1949 Hudson Commodore

1949 Hudson Commodore

Taking my former neighbor Warren for a spin.

This is one of the most interesting cars I've ever owned for a number of reasons. For one, it's just kind of cool - it's a Hudson! It's also the oldest car I've ever owned to date. It's also basically the same iconic car that was used in the movie Driving Miss Daisy, as the seller was keen to point out.

It showed up on the list for Mecum Houston a number of years ago and I kind of got enamored with it. Something about it just kept pulling me back as I looked over the list of 1000 or so cars leading up to the auction. The color and condition had a lot to do with it, but I also got it in my head that it was the same car my father had once owned when he was young. I might have overpaid a bit, but I wanted it to come home with me.

I later discovered, after doing some research on this only picture of my father's old Hudson, that his car was in fact a Hornet and not a Commodore. Regardless, they're very similar and it still held quite a lot of sentimental value for me.

Unfortunately, it also had a 3-speed on-the-column clutch that I hated. Branelle drove my brother and me up to the auction to pick up my new toys and dropped us off. He drove a newer Mercedes that I had purchased and I took the Hudson. I made it about a mile before realizing that the clutch just wasn't going to make a 30 mile trip across Houston. I called a wrecker and had it towed to my mechanic.

The clutch, seen above, had to be rebuilt. It utilized cork as the pressure plate. I'd never even heard of that! This clutch cost me $5000 and it still was a pain to drive.

Clutch issues aside, this car had been expertly restored by the previous owner and was gorgeous to look at inside and out. I'd like to post about 30 pictures of it and call it a day but I'll just pick a few and finish up.

The interior was better than new. Ah, the old metal dashboards. Back in this era, car interiors were basically all metal, leather, and wood - no plastic bits.

The restorers had done a great job refinishing all of the parts in and out of the car. The chrome refinish bill alone must have been huge! There are some parts on old cars like this one that can't be replicated though. On the Commodore most of these parts had little ships on them, like this ivory shift handle with the ship inlaid in the ivory. If you're restoring an old car and you don't have these parts, or they're not salvageable, your only option is to search around or hit the swap meets at places like Hershey or Carlisle.

No worries about being able to stretch your legs out in the back seat of this one. 

Driving Miss Nelly (and miss Samantha)! Unlike some of my other purchases, everyone loved the Hudson. Nel, my friends, and even my neighbors all thought it was a pretty sweet ride.

The previous owners had even done a great job restoring the engine compartment. This car had the inline-6, which was the smaller engine option for a Hudson in '49. It was extremely slow, but I don't think it was supposed to be anything but a cruiser.

I owned this car during what I like to refer to as "The Dark Ages" of my car collecting history. We moved into Brook Forest and had only a three car garage. That doesn't sound that bad but the house we moved from had garage space for 30+ cars. Everything basically had to go into a warehouse that I owned, which means things just sat around. I would keep three "fun" cars at the house at a time. We've moved since and now have a comfortable eight garage spaces and options close by for storing more cars. I would imagine at the time that there wasn't another garage on earth that had this exact combination of cars in it. My tastes are rather eclectic.  

I kept this car for a while, but I didn't really enjoy it while I had it. It just wasn't a fun car to drive in modern traffic. The clutch was iffy and finding gears was a challenge. You would sort of dread missing lights and really fear getting stuck in heavy traffic. I finally parted with it and the buyer was an older gentleman from Kentucky that drove down with a trailer to pick it up. The trailer wasn't wide enough for the car, and I told him that, but I helped him load it up creatively and wished him well on his journey. I hope the car made it and I hope it's still cruising around somewhere putting smiles on people's faces.