ClassicCar

If it is a 21 series it is rare, according to the records held by Lou Bird, I have the only 21 series two door brougham on his register here in Australia with 28K original miles on speedo.



The interior upholstery does not look original to me, definately different to mine,colour of material is different on the back of the front seat, has a different horn button to mine as is the steering wheel, may have been a 20 series with all the extras fitted, I don't believe they ever came out painted black.



The more I look at this car it is definately not a 21 series brougham.

I think your spot on there Harry54.Don't see them too often do you especially down under, mine is the only one ever to hit our shores.

We had a 1942 Hudson pick-up and there were only 67 commercial vehicles made by Hudson that year. Chuck G.

harry54 wrote:

Has anyone ever taken an inventory of surviving 42's ?

Clinton Webb, former HET President, keeps the roster on '42's.

Oops, sorry and thanks for that Russell, getting old, was talking to Clinton at Pontiac who sent me the register. Don't know how I got Lou Bird mixed up with this.

46HudsonPU wrote:

I agree, this is a rare vehicle - most likely less than a dozen 1942 two-door sedans in existence (if one were to truly & accurately be able to count them).

Which brings up a related question - Has any organization, assocation, club, etc., (i.e., AACA, etc..) come up with a formula, methodology, or determining factor to rate a vehicle as 'rare', hard-to-find, 'one-of-a-kind', etc.?
A person would think that "One of a kind" should be obvious, but depending upon the context and your point of view, that is not always the case...

Seems to me that these and other descriptive terms are used much too often these days to describe what would otherwise be considered a run-of-the-mill classic car that's only 'claim-to-fame' is that it is 25+years old... An example of this would be most 60's Mustangs - you can't spit at a car show without seeing a half dozen or more of them, yet you are sure to hear - "This is the only one produced in the 3rd week of June in 1966 that was painted purple with green stripes & had an aqua interior, 3-speed manual, 6 cyl, power steering and manual brakes!" or some such...
"Yup, that MUST have been the only one (?) - Sure glad YOU found it!" (instead of my spouse :rolleyes: )

LOL!! That's funny, and so accurate, Rick. As far as Hudsons go, with the surviving examples being such a small percentage of vehicles originally produced, I always tell everyone that ANY Hudson is a rare one (especially compared to the ubiquitous Mustang).

As an ancillary historical story some of you might find interesting, I once had a '42 C8 conv. (& how many of those have you seen?). I won't go into all the details of how I got it etc., but it had been bought new by the owner of a chain of drive in movies in '43. When I acquired it with it was the original registration listing the owner as a man name Ford with an L. A. address. I found him listed & called to verify the story that came with the car - this would have been circa '75.

He obviously applied "juice" or knew someone, but he said that right after WW 2 began the gov't. impounded all the new cars sitting in showroom floors (at least in big cities like L. A.?). The ones in the L. A. area were put in a big warehouse downtown. You had to get a gov't. permit to buy one & he obviously did & got permission to go to this warehouse & pick out a car. He spotted the blue '42 Hudson conv. & bought it.

It was found at one of his drive-ins in the L. A. area by a "car person", went thru a few hands in a few weeks 'til I was able to get it. When I got it it had a lot of miles on it, had had an NOS replacement engine put in, but the body was totally rust-free, etc.

I believe it now belongs to an HET member in Mich. name Glen Kellogg & understand he finished the resto I began.

Hope you find this of some interest.

Russell - should would be interesting to know how many '42 conv. made & I'm surprised that many '42 C8s known to exist!

Huddy42 & Pete-

That would be great to know, but model breakdown has yet to be found for Hudson production.

However, I can add that total published figures for 1942 were 40,661.
Production began on July 21, 1941 and ended on Feb. 5, 1942.

All other information aside, and based on typical practices of the day, typically 2% of total production would have been the very top of the line model, which would be the 42C8Cv, which translates to about 800 (see below).

As an interesting aside, there were actually 28 different models available for '42. This does not include commercial models except for the wagon (series 21). 40,661 total cars divided by 28 different models represents 1452 of each model. We all know full well that as many convertibles weren't made as 4DR sedans, or other more marketable models, etc.

Based on the above, my best educated guess about total production 42C8Cv's would be in the 200 range. Might be somewhat high, give or take . . . really hard to tell. 200 is not a bad # considering that nearly 41,000 cars were made in a very short production year (nearly 8 months).

If I had my druthers, my next car would be no other than a 42C8Cv. I think they're simply gorgeous, and I've always been partial to 42's, in general.

Is that Glen's? Looks just like Ken Poynter's 42C6Cv.

OOpss! I just drooled on the keyboard . . . yuck!

that's the one I used to own. Guess someone along the line didn't like the authentic dark blue leather interior I'd had put in it.

Sure a beauty! Could I get a copy sent so I could put in the Hudson 8 site?

Peter K... Right click the image and download it to your computer.
Then you can upload same to your site.

Les - do you have any other pics of the '42 C8 conv.? If so, my e-mail address is: oldhudsons@aol.com & I'd sure like to see them.

Guess I missed talking with you at Pontiac?

Pete

Thanks, Les for the photo. If you could send me a copy to my e-mail, I sure would appreciate it. The photos here on the forum are kinda small when you try and take them off.

Sure is a beauty!