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My work has appeared in a number of major publications either as writer, photographer, or source. I enjoy talking about all things automotive. Recent Posts
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CarSpace Hudson's BlogAll around the car world there are stories and these are just a few of them. A new blog is posted every Monday. Sometimes more often. Jan 21, 2008 - Car AuctionsIt's that week again. That week in January where I plop myself down in front of the tube with an A-Treat soda in one hand, pretzel sticks in the other, and both eyes glued to the Speed Channel for another 40 hours of auction coverage...the Barrett-Jackson auction from Scottsdale. Back in 1990, FNN (the Financial News Network...now CNBC) covered this auction for one Sunday afternoon and it was wonderful. Watching some of my dream cars like the Ford GT40 roll across the block and sell for, as I recall, right around a million dollars each; there were two that sold to the same person for a combined total of $1.9 million. And this was in the days before the Muscle Car boom. Now the true classics and exotics have been replaced by 1950s American classics and 1960s muscle cars. It's still an exciting event, especially now with SIX DAYS of coverage. But I wish the hosts were better at describing the vehicles (they sometimes don't know details that they should know before the car reaches the auction block like what engine's under the hood) and I wish the directors showed more cars instead of long boom shots of people parading in and out of the auction. And I wish the vehicles were more interesting. Sure, a Hemi Cuda is a great car just like a Yenko Nova or a Shelby Mustang. But on TV, it's just a Plymouth or Chevrolet or Ford. The occasional Packard or Kaiser Darrin or pre-War anything stands out above these modern vehicles that were basically everyday drivers with rare powertrains. But this weekend, I actually got up from my easy chair to see a live auction. Not too far from home, an auction featuring a variety of oddball and interesting vehicles was held. About 60 vehicles in all were there. And not one featured a 426cid Hemi V8. Actually some of them featured engines with substantially less than 60 cubic inches of displacement. I don't get up early for many things, but a good car event will make be part from my bed. And this one required that I get up around six...something I don't even do for work. The early start was required to see the auction items before the 9 o'clock sale. We arrived at the auction site only to find that the cars were at another site about a mile away. We checked out the parts and automobilia that was on sale which numbered in the thousands! There were pallets and crates of stuff...parts and tools and supplies collected over many decades. Steering wheels in various states and doors dating back to the 1920s and various parts that only a model specific expert would be able to identify. After quickly checking out the parts, we headed across town to where the vehicles were stored. The Hatfield Auto Museum had about 50 cars on display and ready for auction. Only two or three looked to be in a state to be driven away and the rest would have had to have been hauled. The relatively common vehicles were a late-1990s Ford Taurus SHO, 1970s-vintage Mercedes-Benz S-Class, and a 1960s Mercury Comet Caliente. Oh, and there were the two Volkswagen Beetles, two Volkswagen Buses, and one Volkswagen Vanagon, none of which could be driven in their current state. But the reason I was there was to see the oddball cars. And this place had them: four Isettas, two Bianchinas, a Saab Sonnet III, no fewer than seven "bugeye" Austin-Healey Sprites, a Mini Moke, a Goggomobil, and a Austin Bantam van, just to name a few. Oh, I was in heaven. Maybe it wasn't heaven since I would have bought one or ten in my heaven, but it was a fun Saturday afternoon. If you're a fan of odd little cars, check out my pictures from the auction. I'm trying to find out what some of these vehicles sold for but I'm not entirely sure if I want to know. What if I should have purchased one? The license plates at the auction site which ranged from Connecticut to Virginia and the fact that the auction was being offered on eBay as well makes me think that nothing went cheap.
