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The Hudson Motor Car Company made Hudson and other brand automobiles in Detroit, Michigan, from 1909 to 1954.
In 1954, Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator Corporation to form American Motors. The Hudson name was continued through the 1957 model year, after which it was dropped.
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 $1,000.
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. (Chapin's son, Roy Jr., would later be president of Hudson-Nash descendant American Motors Corp. in the 1960s).
The company quickly started production, with first car driven out of a small factory in Detroit on July 3, 1909. The new Hudson "Twenty" was one of the first low-priced cars on the American market and very successful with more than 4,000 were sold the first year. This was the best first year's production in the history of the automobile industry up to that time.
The company had a number of firsts for the auto industry; these 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, dubbed the "Super Six" (1916), to work at a higher rotational speed while remaining smooth, developing more power for its size than lower-speed engines.
Most Hudsons until 1957 had straight-6 engines. The dual brake system used a secondary mechanical parking brake system, which activated the rear brakes when the pedal traveled beyond the normal reach of the primary system; a mechanical emergency brake was also used. Hudsons transmissions also used an oil bath and cork clutch mechanism that proved to be as durable as it was smooth.
At its peak in 1929, 300,000 cars were produced in one year, Hudson and Essex combined, including contributions from Hudson's other factories in Belgium and England; a factory had been built in 1925 in Brentford in London.[2]. Hudson was the third largest U.S. car maker that year, after Ford Motor Company and Chevrolet.
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