Mother, "Darrell, your car..."!  Well, my Hudson was sitting inside the bedroom of the house across the street.  Not good!  Just to top off an already rotten day, my Dad and our insurance agent just happened to be coming to the house for "coffee" that morning!  Oh boy!

Keith Sullivan, who owned the house, operated a bakery in Le Mars.  He actually took it pretty well, saying that "accidents happen", not mentioning the fact that teenagers sometimes have empty spaces between their ears.  One other funny thing:  my Mother had called the shop, of course, on multiple occasions through the years; but that day, she couldn't remember the number.  It was 104!!

This shows the steep incline of the driveway.  The Hudson weighed about 4200 lbs., and it hit the house pretty hard.  The Hudson suffered a few scratches and a broken taillight.  We won't go in to the damage to the Sullivan's house.  

Before recounting another of "Darrell's Hudson stories", are there any NASCAR fans out there?  Well, if so, you might be surprised to know that the Hudson Hornet was a leading race car for NASCAR in 1951, 1952, and 1953.  With drivers Marshall Teague and Herb Thomas, Hudson won 13 races in '51; 49 in '52, and 46 in '53.  They weren't too fast off the line due to the weight, but they could "fly" on the open road.  

This is a perfect lead-in to my next story.  Highway 75 is 4-lane between Le Mars and Sioux City, as it's been since the mid-1950's.  My friend, Denny Criswell, and I were coming home from Sioux City late afternoon one summer day when a '59 Cadillac zoomed by us.  My teenage brain decided to not let this new Cadillac get the best of my Hudson.  As we begin to gain on him, he sped up.  So did I.

Denny looked over at the speedometer and said, "Darrell, do you realize that the needle is over in the heat gauge?"  I hadn't, because I wasn't about to take my eyes off that highway...and that Cadillac.  We finally slowed down as we neared Le Mars' city limits, with him still in the lead..but not by much.  😡  Denny and I pulled in to the Dairy Queen on Highway 75, a local hangout, and the Cadillac did a u-turn and parked next to us.  He simply said, "What kind of an engine do you have in there?"  I replied, "It's a standard straight-6 cylinder."  

Being very skeptical, he bet malted milks for me and my friends (who had gathered in the front) that it was not a 6-cylinder.  When I lifted the hood, sure enough, it was a straight-6.  When he pointed out that I didn't mention the dual carburetors, I just said that he'd never asked.  Neither did I think it prudent to say that Eddie Martfield (a mechanic at the shop) had also added a Corvette camshaft.

One other quick story involves my Dad.  He too didn't care too much for other cars speeding by his Hudson.  Again, on Highway 75, this car came up on him real fast, went around him, and took off very fast.  Even the speed of a Hudson couldn't catch the other car.  All of a sudden, in the rear window of the other car, a lighted sign appeared:  "You've just been passed by a Tucker."  True story.  For those of you (probably many) who don't know the history of the Tucker automobile, watch the movie with Jeff Bridges.  It's called "Tucker:  The Man and His Dream".

My last story involves a "stolen car", the Le Mars police, and a few embarrassed girls from the Class of 1961.  At dance band practice, a few of our female classmates decided it would be fun to "hide" my car while we were practicing.  It took 5 or 6 of them to push the car a few blocks away!  When we came out of band practice, no Hudson!  We looked all over and couldn't find it, so we called the police.  In a bit of irony, as the girls were pushing the car away from the high school, an officer actually helped them push the car in to an alley.  They told him they had run out of gas.  No one wonder they located it so fast!!!   

The photo below is actually a picture of a replica that sits in my office.  When Kiley was a little girl, she would "sneak" in my office in Marion, and she would open the doors, the hood, and the trunk, then wait for me to go in and see it.  Her giggles gave her away!  

So many memories!  So much fun!  The Hudson Hornet disappeared forever after 1957.  My car was last seen in a farm field in South Dakota in the late '60's.  After my Dad died, we didn't have a place to store it, nor could we afford the expense.  It was sold by a friend of Grandpa's to a farmer.  Bill Williams was another mechanic at the shop who loved Hudsons, and he tracked it down.  It was not salvageable.

DAC

8/15/2020