The 1954 Hudson Hornet, Part Deux

I was tool­ing down Hunt­ing­ton Dri­ve in my two-toned beige and brown 1954 Hud­son Hor­net when smoke bil­lowed from the hood. I hit the brakes; the Hud­son lurched vio­lent­ly to the right; the front tire rammed into the curb; and the engine stalled out.

I hopped out and slammed the door. The air was thick with the scent of burn­ing rub­ber as steam­ing yel­low-green coolant gushed from the Hudson’s front end and streamed along the curb to the gut­ter. I let out a long dis­gust­ed sigh.

By then the tow truck com­pa­ny occu­pied the top spot on my cell phone’s speed-dial direc­to­ry. Con­nie, my fre­quent com­mis­er­a­tor, picked up on the first ring. “That old crate’s cost­ing you a for­tune,” she said. “You ough­ta sell it.”

“No one in his right mind would buy it.”

“You did.”

“Proves my point. How long a wait this time?”

“Lester’ll be there in twenty.”

I pock­et­ed my phone and leaned against the front fend­er, brood­ing yet again about the rash deci­sion that got me into this mess. Years ear­li­er, my broth­ers and I bought a bro­ken-down 1954 Hud­son Hor­net for our dad. A Hud­son deal­er as a young man, Dad con­sid­ered the Hor­net the best car ever made. Restor­ing his Hud­son became a labor of love for him and us. See The 1954 Hud­son Hor­net.

If the sto­ry had end­ed there, I would have lived hap­pi­ly ever after, but noooo. After we bought Dad’s car, my broth­er sent me the link to an ad on E‑Bay for the sale of a 1954 Hud­son Hor­net in Los Ange­les. In the pho­to­graph it looked in near-mint con­di­tion. I made an offer con­di­tioned on an inspec­tion. My bid stood alone at the dead­line, so the sell­er and I arranged to meet in a park­ing lot in Cul­ver City.

Replac­ing a burned-out tail­light tax­es the lim­it of my auto­mo­tive exper­tise, so I hired a young mechan­ic, Brad, to go with me. When we pulled into the lot, a hulk­ing giant with a shaved head, sausage neck, and ugly scar slash­ing across his fore­head stood beside the Hudson.

Brad looked under the hood while I tried to make con­ver­sa­tion with the heavy. “You restore it your­self?” I asked.

“Man who fixed it up owes me mon­ey,” he said in a grav­el­ly voice. “You buy it, he’s off the hook.” From his angry scowl I gath­ered he planned to break the man’s legs if I didn’t fork over the dough.

“Looks okay,” Brad said, “but we should test-dri­ve her.”

“You can test-dri­ve her all you want after you pay me,” Mr. Con­ge­nial­i­ty snarled, “and there won’t be no refund.”

Stu­pid­ly, I paid him.

The radi­a­tor boiled over twice on the way home. Brad found some pin-holes and sol­dered them. It over­heat­ed again, so he slathered sealant over the whole thing.

Then the brakes start­ed pulling hard to the right. Brad fixed them. They did it again. He fixed them again. They did it again, and he fixed them a third time.

On the short dri­ves to and from Brad’s shop, acces­sories spon­ta­neous­ly fell off. A door han­dle, the radio aer­i­al, the Hud­son emblem on the grill, the winged hood-orna­ment, the dec­o­ra­tive chrome space­ship affixed to the trunk. These babies cost from 50 to 500 smack­ers each on the Hud­son Club web­site, which was the only place you could buy them.

My repair costs exceed­ed the Hudson’s pur­chase price by the time the Hud­son stalled out on Hunt­ing­ton Dri­ve that morn­ing when the fresh­ly sealed radi­a­tor boiled over yet again and the thrice-fixed brakes jerked to the right.

While I was wait­ing for Lester and the tow truck, a shriv­eled-up ancient woman limped out of the Wells Far­go Bank and squint­ed at my car. “Is that a Hudson?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She shuf­fled clos­er to it and peered in its rear win­dow. “When I was a young girl, me and Bob­by Dugan had us some fun in his daddy’s Hud­son,” she said, gig­gling like a teenager.

This sort of thing is a com­mon occur­rence when you own a Hud­son. Hud­sons are chick mag­nets. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, most of the chicks they attract don’t still have their own teeth. Judg­ing by the wist­ful smiles of the sweet old ladies who admired my car, myr­i­ad roman­tic trysts involv­ing cou­ples born between World Wars I and II took place in a Hudson’s roomy back seat.

“I’d give you a ride in her, ma’am,” I said, “but she’s broke down.”