Dec 8, 2007 - Hudson's Book Club: Holiday EditionI've decided to take advantage of my prime location among CarSpace's bloggers and use my influence in much the way that Oprah does on her little TV show. Sure, she has somewhere around 7 million viewers and I've got somewhere around 30 readers each week, but I'm trying to convince myself that I've got the same kind of influence as the aforementioned media queen. Like Ms. Winfrey, I'm starting my own little "book club" and just in time for the holidays! This month, I'm pulling two books from the archives: a classic and an overlooked gem. In the 1990s, there were a series of books written on various automotive topics. In each of these tomes, the writer became part of the story and embedded themselves (much like their braver cohorts did in warzones before) as the main characters went about their daily routine. And some great books came out of this first-hand, in-depth reporting. Probably the most noteworthy of this group is James Schefter's "All Corvettes are Red" (Simon & Schuster, 1997). It follows the development, from nearly day one, of the "fifth generation" Corvette. The starts and stops of the process of developing the next-generation of one of the world's most famous models are covered. While every car nut knows that the world-class "sixth generation" Corvette has been in production for a few years now, the landmark "fifth generation" model generated such a great story that this book remains a very important work. If you like Corvettes, General Motors, engineering, bureaucracy, the auto industry, or just the development product in general, this is a must-read book. Less well known than "All Corvettes" is my other choice. And a little background may be necessary. I was at the annual banquet for the Society of Automotive Historians in the mid 1990s when I struck up a conversation with another attendee. Our conversation rambled around our various automotive interests and somehow centered on our common affection for Subaru products. My fellow historian mentioned a book that I just had to read. So as soon as I could get to Gene's Books (don't look for it, Borders killed it years ago), I picked up a copy. The book is Randall Rothenberg's "Where the Suckers Moon" (Knopf, 1994). Where Mr Schefter followed the development of a particular model, Mr Rothenberg followed the development of a particular advertising campaign, in this case Subaru's search for a new advertising firm. In the advertising world, an automotive client ranks up there among the most elusive goals. If you have one automotive client, your company has reached a certain level of status among your peers. Car companies spend billions on advertising each year in the United States and there are relatively few of these brands spending that money. This could be compared to an everyday Joe/Jane marrying a supermodel...many Joe/Janes out there looking for those precious few Heidi Klums or Cindy Crawfords. So the competition is fierce. And Subaru was courted by many of the big names and a few of the aspiring big names in the business. The tales of what these companies would do to woo a "supermodel" (even an aspiring one like Subaru) go a long way to showcase what goes on before "What to Drive" hits the airwaves. There's a brief history of Subaru at the beginning of this book, but the rest of the book goes into the search for a new ad firm and the results of that company's creative developments. It's definitely the book for those hard-to-shop for car fans on your holiday shopping list. I've got other books in my library that I'd like to tell you about, but I'll leave that for a future edition of.... Hudson's Book Club!
Nov 26, 2007 - It's a Fact...But It's WrongEver have a conversation with someone and they try to impress you with their automotive knowledge? It must happen with every hobby or interest: someone "knows" a fact about a subject and uses it to impress another person who actually lives the subject. Car people have to be among the most vulnerable to this type of confrontation because everybody knows about cars and many people have some hidden "fact" about them. I use the quotes because many people think they know something about this subject but it usually turns out that someone told them this "fact" and either told it to them wrong or the listener fell prey to the misplaced adjective, thereby invalidating the initial "fact." It happens all the time to me. I've learned (or tried to) that you need to be careful with the feelings of others in these circumstances. Many people have lived the better parts of their lives knowing something to be fact when it is actually partially true or a complete fabrication. Kids usually start these types of urban myths because they didn't fully appreciate the subtle modifier used when they were first taught the "fact." We've all been a victim of a half-truth. With automotive knowledge, and especially automotive history knowledge, I become a stickler. I always want to be the teacher (when I know the subject), but I have to limit myself so that I won't become the "know-it-all" that everybody hates. I fear becoming Cliff Clavin from "Cheers." I also worry that kids growing up in the automotive hobby might actually believe some of these half-truths and, as Steve Martin once called them, "made up facts." Here are some of the "facts" I've been told by various people over the years: Henry Ford invented the automobile - The first Ford Motor Company car was built in 1903 and the first car built by Henry Ford puttered around the streets of Dearborn in 1896, but most people who claim this "fact" think the Model T was the first car. My first thought is always "why would they start with 'T' and why not start with 'A'?" Of course, the first practical Otto-engined automobile