C

["Mahoney, John" <jmahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Back to Frank Spring (and, yes, this is related to the big AMC picture):
Walter M. Murphy, along with LeBaron in NY and Dietrich in every locale (he
was so talented designing for his own firm that Motown's Big-Three, or, back
then, to include Packard, Four-More --- had to put him on their payroll
where, unlike Fleetwood of PA, his name didn't survive the war), designed
the best bodies in America and, from 1921-1932, they came to life in
Pasadena on the best chassis in the world.  Unlike 2004, most of those best
were American also, bearing names only idiots don't know of:  Auburn, Cord,
Duesenberg, Chrysler, Lincoln, Packard, Peerless, Pierce.    

Murphy met a flight fan and pilot while he was developing his airport
property in Whittier in 1924: his name was Frank S. Spring and he knew about
aircraft, motorcycles and cars.  Spring, who was both educated and cultured,
also knew about European cars, which, at that time, were ahead of American
cars in both performance and styling.  Having graduated from L'Ecole
Polytechnique [in Paris] and having been chief engineer of the 1923 Courier
(which he gave 4-wheel brakes, one-shot lubrication and a dry-sump engine),
he was not just another wealthy dilettante.  In 1926, when Murphy dumped his
Locomobile, Simplex [hey!] and Lincoln franchise to become SoCal distributor
of Hudson and Essex, Spring became manager of Murphy's coachbuilding
department and in no time, his Murphy-bodied Hudsons were lower, longer and
more stylish than the best coachbuilt Hudsons by Biddle & Smart.

Franklin Q. Hershey (who would put Pontiac on a Silver Streak to sales
success and who would put Richard Teague to work in his GM studio one day)
and Philip O. Wright (who would pen the most influential --- and lowest
production --- Pierce-Arrows for the most automotive of all world fairs
[take that, Mustang and baby boomers!]) soon were hired by Murphy; together,
they created the most beautiful, most famous cars of all time.
More Duesenbergs and Cords wore Murphy coachwork than any other firm's, more
stars were struck by Murphy bodies than starlets slept in Murphy beds and
more Fords, Chevrolets and Essexes were given star treatments from Murphy
sightings than from any other source*****.

In 1931, Hershey designed the one V-16 Peerless (for which he likely was not
even paid) that truly ended the most glorious of American auto eras; he then
took a job in Detroit with Hudson.  While Nash built a beautiful body
occasionally --- almost all of them designed outside the company --- Hudson
built beauties over several decades.  The '55 Hashes, the last Hudsons
designed by Frank Spring, were better looking than any '55 Nash.
But Nash was Studebaker to Hudson's Packard; and so began a life of AMC.

*****In 1932, Murphy had to sell out also; all his firm's drawings, body
drafts, negatives, photos and records were destroyed.  Good times don't last
forever; something few 2004 Americans seem to realize.    

So, if Hudson really was the higher quality component of AMC's equation,
Spring would have been its design equivalent, for Nash had employed (on
staff, that is; another large pot of information your AMC authors never
ladle from and another reason your best books don't tell the full story, or
show you all the surviving AMC design photos), it's sad to say (and clearly
offensive to many AMC/Rambler lovers), that just as the lesser killed the
greater [gotta know your Hudson history to get that funny!] in the other two
quarters of the whole that was to be AMC, when N-K men made American Motors
their car company, they lost something modern Nash could only dream of.
They neither respected history, nor learned from it. 
 
The time is late; the footnote are long and I'll have to leave what I'd been
wanting to note for later.  Or never.  Isn't anyone other than Jock (and a
few others) motivated to post info on AMC articles in current car magazines?
Isn't anyone interested in the Urban Legend/Jay Hawkins Ambo spot in heavy
rotation on TV?  Isn't anyone checking how AMC is represented on bookshelves
today?  Isn't anyone in sight of a calendar?

Fifty years ago today (on October 27, 1954), a new program entered America's
life, five days after the first new AMC lineup entered Nash and Hudson
showrooms.  If "Disneyland" made ABC TV, then it made an awful lot of AMC
sales also.  

Three years later, (on October 25, 1957), the final Hash was assembled, not
even three years from the date (October 30, 1954) the last Detroit-built
Hudson was --- an amazing eleven days before the first Hudson was built in
Kenosha.

Fifty years ago, that may have seemed like a good way.  Rambler was the
top-name in retained [used car] value and in four short years, AMC rose from
10th place to 4th place is sales.  An AMC that had lost almost $38 million
since it was incorporated would earn $60,341,823 in 1958.  Thirty years
later it was dead.  Could any AMC have lasted longer with a bit more Hudson
and little less Nash?  

See what happens when I get going?

Have a safe, happy Halloween!


"There are clubs dedicated to Ford Pintos, AMC Pacers, Pontiac Azteks and
many other dubious automotive offerings from the past."

John McCormick, October 27, 2004, in the Detroit News

(Too bad the "non-dubious-offering" AMC clubs weren't heard by eBay's
Editors Challenge: they may have invited a Charity AMX to join a
Spirit-sized, Fox-bodied, 1993 Ford Mustang)

http://www.editorscharitychallenge.com/