“Under­stand­able. She’s near­ly as old as I am.” She touched the front fend­er gen­tly. “Thank you for the mem­o­ries,” she said in a soft voice. Still smil­ing, Bob­by Dugan’s long ago para­mour turned and hob­bled slow­ly down the side­walk to Starbucks.

Lester towed the Hud­son to Brad’s shop. He “fixed” the brakes again. Since he couldn’t find any­thing wrong with the radi­a­tor, we tried a dif­fer­ent engine coolant. On the way home, the inte­ri­or rear-view mir­ror fell from its mount and shat­tered on the floor­board. I drove to O’Reilly Auto Parts in San Gabriel to see if I could pick up a replace­ment on the cheap. The elder­ly clerk who wait­ed on me was famil­iar with Hud­sons. When I men­tioned my recur­ring boil­ing-over adven­tures, he asked if he could take a look.

Out in the park­ing lot, he unscrewed the Hudson’s radi­a­tor cap and turned it over in his hand. “This is your prob­lem,” he said. “Belongs on a Hon­da.” He rum­maged around in the dis­con­tin­ued parts room and found a 1956 Oldsmo­bile cap. “It’s sim­i­lar to a Hud­son cap,” he said. “It ough­ta work.”

It worked. Cost me $2.56. Brad’s face turned fire-engine red when I told him.

After that, the Hud­son ran great and noth­ing fell off. For about a week. We were chug­ging up Sier­ra Madre Boule­vard when the engine sput­tered. I head­ed for home in a pan­ic. Miss­ing bad­ly when I pulled in the dri­ve­way, she conked out twen­ty feet from my garage.

Mad as hell, I stomped into the kitchen and unleashed a pro­fan­i­ty-laced rant about my piece-of-crap Hudson.

“Maybe it’s out of gas,” Cindy said.

“It’s got plen­ty of gas!”

“How do you know? Thought you said the gas gauge was broken.”

“I put ten gal­lons in the damned thing two weeks ago!”

“It’s a big car. Maybe it guz­zled it up.”

“Look, I know what I’m talk­ing about! It’s not out of gas!”

“Okay, okay. I was just try­ing to help.”

Cindy’s sug­ges­tion was ridicu­lous! The Hud­son had been sit­ting in the shop almost full time since I pumped in that ten gal­lons, for pity’s sake. Just to prove I was right, I filled a five-gal­lon can at the sta­tion, poured the fuel in the Hudson’s tank, got behind the wheel, and turned the key in the ignition.

It start­ed right up.

I sat per­fect­ly still for a good five min­utes, star­ing blankly through the wind­shield, pon­der­ing betray­al, humil­i­a­tion, and the futil­i­ty of life in general.

“How’d you fix the Hud­son?” Cindy asked when I slouched back into the kitchen.

“The sol­id lifters were stuck,” I said. “I greased up the cams and lugs.”

“That’s great! I didn’t real­ize you knew so much about cars.”

“Yeah, well …”

Tak­ing care not to make eye con­tact, I retreat­ed to my home office, cranked up the com­put­er, and put the Hud­son up for sale on E‑bay.

No bid­ders. I cut the price in half. Still no action. Two more cuts brought me down to rock-bot­tom, but even bot­tom-feed­ers wouldn’t take the bait.

I began to think the Hud­son had become my Red Chief. In O. Henry’s short sto­ry, The Ran­som of Red Chief, a cou­ple of mis­cre­ants kid­nap a boy to extort a ran­som from his rich dad, but the kid is such a holy ter­ror the dad is glad to be rid of him and won’t pay. When the kid pre­tends he’s the fierce Red Chief, ties one of the kid­nap­pers to a stake, and sets his pants on fire, the bad guys end up pay­ing the dad a healthy sum to take him back.

I was on the verge of offer­ing a cash reward to any­one will­ing to take the Hud­son off my hands when a young cou­ple fell in love with her. They were friends of ours so I almost warned them off.

Almost.

I mean, come on, that car was dri­ving me nuts. Besides, the hus­band was a heavy equip­ment mechan­ic and had the skill to keep her run­ning, and just in case he couldn’t keep her run­ning, I gave them the Hud­son for free.

So in the end this sad tale turned out well for every­one. The loan shark got his cash. The mark didn’t get his legs broke. Brad made a lot of mon­ey. The Hud­son found a hap­py home. The young cou­ple is still over­joyed with her.

And, most impor­tant­ly, I’m over­joyed with­out her.

 

Post Script: Even smart suc­cess­ful peo­ple make trag­ic mis­takes. Jay Leno’s col­lec­tion of 169 cars includes a whole bunch of Hud­sons. His net worth is esti­mat­ed at $450,000,000. For now.