What is a Terraplane?

[Jerry Lee]

After thumbing through an early '50's Englewood Speedway program, I noticed a couple of cars listed as a '36 and '37 Terraplane. Was this a type of engine or a car?

[Olen McGuire]

This is what I found in Wikipedia, but someone else may have some pics of the race cars.

The Terraplane was a car brand and model built by the Hudson Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan between 1932 and 1938. In its maiden year, the car was branded as the Essex-Terraplane; in 1934 the car became simply the Terraplane. Terraplanes were inexpensive yet powerful vehicles that were used in both town and country, as both cars and trucks bore the Terraplane name.



http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv149/OlenMac/HudsonTerraplaneCoupe1938.jpg
Hudson Terraplane Coupe-1938




http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv149/OlenMac/HudsonTerraplane4-doorSedan1938.jpg
Hudson Terraplane 4-D Sedan

[Jerry Lee]

Thanks Dad! This now rare car probably came a dime a dozen in the junk yards of the '40's and '50's.

[Olen McGuire]

This is getting into Bob Jeffresons territory, but here's a 1935 Terraplane Race Car at Queensland Raceway in 2006.
This car is owned and raced in the historic racing events in Australia by Ross Robertson.



http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv149/OlenMac/1935TerraplaneRacecar2006QueenslandRaceway.jpg

[bobjeffreson]

WHOA....
Olen.......Mate, if it don't race on dirt down here, then I'm not up to speed on those racecars.....

Some research required here!
Thanks for the project!

[Mitch G.]

One of the coupe experts can verify or clear this up, but seems to me my dad said when he was racing coupes at Lakeside in the 50's, the best steering box you could use, came out of the Hudson Terraplane.

[bobjeffreson]

Some info on the Terraplane in Australia...

Hudson Motor Car Company products were assembled in other countries under license. The British sounding names of "Hudson" and "Essex" had made them popular in countries of the Commonwealth and thus Terraplanes also were built outside the US in England and Australia in low volume. Australian law made it impractical to import a fully assembled car and thus main bodies were built by local craftsman at firms such as Ruskin Motor Bodies Ltd. and General Motors-Holden's Ltd, both of Melbourne, Victoria. In a few cases these bodies included styles not available in the US market such as tourers (US equivalent phaeton) and coupe utilities (the Australian car-based pickup truck).

Perhaps the most memorable sales slogan of the Terraplane years came from 1933: "On the sea that's aquaplaning, in the air that's aeroplaning, but on the land, in the traffic, on the hills, hot diggity dog, THAT'S TERRAPLANING".

Another Hudson Terraplane racecar at Sydney's long gone, tight little road track, Amaroo Raceway.

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g181/bobjeffreson/HudsonTerraplane88.jpg

[Olen McGuire]

You too can win a new Terraplane; See details below!!



YouTube - 1930's Essex Terraplane Auto Ad

[lakeside #29]

Hudson was a builder of luxury cars in the early part of the twentieth century. They were on par with Packards and Buicks. The Essex was their venture into a more affordable field, in 1919. After the great depression hit most of the independant car companies were hit really hard by the economy. In an attempt join the low price field that was covered by Chevrolet and Ford, Hudson brought out the Essex-Terraplane. A short time later the Essex part of the name was dropped.

From what I've read about the 1932 Terraplane it was somewhat of a factory hot rod. At about the same size as a Ford V-8 (106" wheelbase), it sported a flathead 6 of 194 cubic inches and 70 horsepower, which was 5 horsepower more than a '32 Ford. It could give a V-8 Ford a real race. For a picture of what 1932 Terraplane looked like see the photo of the late Don Palmer's blue #78 Lakeside modified elsewhere on this site. Don and his brother John won many races at Denver's Lakeside Speedway piloting Hudsons. Incidently, in the '60's at Lakeside the Palmer brothers could not take advantage of the legendary 308 Hornet 6 of NASCAR fame, they were required to use the smaller 262 Wasp 6. It didn't seem to slow them down.

Regarding Terraplanes at Englewood Speedway, the late John Thomas told me that he started there in I think in 1957 with '37 Terraplane.

The steering used in the postwar Hudsons was just about bulletproof. Many of them found their way into Jeeps as well as race cars. They were much stronger than the Ross unit that was OEM. I had a customer that ran a garage on So. Santa Fe that performed many of these Jeep converions until the supply dried up and then he switched to a manual Saginaw box out of Chevy Novas

A final footnote, '30's infamous gangster John Dillinger loved Hudsons, they were his getaway car of choice.

[parrot]

Growing up during those early stock car racing years I too remember the occasional Essex/Hudson/Terraplane cars. Seems like there was usually one or two at any given track. Don't remember any of them running the straight 8 engine but the six did pretty well. Heavier than the Fords, and others, of the day, when stripped down a few guys figured out they were usually pretty strong runners. That 106" wheelbase that Professor Coupe mentioned was on par with '32 Fords, and even some of the later models with 112-113" wheelbases matched up with the '34 Fords. Those of us from the Denver area remember well the competiveness of that pair of '32 Hudsons the Palmer brothers showed up with in the early sixties. Going back a few more years 1957), Blu Plemons also showed up in a Hudson. Unfortunately, he put that one over the wall in the north east corner. Don't know if these cars were Terraplanes or Hudsons, but heck, I couldn't tell the difference anyway.

Photos of these old Hudson Motor Co cars during the stock car racing heyday show up from time to time. Here's three of them that come to mind:
Not the best photo, but #50 was a mid thirties model at my home town track, Sidney, NE when I was a kid. #97 (courtesy of the W.A.R.C. book) is the car driven by Harry Schwalbe at Speedway Park in Ft. Collins, 1951. In the third photo, peeking over the hood of eventual '52 Lakeside Speedway champ Pete Ducker's car we can see the front of a Hudson stock car at that track. Can't see a number, so don't know who it is.