Hudson

The Hudson Motor Car Company made Hudson and other brand automobiles in Detroit, Michigan, from 1909 to 1954. The name "Hudson" came from Joseph L. Hudson, a Detroit department store entrepreneur and founder of Hudson's department store, who was one of eight investors organizing the company but Hudson provided most of the necessary funding to have cars named after him. One of the chief "car men" and organizer of the company was Roy D. Chapin, Sr., a young executive who had worked with Ransom E. Olds (of Oldsmobile fame).

The company had a number of firsts for the auto industry and included dual brakes, the use of dashboard oil-pressure and generator warning lights, and the first balanced crankshaft, which allowed the Hudson straight-6 engine to be dubbed the "Super Six" just like Essex and many others titled theirs. At its peak in 1929, 300,000 cars were produced in one year. Hudson and Essex combined making Hudson the third largest U.S. car maker in 1929, after Ford Motor Company and Chevrolet. In 1954 Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator Corporation (a strange combo of the Nash Automobiles and Kelvinator, the makers of early stoves, refrigerators and appliances) to form American Motors. The Hudson name was continued through the 1957 model year, after which it was dropped from the American Motors line up eventually in favor of hornets, javelins, pacers and the like.