was the 1886 Benz but many historians date the origins of the automobile to the 1769 Cugnot Steam Tractor. Arguments can even be made that Leonardo diVinci designed the first automobile well before that, even though he didn't build one. Ford invented the assembly line - Henry Ford did much for the automobile industry and for the industrialization of the United States, but many of his triumphs are exaggerated by people who hear half of the actual claims. Henry Ford adapted the moving assembly line to automotive production. His assembly line was developed from the production of guns which used many of the same techniques. Even the claim that the Model T was the first mass produced vehicle is wrong (or depends on your definition of "mass production") since the first mass produced automobile is generally thought to be the 1901 "Curved Dash" Olds. Volkswagen was the first US transplant - This is actually the claim that got me thinking of this subject. In a recent editorial, a well-respected automotive writer made this statement referring to the 1978 opening of the New Stanton plant in Pennsylvania. Volvo had been producing cars in Canada for years prior to the beginning of Rabbit production, but this claim is for production in the United States. Among the car companies who produced cars in the US prior to the New Stanton plant was Rolls-Royce who produced vehicles in Springfield, Massachusetts, starting in 1919; about 3,000 were produced before the plant shut down during the Great Depression. Various other manufacturers had operations in the US including Benz, Napier, and Fiat prior to World War II. Chevrolet's first V8 was in 1955 - Everyone knows that the small block Chevrolet V8 started production in 1955. And most GM and Chevrolet aficiandoes will tell you that Chevrolet had no V8 prior to that which is why the first two model years of the Corvette had six-cylinder engines only. But only the best Chevrolet fans will tell you about the 1917 OHV V8 engine that Chevrolet produced. The 288cid OHV Series D V8 engine produced 36hp and about 3,000 were produced between 1917 and 1919. Between 1919 and 1955, Chevrolet sold only four- and six-cylinder cars until the introduction of the famous small block V8. Ford's first Model A was introduced after the Model T - This is one of those trick questions that automotive historians like. When production of the Model T ended in 1927, Henry Ford introduced his next model and instead of calling it the Model U, he decided to call it the Model A. But this wasn't the first time that name had been used. The first Ford production introduced in 1903 was also called the Model A. Of course the Model A was followed by the Model B and Model C and various other letters before reaching the world-famous Model T in 1908. More than 15 million cars were built by Ford between the first Model A and the 1927 Model A.
Sep 3, 2007 - The Ultimate Car Dream!Surfing through CarSpace the other day, I ran across this guy who is discussing his dream of starting a car company. He video blog addresses the people who have pointed him in different directions to design is production car. I admire his dedication to his dream and I wish him all the luck in the world. Because he'll need it. I've been a car person since I could express my fanaticism around age two. I started designing cars around age six. And I started designing my first car company when I was 10 or 12. Yes, I share the ultimate dream of many car fans. And I still have it today. But I have become realistic about my dream. Since I first developed the germ of an idea to build a car company, my car company has changed many times. Sometimes it changed because of sudden pangs of Henry Fordism where I wanted to build the car for the masses. Sometimes it changed because I wanted to build a better sports car than anyone else and put my name up there alongside Enzo and Ferruccio and the Brothers Maserati. (By the way, "Hudson" is just a pseudonym. I know there was a car with that name.) A few years ago, I was about to be in-between jobs. My employer was eliminating my office and I was going to need a new means of support. Having spent some time in the publishing field, I thought I'd start my own car magazine. I found the niche I wanted to cover and I was sure that I had access to some great writers. I was missing many parts of this puzzle and quite a bit of the knowledge that I knew I'd need, so I asked for help. After a few calls, I had David E. Davis on the phone. Mr. Davis launched Automobile magazine back in 1986. It will probably be the last successful mainstream car magazine launched in print form. He seemed like the best person to ask about this publishing attempt. And, besides, he was about to be "in between jobs" as well and maybe he'd be interested. Our discussion started with my idea. I wanted to launch an upscale car magazine; a sort of coffee table magazine like Architectural Digest or Cigar Afficianado for car fans. Something that would make Automobile look plebian, no offense to Mr. Davis' magazine. Mr. Davis continued by telling me just how much his magazine cost to launch. In 1986, Automobile cost $11 million to start. ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS?!?! I figured I'd rather start a car company with that money. And so it went. I planned out a car company that I could launch for far less than that $11 million price tag. I mentally designed a car. Ran spreadsheets to show the cost and projected sales of the company. In a perfect world, the company would be profitable in six years and would be debt free in ten. Alas, life got in the way and I moved the "company" to the back burner again. And it's not the only one back there. I have two or three other, ranging to $1 billion, companies sitting on that back burner. I'm counting on a Powerball win to move them to the front burners. But I was born in the wrong era. Had I been born 100 years earlier, I could have started a car company. Today, however, it's nearly impossible. A century ago, it was the wild west. There were no rules and anyone with the ability to tinker could put together a car or truck and get it into production. In the US alone, there were three or four thousand vehicle manufacturers prior to World War II. And nearly every concept was put into those vehicles. Radial engines, sleeve-valve designs, electric power, steam power, and various other engine designs hit the market. Three-wheelers, four-wheelers, six-wheelers, and even eight-wheelers were put into the field. Today, the car industry consists of simply internal combustion engines (diesel or gas) placed in the front (for the most part) of the car and driving (typically) two wheels. Nothing radical there. Sure, there are oddities like McLaren's highly exotic F1 which sat three with the driver in the middle. Mazda has their rotary (unlike radial) engine in the RX8. And a limited number of hybrid powertrains which use the tried-and-true gasoline engine as their primary motive force. But all of this homogenization is a necessary after effect of the world of vehicle regulations. In 1900, there were very few laws stating what could or could not be put into a car. Today, the car is rigidly defined and must conform to regluations that differ from country to country and even from state to state. Many of these regulations are improvements that I could not imagine a car not having. They also prevent the "small guy" from entering the industry. In the past 40 years, regulations have required seatbelts and air bags and crumple zones to protect us. Lighting and steering and braking improvements have made it much easier to drive safely. Emissions controls have literally removed 99% of the pollution from exhaust gases. And Europe is even working on protecting pedestrians from impacts. All of this comes at a cost. Two generations ago, car manufacturers radically changed their products each year. You could tell a 1955 Chevrolet from a 1956 Chevrolet from a 1957 or 1958 model because each one was quite distinct. Today, manufacturers need four to five years to get their money out of their investment. You can still tell differences in many cars by the detail changes, but, for the most part, the first year of a model is very similar to the fifth year of that model. And if multi-billion-dollar, multi-national corporations can't afford to change a million-unit vehicle more often than every five years, what makes you think that a start-up company could even afford to build ONE model? This is why it is generally believed that the automotive world will soon consolidate to six car companies. As he was preparing to leave Chrysler, Bob Lutz was talking over dinner to a bunch of journalists. He said that technology is improving to the point that automotive start-ups could work. I was quite skeptical but a year later, he outlined his "virtual" car company when he announced his plan to revive the Cunningham. I read all of the articles and I believe he's right and it is possible, even if Lutz abandoned the idea and went back to the big corporate automakers. All of these positive ideas followed by negative results has made me a skeptic. It has been my job to follow the goings-on in the industry so when someone would announce that they planned to launch a new automaker, I'd look into them. I've been given business plans for amateur attempts to lauch new car companies over the years. Some are basic, some are laughable. Oddly enough, the laughable ones are from the more experienced of these entrepreneurs. And then there are the companies that actually build a concept or prototype. There have been obvious flops along the way. The American Vector company was doomed when it took 15 years to get their first car produced, but the surprising part was that it took another decade for the company to fully collapse. A revival of the Packard nameplate seemed to be quite ambitious and ended with a failed auction of all the company's assets on Ebay. Romano Artioli's attempt to revive Bugatti was even more ambitious but also collapsed under the weight of all that hype. But the best ones are the ones who aim to change the world. The most memorable of this type was called Build-to-Order. Talk about hype, this company was going to do everything different. From building cars within days of an order to eliminating traditional dealerships, BTO was going to be the wave of the future. As a car nut and a fan of the underdog, I want these guys to win. But when you look into them, any reasonable mind will say that it's just not going to happen. BTO was this way...and has become a minor footnote in history. And I've got a list of dozens more in just the past 30 years. This doesn't count the hundreds or thousands of companies that American Cars Since 1775 called "cars that never turned a wheel" over the last 120 years or more. It's a great dream to have. I hope that some of them make it to the prototype stage. And that one of them actually makes it into production. This industry will always have conglomerates like Hyundai who decide to go into the automotive business, but I'm always rooting for another Lotus or Porsche who turns their automotive expertise into a road-going product that car fans can desire...and perhaps even drive. One day, maybe, I'll sit down with a multi-multi millionaire who likes cars and we'll discuss some of my concepts. And then, just maybe, my dream can come true. And maybe one of these blogs will win a Pulitzer Prize. Perhaps I'll find a cure for cancer. And then onto world hunger and world peace and intergalactic...
