(EXPANDED ON 1/27/2023)
In doing research on our “unresolved postwar mysteries” story, I came across a piece of information that challenged one of my long-held assumptions. George Hamlin and Dwight Heinmuller stated that the Briggs Manufacturing Company built bodies for both Packard and Hudson. Thus, when Briggs was bought by Chrysler and decided to stop serving other automakers, that “sealed Hudson’s fate.” This is because Hudson could do stampings but “could not make bodies” (2002, p. 580).
I don’t recall coming across that scenario before. For example, Richard M. Langworth wrote that the Hudson Jet’s bodies were built by Murray. This was “the first time an outside firm had built Hudson shells since the early thirties — on a delayed payment plan” (1977, 1993, p. 87). Langworth included a diagram apparently from Hudson that showed the final assembly process of full-sized “Monobilt” models. The bodies came from a “Hudson Body Plant” (1977, 1993, p. 87).
Meanwhile, Stuart R. Blond (2022) dug up an article from The Packard Cormorant (Lauter, 2007) that quoted a Chrysler press release as stating that automotive customers of Briggs had included “the Packard Motor Car Company for bodies and the Hudson Motor Car Company for trim materials.”
That looks pretty dispositive to me. However, Hamlin and Heinmuller’s writing was part of what may very well be the largest and most exhaustive book ever written about an American automaker: Beverly Rae Kimes’ (2002) Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company. So let’s see if anyone else has weighed in on this topic.
Oh where, oh where were Hudson bodies made?
Allpar.com (2021) stated that when Chrysler bought Briggs in 1953 it had 12 plants. One of those facilities was located on Conner Avenue in Detroit. The plant, which built bodies for Packard, “was sold to that company.” Other historians have argued that the plant was leased (e.g., Hamlin and Heinmuller, 2002; p. 581; Ward, 1995; p. 124). However, for present purposes the key point is that the story did not mention Briggs producing Hudson bodies.
Also see ‘How would a facelifted Hudson have fared in 1955?’
Meanwhile, a website called coachbuilt.com (2021) wrote: “Although Ford and Chrysler were historically Briggs’ largest customers, throughout the 1930s they supplied Hudson, Graham, and Packard with trim and sheet metal stampings. Their relationship with Packard dated back to their purchase of LeBaron and starting with Packard’s all-new 1941 Clipper, Briggs built all of Packard’s production bodies up until the Chrysler takeover.”
This appears to align with the above-mentioned Chrysler press release, which only mentioned Briggs producing trim materials for Hudson.
A case study in how errors can sneak into auto history
Could it be that Hudson bodies were not mentioned by many historical accounts because the automaker did not have to scamper to find an alternative source of bodies like Packard did? After Hudson and Nash-Kelvinator merged, all passenger-car bodies were built at Nash’s Kenosha plant.
Perhaps, but the weight of evidence still suggests to me that Hamlin and Heinmuller got it wrong. One could argue that it was a minor factual inaccuracy because they were only mentioning Hudson in passing. That said, the error colors their analysis on an important topic — why Hudson died.
Also see ‘Wheel spinning happens when car buffs and scholarly historians don’t collaborate‘
The point of this essay isn’t wag a finger at Hamlin and Heinmuller, but rather to illustrate a structural problem with American automotive history. The most serious research tends to be found in printed books — and errors can be made by even the most careful authors. Very few of these books receive editorial updates, so errors can be perpetuated for many decades, often with the help of the Internet echo chamber. That can undercut the accuracy of historical analysis.
The core problem is that U.S. automotive history is primarily driven by commercial interests. The scholarly side of the field is so small and balkanized that there aren’t adequate venues to catch errors and debate competing historical theories (go here for further discussion).
Of course, those who see auto history as merely infotainment might ask: Who cares?
NOTES:
This article was originally posted on April 9, 2021 and expanded on Jan. 27, 2022.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Allpar.com; 2021. “Briggs Body Plants and Chrysler.” Accessed April 7.
- Blond, Stuart R.; 2022. Spellbinder: The Life of James J. Nance: Volume One, 1900-1954. Kindle Direct Publishing.
- Coachbuilt.com; 2021. “Briggs Mfg. Co.” Accessed April 7.
- Hamlin, George and Dwight Heinmuller; 2002. “America’s New Choice in Fine Cars: The Twenty-Sixth and the Fifty-Fourth Series 1953-54.” In Kimes, Beverly Rae, ed., pp. 562–581. Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company. Automobile Quarterly Publications.
- Langworth, Richard M.; 1977, 1993. Hudson 1946-1957: The Classic Postwar Years. Motorbooks International, Osceola, WI.
- Lauter, John M.; 2007. “Conner, Briggs and Chrysler: Trends and Fate.” The Packard Cormorant. Spring issue, No. 127.
- Ward, James A.; 1995. The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
Weren’t the Stepdown Hudsons essentially a unit-body design? If Briggs was building the “bodies” for Hudson, wouldn’t it essentially have had to build the entire car? Packards featured traditional body-on-frame construction, so Briggs could build the bodies, which were then shipped to the Packard plant for installation on the chassis.
Yup. I assume that the process of building the big Hudson would have been similar to that of the Jet, whose bodies were apparently built by Murray — except the bodies were built by Hudson instead of an outside vendor.
This is why I don’t get why Packard management reportedly thought it wouldn’t be a big deal to switch to AMC-made bodies (go here for further discussion). That presumably would have required Packard to come up with a substantially different plant layout, right?
According to James Ward, the idea contemplated was for Nash to ship completed bodies to Packard. It was dismissed when someone pointed out that they “would be shipping a substantial amount of air.”
Ward also said that the deal that Nance worked out was to lease Conner from Chrysler for $1M a year, for a period of 5 years beginning in 1954. This became a problem when Packard ended production at Conner in mid-56. Colbert wanted Packard to finish paying out the lease. It doesn’t sound like Packard did.
From everything that I have read including Richard Langworth’s book on Hudson, Conner had nothing to do with Hudson’s failures.
In his book, Spellbinder: The Life of James J. Nance, Vol. One, 1900-1954, Stuart Blond references a press release from Chrysler dated December 29, 1953. The press release states that Briggs supplies Hudson with trim pieces and bodies for Packard. It mentions nothing about bodies for Hudson. This is on page 101 of the book.
Thank you for the heads up. I bought the books but have been slow to do a review. BTW, my Volume 1 was printed backwards (e.g., page 193 comes at the front rather than the back of the book), which adds an interesting element to the reading experience.
THe above states that the Connor Ave Briggs plant was either sold or leased to Packard. If that is the case, what is the problem? A shortage of bodies was the least of Packard’s problems in this period, and they had bodies for 54, the redesigned 55, and facelifted 56.
Kim, the focus of the article was whether Briggs built bodies for Hudson. The Connor plant was relevant only to the degree that reporting about it might also shed light on Hudson’s situation.