Hudson car fans kick off east-side cruise season
Inside a modest ranch house in Harper Woods and overflowing into its oversize garage lurks a picture-perfect shrine to a classic car named after Detroit's classic department store.
Harper Woods Mayor Ken Poynter has been collecting anything to do with Hudson cars for half a century. Thanks to cable-TV's car shows, the world outside Detroit knows that better than his neighbors.
But once a year, Poynter opens his shrine to Hudson devotees, as he did Saturday, in one of this season's first outdoor car events in metro Detroit. Hudson sedans were parked bumper to bumper on Poynter's driveway. Out front was a Rambler station wagon, built by American Motors, successor to the Hudson Motor Car Co.
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And crowding his basement, backyard and garage were fans of the classic cars named after department store founder J.L. Hudson, whose money started the company in 1909. Joe Delaney of Grand Blanc, with a smile as bright as his freshly polished, wood-spoked 1930 Essex — a mid-priced Hudson model — took in the scene as president of the Michigan Hudson fan club. And Poynter's yard could well be called the club's home, Delaney said.
"Absolutely, Ken is recognized as the top Hudson memorabilia man in the world. And this is terrific, but I know it's not all of it," he said, referring to the Ypsilanti Auto Heritage Museum, where much of Poynter's collection resides within a former Hudson dealership.
Poynter said he adores Hudsons because his father built them on a Detroit assembly line for 30 years. His guest of honor Saturday was Eastpointe Mayor Suzanne Pixley, because her father assembled Hudsons for 29 years. Pixley will soon host a much bigger car event — the Gratiot Cruise on June 17, which this year will add a 5K fun run and slow-roll bike event as well as a full week of events leading up to cruise day, Pixley said.
"We're thrilled that these Hudsons will be part of our cruise this year," she said. A side street off Gratiot will be closed off "and these cars will all be parked there for people to see," said Harvey Curley, former Eastpointe mayor and chairman of the Gratiot Cruise, sitting with Pixley a few feet from Poynter's 1942 Hudson Commodore Six convertible in its original Royal Red with a tan cloth top.
Hudsons were built at East Jefferson and Connor for nearly half a century. Through mergers, the company became American Motors in 1954, then dropped the Hudson name in 1957 while churning out Ramblers and Jeeps until the company was absorbed in turn by Chrysler. Although largely forgotten today by most gearheads because it's never been a flashy car for customizing, the Hudson was the third best-selling American car in 1929 and had its share of innovations, according to the club's website.
Poynter calls his collection "my champagne hobby on a beer budget." Amid the automotive lore are painstakingly arrayed, myriad other more familiar collectibles, from Lone Ranger figurines to a professional Vernors Ginger Ale dispenser, along with entire walls of Detroit Tigers goodies and seats from just about every sports stadium Detroit ever had.
Because Poynter caught the auto memorabilia collecting bug as a young man in the 1960s — “before it was cool,” he said — he amassed a stunning array, some of it given to him by the late Roy Chapin Jr. of Grosse Pointe, who had been CEO of American Motors and befriended Poynter after retirement.
The club fans enjoyed Poynter's hospitality, including a big lunch buffet. But when his beloved Hudson wouldn't start, they paid him back. Half a dozen of them gathered around to diagnose the ailment.
"The starter Bendix was locked into the flywheel," said Jim Amman, 81, of Chesaning, who crawled under the car to make the fix. Not that Hudsons fans should feel defensive.
"Back then, it happened to every car — Chevys, Fords, too," Amman said.
Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com or 313-223-4485