|
|
updated on 9 september '98
| This is what it looked like after it's first restoration. The color looked promissing on paper but not in reality. I'll paint it again in some yellow-beige. | 
|
 |
Fantastic nose, don't you think ? |
| You don't find too many pictures about cars interiors, so I just added this one. Notice that the dashboard looks like wood but it's actually painted with a special technique. (I didn't do it, no). The seats have been redone by my mother (her hobby). |  |
 |
This is the third old timer my father
bought about 10 years ago.
|
|
We restored it (I usually do the mechanical part and my father takes care of the bodywork) but we were not really happy with the car's colors and it wasn't really stable on the road. It has have an accident in it's early days and you feel it when you drive it. On top of that we had a major clutch problem after a while. That's why we disassembled it again and restarted almost from scratch. |
|
This time I opened and repaired the engine (some valve problems) and in july '98, I took it out for it's first ride (see picture below). Now it runs fine but the chassis still needs to be straightened. If you look carefully you can see that the right fender-support is bent, also because of the accident. In the mean time, dad will do the body again. |
 |
Our first ride in june '98. That's what it looks like right now. By the way, that's me (at the steering wheel) with my brother. Notice that we didn't have an accelerator pedal, so I just have to pull the throttle by hand. Not really easy to drive :-) |
| And this is what it looks like since the
last 2 year : bits and pieces, spread all over the garage :-( |
 |
As a proof that mailing me realy helps, here's some more information
This '34 Hudson is 'living' in Belgium (somewhere between Antwerp and Ghent for those who ever heard about Belgium anyway). You see, there's more then choclats and Brussels sprouts (yeach) here. My father owns the car and has been doing car restorations for about 20 years, just as a hobby. I realy admire him for this since he has no technical background at all. As far as engine trouble is concerned, that's usually my part of the job.
He always insists on restoring them to bring the cars back in to there original state (e.g. cellulose paint for the older ones). He spent almost all his weekends in his garage to do that and for years he was looking forward to his retirement so he would have all the time of the world to finish them all. By now he has retired (3 years already) but it's sad to see that he lost most of his enthousiasm since we had bad luck with the Minerva, the Hudson and the Citroen C3 since they all broke down. He dissassembled them all, and the Minerva is about ready again, the Hudson runs fine but as you can see there's still a lot of work to do, and the Citroen spare parts just arrived.
OK, back to the Hudson now. When he bought the car, it had been transformed during the second world war. Originally it's a two seater with an extra 2 places outside. During WW2, the owner cut the middle part (between the two seats) out and changed it into a 4-seater. They used the car to escape to France with the whole family. There, the car has ben in a fire and all the interior was burnt up. The top was lost too and has been replaced by a Mercedes top, so it has been quite a job to bring it back to it's original state. The new top still has to be remade but we never came to it.
It was during this escape to France, followed by the German enemy that the car got into a collision. Still they made it to the border. Somehow, the car got (partially) repaired but the chassis was bent. We never noticed this until we drove it and it's not stable on the road at all.
Another change that has been made were the shock absorbers. The original ones were replaced by telescopic absorbers. My father found out that originally it had telescopic absorbers at the back (you, the specialists, please help us with this since we're not sure at all !), and the 'mechanical' ones (how do you call them ?) in front. Somebody did the opposite : telescopics in the front, and the front ones to the back ??? We seem to have the original front ones, but can't find out how they were fitted. Would you have a detailed picture about that ?
I'll try to find out more about it, and even add some more pictures if you want. If you want to know when this page gets updated, send me a mail and I'll let you know.
Philippe Sonneville