The Hudson Hornet is an automobile that was produced by the Hudson Motor Car Company of Detroit for three years between 1951 and 1954 and then produced between 1955 and 1957 by the now long gone American Motors Corporation —AMC. In case you don't know who AMC was, they were the company behind two of the ugliest cars ever built in the seventies, the Pacer and the Gremlin.
Last Saturday, we stumbled upon this beautiful 1952 Hudson Hornet during a rainy afternoon in Dallas, Texas. As we were driving by the affluent Preston Hollow area, this gorgeous automobile caught our eye and brought us back in time to 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. During the late 50s and early 60s many police departments throughout the U.S. —including the Dallas Police Department— stocked Hudson Hornets as their police cars. This particular car seems to have been brought straight from Pennsylvania per its front license plate. Now, you might be asking yourselves why we are featuring this old car, well, if you look closely at its color scheme, its a perfect match to the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Safari with rubber clad strap on our wrist. As a matter of fact, the cream top of this 1952 Hudson Hornet is almost in the same hue as the cream colored dial on the Safari.
The Hornet's sleek look is accentuated by its streamlined styling, sometimes called 'ponton' styling. Under the hood, the automobile is powered by a 'Twin H-Power' engine that was added to the 1952 Hornets. The engine features dual single-barrel carburetors atop a dual-intake manifold, that outputs an impressive 170 hp, a high hp for the era. Now, one of the interesting things about this engine, is that it could also be tuned to produce 210 hp making it an ideal police car for high speed chases.
Additionally, when tuned to output the impressive 210 hp at the time, the Hudson Hornet proved to be nearly invincible in stock-car racing. Despite its racing successes, the sales began to languish and the Hudson Hornet 1952 model year production totaled only 35,921 units.
As we were getting ready to walk away from this amazing automobile that took us back in time, we took one last glimpse at it and wondered how everyone felt in Dallas that somber November 22nd of 1963 as JFK was being pronounced dead at the Parkland Memorial Hospital.
Sticker Price $25,000-30,000 USD. For more info on Hudson click here.
