Xander Wildeisen

Great ad, 500k you clean. https://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/cto/5720742068.html

There are reasons to build a car, and there are reasons to buy a car. If you are looking to build/restore a car, you have to understand the amount of work and money that goes into the project. Talking to any good restoration/custom shop would be a good place to start. Knowing the cost involved, knowing what to expect for the money spent, knowing the time frame needed to complete the project. Are all things you want to think about if you are looking at building/restoring a car. For a first time classic car owner, stepping in to a full blown restoration/build project is taking on a lot. If you have the space, tools, money, skill and knowledge. It can be a lot of fun to take a car and bring it back to life. But if you jump in thinking it is like what you see on TV, meaning when we come back from commercial we will have this car painted. You are in for a shocker. Looking to the open market, for a running and driving car that needs some improvements. Or one that you can ad your own personal touches on. Would be the best direction to go if you do not have the skills and things listed above. There are a lot of good dealers, that spend a lot of time finding good cars and bring them to the market place. The cars that you have listed that you are interested in should be easy to find on the open market from dealers and private sellers. the 69 Charger prices will be all over the board. Depending on options,factory tags, condition, numbers matching and so on. If just looking for a driver non numbers cars, you should be able to find a good car in a good price range. The 70 Torino would be a harder car to find then the Chargers, but should have a better buy in price. But would also have less reproduced parts then the Chargers. And on the flip side, if you go to sell the car down the road. The Charger will have a better resale price and a bigger market of interested buyers. Give it a lot of thought. You are always better off spending a little more money for one in nicer shape.

Here is a link to a car show/rally we just went to. It is put on by the Sun Valley Auto Club. While I have nothing to do with it, this would be a cool spot to see some early millers,or cars like the Stutz Jones Special. I can not imagine that they would turn away early performance cars to be in the show, or to make the speed runs. And this is a good example where I have not seen them market this event to other sides of the car world. And it would be a good event to show case early performance cars, from this side of the car world. It is really cool that the town of Sun Valley lets them close down a road and see how fast you can go.

If I could make a suggestion. Just as a test balloon. Who ever runs this web site, put up a section/page/link like you have on other topics. Have one for traditional hot rods/ customs. And market that page on the site in the hot rod world. That would get some of the young car builders on the other side, coming to you guys with questions on what will work, where to find it. And open up a door for restoration shops on this side to pick up some work because they are set up to repair/service/rebuild some of the vintage stuff that other shops have moved out of. Because they are dealing with the modern side of things. And then all of you older guys/gals can jump in and help out with your answers and advice. And help out the young people building their cars. All of you have time to post your comments, and still have time to sit in the grass and have a drink. So post advise and information that helps out young car guys/gals on the other side. No matter what kind of car they are building.

Interesting to read some of the thoughts of people. I am just coming from the angle that if a car is parked inside a building, the only people who will see it. Are the people going in the building. If a car is out on the road being driven, it is being see by hundreds of people. And it does not make any difference if it is a street rod, custom or a restored original. It will stand out and be talked about by other people in the cars on the road. You will expose more people to your old cars by just driving them like they were built to do anyway. If you want to capture the imagination of a young person. The best time to do that is when they are riding in a car, staring out the window. Deep in their own thoughts. If you were to take all of the street rods and customs. And put them back in the fields and barns. Do you really think that all of them would have been restored by now? How many of you ACD Cords guys/gals, have up graded your drive shaft parts? When rebuilding your vintage engine, can you over bore it, and use pistons from some thing else? Are there books, or interchange manuals telling you what parts from different cars will fit and work on yours? Sounds like custom stuff to me. When you look at all of the car stuff as a whole. It is amazing how this side of the cars, could impact the other side.(street rods,customs) Traditional hot rods and customs are very popular. Guys/gals wanting the hot rod look, but with the vintage parts. And you guys/gals over here, have incredible knowledge on what parts will work together and how to get the most out of them. You are also sitting on a huge mountain of parts that could be used to create really cool traditional hot rods and customs. The youth has the desire and the ambition, you guys/gals have the knowledge and expertise. It is sad that this side of the car world is not more involved in the traditional hot rod/custom scene. Because so many of your great pieces of your history are customs them selves. I think you would see a huge rise in people interested in this side of cars. If the AACA reached out to the youth on the other side. Offering up your knowledge, and access to parts. The Hershey swap meet is a hot rod/custom car gold mine. If marketed as that, you would see more people there, sell more parts, get more vendors, and expose more people to the great show field you have. There is a big gap that should not be there. Nobody is saying change who you are, just open it up and share your knowledge.

These planes sure look pretty cool when they are out, where they can be seen.

