The Hudson Motor Car Company made Hudson and other branded automobiles in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., from 1909 until 1954. In 1954, Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator to form American Motors Corporation (AMC). The Hudson name was continued through the 1957 model year, after which it was discontinued.
Company strategy
The name "Hudson" came from Joseph L. Hudson, a Detroit department store entrepreneur and founder of Hudson's department store, who provided the necessary capital and gave permission for the company to be named after him. A total of eight Detroit businessmen formed the company on February 20, 1909, to produce an automobile which would sell for less than US$1,000 (equivalent to approximately $ in funds).
One of the lead "car men" and an organizer of the company was Roy D. Chapin Sr., a young executive who had worked with Ransom E. Olds. (Chapin's son, Roy Jr., would later be president of Hudson-Nash descendant American Motors Corporation in the 1960s). The company quickly started production, with the first car driven out of a small factory in Detroit on July 3, 1909, at Mack Avenue and Beaufait Street on the East Side of Detroit, occupying the old Aerocar factory.
The new Hudson "Twenty" was one of the first low-priced cars on the American market and became successful with 4,508 sold the first year. This was the best first year's production in the history of the automobile industry and put the newly formed company in 17th place industry-wide, "a remarkable achievement at a time" when there were hundreds of makes being marketed.
Successful sales volume required a larger factory. A new facility was built on a parcel at Jefferson Avenue and Conner Avenue in Detroit's Fairview section that was diagonally across from the Chalmers Automobile plant. The land was the former farm of D.J. Campau. It was designed by the firm of renowned industrial architect Albert Kahn with 223,500 square feet and opened on October 29, 1910. Production in 1911 increased to 6,486. For 1914, Hudsons for the American market were now left hand drive.
Coachbuilder Fisher Body Co. built bodies for Hudson cars (as well as many other automotive marques) until they were bought out by General Motors in 1919. From 1923, Hudson bodies were built exclusively by Massachusetts company Biddle and Smart. The lucrative contract with Hudson would see Biddle and Smart buy up many smaller local coachbuilders to meet the Hudson demand. Peak shipments came in 1926, when the company delivered 41,000 bodies to Hudson. An inability to stamp steel meant that their products were made using aluminum.
On 1 July 1926, Hudson's new US$10 million ($ in dollars ) body plant was completed where the automaker could now build the all-steel closed bodies for both the Hudson and Essex models. Biddle and Smart continued to build aluminum body versions of the Hudson line and were marketed by Hudson as "custom-built" although they were exactly the same as the steel-body vehicles. With Hudson now building in-house, Biddle and Smart saw their work for Hudson drop by 60%. From 1927 Hudson gradually began to utilize local coachbuilders Briggs Manufacturing Company and Murray Corporation of America to supplement Hudson's own production which was expanding domestically and internationally. With car prices falling due to the Great Depression and the costs to transport vehicles from Massachusetts to Detroit becoming too expensive, the contract with Biddle and Smart was terminated in 1930, and Biddle and Smart went out of business shortly thereafter.
At their peak in 1929, Hudson and Essex produced a combined 300,000 cars in one year, including contributions from Hudson's other factories in Belgium and England; a factory had been built in 1925 in Brentford in London. Hudson was the third largest U.S. car maker that year, after Ford Motor Company and Chevrolet.