Patrick Foster (2023) recently suggested that a merger of Hudson and Willys could have made sense — and he devoted a Hemmings column to explaining why. This is an intriguing scenario, but I have a number of lingering questions.
My biggest question is whether the potential savings of a merger would have been meager because Hudson only built unit-body passenger cars but Jeeps used separate body-on-frame construction. My sense from the historical literature is that the two types of construction required different assembly plant layouts.
For example, the Ford Motor Company felt the need to build a brand-new plant to produce its new unit-body Thunderbird and Lincoln/Continental for 1958 (go here for further discussion).
That said, Willys-Overland Motors managed to assemble Jeeps along with the unit-body Aero at its Toledo, Ohio plant. In addition, in 1979 American Motors assembled larger Jeeps at its Kenosha, Wisconsin plant (Foster, 2013). I wonder if it was easier to add unit-body construction to a plant originally configured for body-on-frame construction rather than the other way around.
The devil was in the details of production facilities
Consolidating vehicle production in one plant was one of the bigger steps a new combine could take to increase economies of scale (Edwards, 1965). Thus, if Hudson’s Detroit, Michigan plant could not have easily added Jeep production, that would have been a major downside of this particular pairing.
By the same token, if Hudson couldn’t pull it off, Nash presumably wouldn’t have been able to either because its plants only produced unit-body cars. That would have left Studebaker, Packard and Kaiser as the most promising merger partners because they used body-on-frame construction.
Also see ‘Hudson would have been the best option for a Packard tie up’
One wild card was whether Willys management prioritized a merger partner that kept the Toledo factory open. If this had been the case, then a merger with Kaiser arguably made the most sense because that automaker clearly needed to offload its massive Willow Run, Michigan plant in favor of a smaller one more appropriate to its declining production levels (Langworth, 1975).
Meanwhile, it’s hard to see how Studebaker could have justified keeping Toledo open since it had a truck plant in South Bend, Indiana (Langworth, 1979, 1993). Packard might have initially kept Willys production in Toledo but moved it to the automaker’s Detroit plant as passenger-car volume declined.
Why would Willys and Hudson both offer compacts?
Foster appeared to assume that Hudson would offer a version of the compact Willys Aero. That may be because his article was initiated by a reader sending him drawings of an Aero-based Hudson Jet. So perhaps he was just being nice. However, that begs the obvious question: What was the value of fielding two competing products if the goal was to integrate dealer networks?
That brings up another question. Foster (2023) stated that “both brands would have increased their networks by a good amount, likely spurring a significant increase in sales volume.” I can see why that might have helped Willys, but why Hudson? Willys dealers had been primarily focused on selling trucks, so may not have been terribly well suited to selling premium-priced passenger cars.
In addition, at least some dealers would likely have had overlapping sales territories. This happened in the wake of the Hudson’s merger with Nash to form American Motors (Edwards, 1965).
The main advantage Hudson dealers would have gained from a merger may have been to broaden their product line. The Jeeps might not have been huge sellers at the retail level, but they also did not face the brutal competition that full-sized Hudsons and compact Aeros did as the 1950s progressed.
Foster’s (2023) least-compelling idea was that “Willys could have fielded a version of the Hudson Wasp as a full-size Willys car.” He noted that this was “admittedly unlikely,” but I would put it in the category of “no way.” What could possibly have been gained by such a move?
All this quibbling aside, Foster was right that not only did Willys save Kaiser, but it would save American Motors, Chrysler and Fiat. This strikes me as ironic given that Willys was arguably the weakest of the early-50s independents. Perhaps even more amusingly, the Jeep lineup was the antithesis of Detroit’s postwar emphasis on glitzy and powerful mansions of glory.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Edwards, Charles E.; 1956. Dynamics of the United States Automobile Industry. University of South Carolina Press.
- Foster, Patrick;  2013. American Motors Corporation: The Rise and Fall of America’s Last Independent Automaker. MBI Publishing Co., Minneapolis, MN.
- ——; 2023. “What Would A Theoretical Hudson-Willys Merger Have Looked Like?” Hemmings. Posted Oct. 8.
