The new Hudsons featured an essentially unitized body whose lower side frame cradled passenger compartment seating. Advertising stressed that the new Hudsons had "step down" entry. Well, it would be "step down" if one first stepped on the high door sill atop that side frame and made a second step down to the flooring. For many folks it was really a "step over" if a door sill step was omitted. Nevertheless, Hudsons were low cars for their time.
There was even a convertible version available. But here was something odd about it, as will be shown in the images below.
In theory, Hudson could have reduced the size of that roof segment, but the body structure noted above would not have allowed the solution seen on the Chevy. At best, there would have been about a two-inch (5 cm) strip of sheet metal above the strongly curved windshield, and the front of the canvas top would have had to conform to that curve.
My guess is that Hudson engineers favored a quick-and-dirty solution -- the front of the top being simply squared off and roof sheet metal adjusted to fit. Please let us know if you can tell us what actually happed.
1 comment:
I actually remember seeing one of these when I was a kid and wondered about that piece of roof attached to the windshield. No one else ever did that. I think I thought it was because it was a smaller car maker with less money that made a stupid decision. And in actual driving it or riding in the front seat that piece of roof would reduce the convertible experience available in every other convertible. I had a 1956 Plymouth convertible a couple decades after 1956 and it was awesome. The double size sun roof in my Forester is way better than a normal sun roof, but still there's about that same amount of roof aft of the windshield as in this Hudson.
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