Customs Took the Hudson to the dentist and got her a new grill

Seems like every year I try to do something new to my car. Last year i chopped it. The year before i welded the bumper into one piece, and lowered the taillights. This year I finally got around to doing the grill swap. I've been planning and finding the parts for this for about 5 years. The main thing I wanted was to use Hudson parts for the grill and to keep the light up emblem. After many different ideas I decided to use a '50 Hudson hood bar as the grill. It's flatter than the '49, and the emblem is more centered. The '53 Chevy grill surround just looks good in anything.

Here is what I started with, stock '49 Hudson front end


I knew there was some rust in the lower fender. There was tons of filler in the holes, backed by some screen to hold it all together. So rust repair was the first order of business.




The first trial fit of the surround showed it was just too wide for my liking.


I wanted to cut the ribbed part off the bottom of the surround. After I did I gave it a trial fit again.

 

After some measuring I first narrowed it 2 inches. But that was not enough, I ended up narrowing it 4 3/4 inches. It gave it a nice space around the headlights. I had to cut the ends off to get it narrow enough.




Once it was narrow enough I started tacking it in place. Then I extended the ends of the surround. I had to add about an inch to them.

 

Looking good!

[IGNORE]It might be an artifact of the photograph, but it looks like the grille surround extends past, and overhangs, the fender. Are you going to leave it, wrap it tighter to the body, or section the surround in the middle to tighten everything up?[/IGNORE]

Sorry. I posted before you added the additional pictures. Carry on...nothing to see here!

 

Are you going to keep the 3 skinny horizontal grill bars from the original grill? That would give it a very clean look.

 

Nice work...

 

The hood was the next issue. I had to extend it down, but at the same time I had to take some of the peak out of the hood to match the surround. I had to cut the inner structure out to get the hood to conform.




I changed the way the body lines come down the hood. They now match the rear of the hood near the cowl. I also rounded the hood corners. A sanding disk had the same radius as the grill surround.




When it came time to mount the grill bar, I did not want any fasteners showing or any braces showing. I bent up some 3/4 aluminum to follow the back of the grill. I cut the ends off and welded some plates on with threaded bosses welded into the ends of the bar. Sorry, I did not take any pics of that. I wa also able to run the wire for the emblem thru the pipe without being seen.


Once everything was body worked I primed everything and got to see it in one color.




I welded some dummy spotlights on the end of the grill bar. I thought it needed something to finish it off. And yes I went back and painted the radiator. The aluminum stood out like a sore thumb.



I got it done just in time to make the trip out to Austin for the Roundup again.

 

The grill pictures did not come out for some reason.

 

WOW, great work !!! Love them Hudsons. They're pretty popular around these parts. A guy I know has 3 of them. A 2 door coupe, a Jet and a pick-up. Cool stuff.

 

I wasn't sure at first, but damn that looks good

 

one of the best looking hudson grilles I"ve seen.nice job!

 

Very, very good job. Looks great!

 

I'd like to kiss the front of that car. OOps. That's not too kinky is it?

 

I'm from Ct. Originally, and have friends and family up there that are into Hudsons. My buddy has a '46 pickup, and his uncle has a '49 coupe as well as many others. He is th one who built my 308.

 

Berry nice indeed.

 

I too was skeptical at first. But wow, you nailed it.

 

Very nice work!

 

Looks awesome!

 

Very Cool.

VOODOOO Likes.

VR&C.

 

Thanks everybody. I try to plan out all the changes to improve the car. Not just make changes for the sake of changes.

 

Nice work. Good looking car and its not a merc. I'm doing a packard custom and when I figure out how to get pics on this dam machine I'll show her off.

 

awesome improvement. I like stuff like this on the HAMB....finally good info and showing some cool improvements to a cool car

 

Great looking grill and an improvement for sure. Very impressive

 

Clean and mean, wow that looks killer

 

I likes it!
Glad the tooth butcher didnt use gold fillings.

 

That turned out great!

 

looks great!!! i like it

 

Outstanding!

 

Way bedda.

 

Looks cool !

 

My first impulse was that it was reminiscent of the '55 Olds...but I like it!