Doctor, Doctor hurry! What is it, what is going on? Well doctor, it looks like the car show is dying! What should we do? The doctor thought about it for a minute and said. Well we can ether take the greatest classic cars ever built. The ones that are the best examples of custom design, innovation and engineering. And get those cars in front of the youth, that are the driving force on the custom car scene. Or, we can take those same cars. And put them in a museum, with the rest of your grandma's stuff.

Good point.

I had a 28 Hudson 3 window coupe, with that engine. Great motor, car came with a oil can from the factory mounted on the engine. Had to lit the caps on top of the valves and oil daily.

I always thought the Hollywood was a mix of cloth and vinyl on the inside. I have had two Hollywood hard tops, but both were 52 Hornets. Did not know the Wasp was all cloth. If any one gets to this part of the country, they should stop by Vintage Auto (Jim Hines) he has a ton of parts in the buildings. And parts that have been locked up and boarded in, that have not been seen for a long time. I would hate to see all that stuff just get scrapped. Great picture of the 52 Hornet club coupe. I think the 52 Hornet club coupes are one of Hudson's best looking cars. When looking at the two pictures above, it is funny to see how many people replace the trim on the 51-53 cars, with the trim from the 48-50 cars. I wonder if a lot of people even notice it. The trim on the very bottom of the door and fenders. The Hollywood has the correct painted trim, the club coupe has the incorrect earlier stainless trim. The correct trim is just stamped steel and gets destroyed from rust and removal. Why Hudson made that change, I do not know. When restoring one you would have to paint that trim in place on the car. No way you could hammer on the trim after it has been painted. And you can see the difference in the drip rails on the two cars, and why the sun visor bracket fits the curved drip rail better.

The Hornet convertible was sold a few years ago. Looking at your pictures, I did not think that the Hollywood had a cloth interior? I do have the leather grain pattern to repaint the dash if you are looking to have it refinished. You do have a 53 hood ornament on your 52. Does the grill have the two extra grill bars? Or has it been changed to a 53 grill as well? Jim Harmon would have had the stainless trim you are missing. Did all of his cars and parts get sold?

Same door as the convertible. From the fire wall back, all Hudson body styles from 1948-1953 are the same. With just different tail lights, side trim, dashes and grills. Front of hoods had to change with the different grills. The super six, hornet and commodore have the longer nose. With the pace maker and wasp being shorter. The sun visors were not meant to go on the hard tops or the convertibles, I have all ways put them on as well. The side bracket is curved for the drip rail on the closed cars. The drip rail on the hard tops and convertibles runs straight.

All of the doors have the same outside shape from the window opening down. You could turn a coupe door into a convertible door, but it would be a lot of work. The coupe doors having the door frame all the way around to hold the wing window, window track and interior garnish rail. The doors on a 51-54 Hollywood are convertible doors, 54 being a different body style. I think two door hard top doors from a lot of different makes of cars, for the most part are the same as their convertible doors. With the lack of good solid cars left to build/restore, and good parts left to purchase. A person has to look at what parts can be made to work. Not that big of a deal on the custom end, you can make any changes you want to. But a lot harder on the restoration side, parts have to fit the way they did from the factory. If any one is looking for good classic car parts for any make, chrome, sheet metal and so on. Call Jim Hines, At vintage automotive here in Idaho. He has a ton of NOS parts still in the boxes. http://www.jimsvintageautomotive.com/

The seller/owner made a bad choice. And it all most cost him his life. There were three of us telling him and his wife, the car had no brakes. We talked about towing the car down. The more I talked about no brakes, the more I got my but chewed. For what ever reason that guy, on that day, was hell bent on having that car, driven down that hill. And I was not going to do it. I never took to books real well, but that just had bad idea written all over it. I have owned over 30 Hudson's, they are great cars. Step downs are put together very well. I would also say they are put together to good, if you have ever really dived into repairing one that has rust damage. A big pain in the a%# to try and get in there to make the repairs. One thousand spot welds, held in place by one thousand spot welds. Sandwiched in between layers of metal and held together with more spot welds. They were put together with no plans of ever coming back apart. The Hollywood hard tops would be the one to use if wanting to transfer convertible parts over, in the years 51-54. The coupe body and doors are a lot different then the hardtop and convertible bodies and doors. Bodies for the most part are unchanged from 1948-53. A lot of work would have to be done to take a 49 coupe, and turn it into a convertible. It would be easier to take a 51-53 hardtop and turn it in to a 48-53 convertible. From a fabrication stand point. Maybe that is what the person who bought the wrecked car is doing?

Will any of these buff out ?

Great picture, Great story.