- Langworth, Richard M.; 1975. Kaiser-Frazer: The Last Onslaught on Detroit. Princeton Publishing, Princeton, NJ.Â
- ——; 1979, 1993. Studebaker 1946-1966: The Classic Postwar Years. Motorbooks International, Osceola, WI.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Hudson (1953); Willys Aero (1953)
“I wonder if it was easier to add unit-body construction to a plant originally configured for body-on-frame construction rather than the other way around.”
That to a large extent depends on what exact kind of technology is employed for the assembly of the unitized body car. Body on frame cars are usually assembled by lowering a pre-assembled, finished & upholstered body onto a pre-assembled chassis that is rolling along the assembly line:
https://1cars.org/uploads/posts/2015-04/1430058498_pontiac.jpg
This process can be essentially duplicated for a unitized body car if instead of a permanent frame you mount all suspension & drive train components onto a temporary fixture / jig that is dragged by the conveyor, and lower the body onto it – e.g. that’s how GM assembled its unibody compacts:
https://www.classiccarstodayonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/a-Pontiac-1969-Firebird-Assembly-Line.jpg
https://i.redd.it/4lcyj4x21j7a1.jpg
This way, body & frame and unitized body vehicles can be assembled on the same assembly line with little modification – or, at the very least, at the same plant using very similar production techniques, without developing two completely different assemble sequences.
In other production systems, front & rear suspensions, engine unit etc. are installed individually, which makes the process significantly different and probably completely incompatible with body on frame vehicles:
https://cs9.pikabu.ru/post_img/big/2020/02/21/5/1582266144186376251.jpg
https://assets.rebelmouse.io/media-library/gremlinassemblyline-1000.jpg?id=30870506&width=1200&height=800&quality=90&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C123
Thank you for the background. If I’m reading all of this correctly, it sounds like it was possible that the Hudson plant could have added the production of separate body-on-frame construction depending on what layout the plant had, but the devil was in the details.
If such a merger had happened early enough, Hudson could have saved the wasted expense of developing the Jet and deployed that capital instead to a second generation step down. How well that might have done against other premium full size cars may be questionable, but Hudson did have advantages in roadholding and reliability over its competition that may have been exploited with a more contemporary package.
Would a deconted Wasp be possible for Willys? The Willys Wasp would emphasize unit construction sturdiness, while the Hudson Wasp would push appointments, speed and road handling. Still after the dust settles you would probably end up with a “National Motors” with a Hornet Wasp and Aero based in Toledo, mirroring AMCs Ambassador Classic and Rambler. Was there a big enough market for two AMCs? I rather doubt it. In a way, the question of the independents in the postwar era is like a maze. So many directions to go, and most leading to a dead end.
I suspect that Hudson would have had to ditch its big-car platform by the early-60s. That could have led to the Hornet becoming much like the Rambler Ambassador — an extended version of the compact Aero. It would have been interesting to see what Hudson engineers would have done in subsequent generations of the Aero. Might they have gone in more of a European direction than most other American compacts, such as by experimenting with independent-rear suspension?
Okay, I think the points made about manufacturing / assembly plants mixing unit with body-on-frame construction are excellent and Willys-Overland (Jeep) had a better plan than Kaiser-Frazer, even though Kaiser folded Willys / Jeep into their empire. But here is my question about the U.S. auto industry after 1950: Were there enough domestic vehicle buyers to purchase 120,000 Packards / Clippers, 285,000 Studebakers, 250,000 Nashes and 250,000 Hudsons / Willys / Jeeps each year ? If the post-1954 domestic auto / truck manufacturers EACH established a business plan targeting the need to break-even on a minimum volume of 250,000 vehicles per year, the only real plan that made any sense was George Mason’s plan of 1954 before his death of a combined American Motors Corporation of all U.S. independents except Kaiser and Willys-Overland (Jeep).
I wouldn’t count Jeep in the mix. Their market was not very elastic and had no competition. You’re lookina at roughly 15% of the market share for independents here. They survived the 1930s shakeout and the postwar seller’s market was over. What was the independent’s market share from 46-49? Did some of the indie sales consist of buyer who couldn’t get a hold of big 3 cars? 1949 and 1950 are probably the first normal years for car manufacturers in 20 years.