Aug 13, 2007 - The Reports of the Minivan's Death are Greatly ExaggeratedWhen I was a kid, most families had a station wagon. It was the symbol of family-mindedness. In the days before widespread use (and laws to enforce it) of child safety seats, having a station wagon told people that you had children. Most wagons held four or five, but the real station wagons held eight or nine. One or two seats in the cargo area of bigger station wagons allowed two or three kids to sit in the “way back.” Some seats faced each other but the way to go was for those seats to face backwards allowing the kids to make faces and hand gestures (like the international symbol for truck drivers to blow their horn) at the rest of the traffic. Chrysler’s last big wagon ended production in 1978 when their full-sized cars were downsized and offered only as sedans. GM and Ford kept the large wagon after their downsizing efforts in 1976 and 1978, respectively. Both GM and Ford offered three sizes of wagons in those days. For young families just starting out, GM had the Chevrolet Vega and Pontiac Astre/Sunbird wagons while Ford had the infamous Pinto and Mercury Bobcat. Mid-sized wagons were large enough in those days to offer rear seats as options. But at the top of the heap were the Chevrolet Caprice, Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser, Pontiac Bonneville Safari, Buick LeSabre Estate, Ford LTD, and Mercury Marquis…the big nine-passenger people haulers. And then the world changed in 1983. The ailing Chrysler Corporation introduced the “maximum space passenger car.” Advertising called it the “Magic Wagon” and corporate engineering called it the T-115, but everyone knows it as the minivan. Introduced as the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager, the minivan turned the marketplace on its ear. It was styled like the full-sized Dodge and Plymouth vans but on a 3/5 scale. Like its larger brethren, the minivans had removable seats in the second and third row for better cargo capacity and a sliding door on the passenger’s side for better access in tight quarters. Like the station wagons it would come to replace, it was based on a car powertrain for better gas mileage, it had relatively compact dimensions so it would fit in a garage, and a low center of gravity for better handling. Chrysler had an immediate success. The four-cylinder minivans got better gas mileage than the full-sized wagons from GM and Ford while still carrying up to seven passengers. GM and Ford were behind the times. GM introduced the Chevrolet Astro and GMC Safari while Ford brought out the Ford Aerostar. Instead of being “maximum space passenger cars,” the Big 2 came out with small vans. They were trucks, not cars. Sales were good for GM and Ford, but not the overwhelming success that the minivans were for Chrysler. Traditionally an “also ran,” Chrysler held more than half of the marketplace for this new type of vehicle even after Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, and Mitsubishi joined the fray. It took a few years before the other manufacturers actually understood what a minivan was. GM introduced the “dustbuster” minivans in 1989. Nissan and Mercury teamed up to sell the Quest and Villager starting in 1992. Ford followed with the Windstar in 1994. Chrysler had the corner on this market for over ten years before Toyota and Honda actually introduced similar minivans, and still Chrysler held the lead. Aside from the Toyota Sienna and Honda Odyssey, Chrysler has had no serious competition in this market for nearly a quarter century. This segment sells about a million vehicles a year in North America and three manufacturers make up nearly all of it. Sure GM still makes minivans and Hyundai and Kia have tossed their hats into the ring, but the Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country remain the best-selling and third best-selling nameplates in this field. And everyone is proclaiming the death of the minivan. Minivans have acquired a bad reputation. It’s not because of anything they do poorly, more to the point that they do something well…haul lots of kids. Everyone knows the “soccer mom” label that has been given to the drivers of minivans, and this has gained a negative connotation. SUVs and, more so, “crossover utility vehicles” have been replacing minivans as the vehicle of choice for parents. These vehicles look more rugged (read: “outdoorsy”) and can have up to three rows of seats. They just fail to have the interior space or handling qualities of minivans. But the neighbors are typically more impressed by an SUV or CUV than a minivan, so utility loses out to prestige. When people ask about vehicles to recommend, I refuse to name SUVs. Unless you’re going off-road or hauling something, these (typically) truck-based vehicles offer nothing to the average driver aside from bad gas mileage and a higher propensity for bad handling. CUVs only improve the gas mileage and handling slightly. But minivans usually top my list, especially if the person has multiple kids and/or large pets. If someone takes my recommendation, I’ve done something to convince them of the utility benefits over the “soccer mom” branding. So far, everyone has been more than satisfied with their choices. And when the handymen of the group realize that a full sheet of plywood or drywall will fit inside of many minivans (something that most SUVs or CUVs cannot claim), they’re even happier with their choice. Concepts by Ford (rejected) and Chrysler (delayed and then approved) became the 1984 Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager. Today, their descendants are still the primary vehicle choice for families. You can keep your Ford Edge and Chevrolet Equinox and Toyota Highlander and Honda Pilot. I’ll keep my Chrysler Town & Country. And whether I’m hauling kids or adults or plywood or a mattress, I’m sure I’ll be doing it easier and more comfortably than anyone in those newfangled CUVs. The minivan is NOT dead yet.
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