Jim was a great guy. The car did not go off the road because of anything Jim did, or didn't do. The car was in the middle of a restoration that was being done to the level the customers wanted. He just got very ill, and passed. I talked to him the same day. The owner/seller was lucky he did not really get hurt, or worse.The reason for the post was just to bring to light a topic that any car guy/gal does not want to talk about. Some cars do not make it, wrecked, caught in a flood or fire, old barn falls down and so on. It is all ways interesting to see pictures and hear stories about things that have happened. When I was 17 and had my 52 Hudson Wasp, a neighbor walked over and we started talking about old cars. He told me that he worked in California in the late forties on the big produce farms. All of the workers stayed in little tiny shacks, when farming was done they just left. And would leave cars and every thing else behind. He said on year there was about 25 cars left behind. He asked the owner what he wanted him to do with the cars. Owner said take the dosser, dig a trench and push them in. He said the one that really hurt to push in was a 1937 Packard convertible, that just needed a new starter. Sad story, but true.

I am not sure, but it looks like a trunk handle. Not a door handle.

The man who passed away was a good friend of mine. His name was Jim Harmon. Getting involved in cars (Hudson's) at the age of 16. I was the only young guy at the time in the club around here. The guys in the Hudson club and Jim Harmon were very kind to me, and went out of their way to help me out. They were, and still are all top shelf guys and I will never forget them. I left his name out of the post because the restoration that was done on the car was not reflective of Jim And the work that he did. He was getting very ill. The pictures that you see below were taken the day I was at his house, on our way to forest grove. I was there to get some parts for a 54 Hornet coupe that I was building. And as Jim always did, he treated me very fair on the parts. The Hudson you see in the wreck was there at that time as well. I was not sharing this story to make a joke out of what happened. These are things that happen to all of us in the car world. Some good, some bad. But sharing the stories about people that make up this hobby/industry is a good thing. So many great people get lost in the pages of time. These pictures were taken two weeks before Jim died. After getting home from the trip. One day I had a feeling to call Jim. His wife answered the phone and asked Jim if he wanted to speak with me. She gave the phone to Jim and he said to me. "It looks like they are going to pull the plug on me, I just want to thank you for being able to get to know you". Toughest thing some one has ever said to me, hit me like a ton of bricks. It is a small car world out there, Help each other out. Jim would have laughed at my post. Rest in peace my friend. Xander

Car showed up on coparts web site in Portland OR, about a month later. Some one bought it for around 2,000-4,000 dollars if I remember correctly. My guess is they wanted to use it as a parts car for a rusted up convertible.

This all happened about three years ago. Going back a little farther, I had seen this car while it was being restored for the guy. And at that time I met the owners as well. We were taking our Packard to Forest Grove for the show they have there. Car was in the middle of being restored, they guy working on the car was ill and passed away a few weeks later. Fast forward to the day pictured, when we got up to his house to see the car. I started looking it over for my friend, if he were to purchase the car. I would have been the one to finish the car. Looking the car over, you could see that the restoration bounced all over the place. This was done, that was not, and so on. I checked the brakes, had none at all. Strange, because Hudson's have a duel braking system. It is really neat if you have not seen one. After the brake peddle goes down so far, it starts to pull the e-brake cables. This had nothing. Looking under the car, you could see that none of the safety system was hood up. My opinion was to pass on the car, told my friend that I would have to redo to much on the car to get it where he would want it to be. The owners then started coming down on me, talking about how much money they had in the car. And the brakes became a big topic, I said you have none. They said we rebuilt all of that! And this went back and forth for awhile. This is where the story got funny, you could just tell some thing was going to happen. It was just in the air, like in a horror movie all the writing was on the wall, My friend wanted to buy the car, they went back and forth on price. A deal was made. Seller asked if I wanted to drive the car down, I said no, my two friends said no. So he said he would drive it down, payment for the car would be made at the bottom of the hill. As you can guess, no payment was ever made. Seller drove me back to my truck and trailer in his other car. I said to him "do not hit my truck, you have no brakes". He never had a chance to hit my truck, could not make the last turn. To his credit he went about 50 yards and made a 180 degree switch back then about 75 yards, all on a dirt road with a very step down grade. The last turn in the road was a hard 90, and it would have been coming up fast on him. I do not think Tim Flock or Herb Thomas in a 1952 Hornet would have made that corner. And to make it worse, I am guessing that in a panic with no brakes. Both feet pressed down on the pedals. Pushing in the clutch as well, loosing the chance to use compression from the engine to slow down. As I ran up the road to the corner he launched from, I thought he was dead. Thick skulls must run in the family. I guess in the end we all learned, if you end up doing a Dukes of Hazard style jump off a mountain road . A two ton Hudson is not the best car to be driving.

I did not mean what happened was funny. If you were there, how it all unfolded was funny. Poor choice of wording on my part.

My friend did not drive it down. They were up at the house, would not ride down with him. We all knew it had no brakes. I said it many times up there. All I got was harped on , that I was trying to sink the sale.