1931 Hupmobile Sedan

1931 Hupmobile Sedan, click picture to enlarge.



Hupmobiles were built from 1909 through 1940 at the Hupp Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan. The company's philosophy was to build a tough and dependable car and sell it at a working man's price range. This philosophy paid off well and production and sales soared to over 50,000 cars by 1929. The Great Depression that hit in 1929 slowed sales down. A workers strike in 1937 also hurt sales and few cars were produced between 1937 and 1940.Production of the Hupmobile cars ceased in July of 1940 due to financial difficulties and the pressures of the impending war years of 1941 to 1945.The 1931 Hupmobile came in a variety of body styles including the Model S 4-door sedan shown here. The model S sedan was priced at $995 in 1931.

An interesting personal story about the Hupmobile occurred in Atlant, Georgia in the early 1960's time frame. My wife and I were living on Matthews Avenue, just off of Dekalb Avenue, and I was going to a nearby convenience store. At the intersection of Mathews and Dekalb Avenues an older lady was sitting in a 1917 Hupmobile that was broke down. I stopped to see if I could help her and she thanked me and said no, that her mechanic was on the way and should be there soon. Now I gathered from her conversation that she was the only owner of that car and that her mechanic was the only person to ever work on it. Now when you consider that this was a 1917 car and the year then as in the early 1960's that car had only been driven by one lady and worked on by one man for over forty years. Astounding and amazing!!! Another odd thing that I noticed about that car was that it was chain driven like a bicycle. It did not have a regular transmission, drive shaft and rear end gearbox like most other cars have. My, my, these times, they are a changing.

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1929 Duesenberg Model J Derham

1929 Duesenberg Model J Derham, click picture to enlarge.

This car was a legend in its time. I don't remember ever seeing one of these cars but that was probably because the people in my area did not have the money that it took to buy thses cars. In my research for this car I found a statement that said this car had a base price of around twelve thousand dollars and could go up to twenty five thousand dollars with a custom made coach and other options. The thing about that statement that struck my attention was that this was at a time when the average doctor only earned about three thousand dollars a year. The Duesenberg was featured in some of the ritzy movies of that time. Captain Eddie Rickenbacher, a famous WWI ace fighter pilot that was downed in the Pacific during the war, drove a Duesenber in the Indianapolis 500 race once. The Duesenberg also won the Le Mans Open race in Europe three or four times.

In February 1928 the Model J designation was born.
The newly revived Duesenberg company set about to produce the Model J, which debuted in December at the New York Car Show of 1928. In unsupercharged form, it produced a whopping 265 horsepower (198 kW) from a dual overhead camshaft straight 8 and was capable of a top speed of 119 mph (192 km/h), and 94 mph (151 km/h) in 2nd gear. Other cars featured a bigger engine but none of them surpassed its power which was three times bigger and was also both the fastest and most expensive automobile in the market. All these unique features, glamour and style found an inspiration in the expression; "It's a Duesy".

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1928 Austin Seven

1928 Austin Seven, click picture to enlarge image.



This Austin is from the time frame when I was born and came onto the scene in "automobilia". I say that because I rememer the Austin pretty well from younger days. You may be able to tell that it had regular battery ignition powered headlights and not the older oil burning lamps of earlier years. The headlights were then a more integral part of the fenders and had a clean look about them instead o looking like they were an afterthought and just hanging from a frame mounted somewhere near the front of the car. Notice also that this Austin had the sporty looking steel spokes, similar to bicycle wheels, and they were not solid wheels or wooden spoke wheels as was common in those days.



I don't remember the Austin Seven, as this car is, but I remember The Austin-Healy, which was a low slung sporty car and looked much better to me than this car does.

Engine: four cylinder, side valve, 747cc, 11 bhp; Gearbox: three-speed sliding mesh; Suspension: transverse semi-elliptic front, quarter elliptic, live axle rear; Brakes: four-wheel non-interlinked mechanical. Right hand drive.

From its introduction in 1922 the Austin Seven carried lightweight open tourer bodywork, earning the nickname "Chummy" due to its small proportions meaning passengers had to be fairly friendly to travel anywhere! As production developed many different forms of bodywork were offered; the Chummy remained popular, and the confines of its bodywork became slightly more accommodating. Later Chummies are distinguishable by their upright windscreens, flat sided scuttle, and deeper hood arrangement. By the year of production of this example the Seven was in its heyday, and continued to sell extremely well into the mid-1930s. The Austin cars, and the different offshoots such as the Austin Healey and finally the MG sports car, were British or English made cars.

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