The Hudson car was named for the man who bankrolled the company, Detroit department store magnate Joseph L. Hudson. His niece had married Roscoe Jackson, who worked for Oldsmobile and was teaming with fellow Olds alumni Howard Coffin, Roy Chapin, and George Dunham. Their first car, the Hudson Model 20, introduced in June 1909, was based on a model that Coffin had worked up during his prior stint at Thomas-Detroit. An open roadster on a 100-inch wheelbase, it had a 199-cubic-inch four-cylinder engine from Continental and a three-speed sliding-gear transmission. Companion models on a 110-inch wheelbase were offered as a roadster with doors and a five-passenger touring.
In the next four years, three new models followed, the most ambitious of which was the six-cylinder Model Six-54 of 1913. Six different body styles were offered on a 127-inch wheelbase. The 54 continued in successive years, but the bread-and-butter car for 1914 was the new Six-40, on a smaller, 123-inch chassis and powered by a 288-cubic-inch, 40 hp six. Four-cylinder engines were discontinued altogether.
By the time the 1915 Six-40 was built, Hudson Motor Car Company was advertising itself as the “World’s Largest Manufacturer of Six-Cylinder Cars.”
Source: RM Sotheby's