Hudson Goes Big with Small
Good ideas don’t die, but they don’t always succeed, either, and that was a lesson Hudson learned in 1954 when its compact Jet faded away.
Every car that didn’t make it has its defenders, its critics and its analysts with theories about what really went wrong. However, the simple truth about compacts is that, through most of the 20th Century, not many American drivers wanted them. Setting aside the truly small cyclecars whose brief moment in the sun was mostly at about the end of the Brass Era, few significant manufacturers even tried. American Austin, Bantam and Crosley are among the best-known examples from the period between the two World Wars, and while they might be charming, that wasn’t enough to save them. Only Crosley returned after the war, and even in that much-improved form, it didn’t last.
Those three
