ALMOST all used vehicles for sale are advertised online these days, but in 2017 there was still a lot of advertising in newspapers and magazines – and that’s where Bill Stanley, of Cheshire, Connecticut, saw an ad for a car he’d loved since he was a teenager.

 

Years earlier he’d seen a Hudson Terraplane pickup on the road. He’d never seen one before and he was smitten by the vehicle’s unusual styling.

 

“I thought it was just the coolest thing in the world,” he said.

 

“They only made them for two years, and the styling … I was just amazed by it.”

 

He never forgot about that truck, and many years later started trying to find one for himself. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, as they’re in the ‘hen’s teeth’ category.

 

Then in 2017, he was paging through a copy of Hemmings Motor News when he saw an ad for a ’37 pickup in Ohio.

 

“I called the guy up and he was very modest about it,” Stanley recalled.

 

“He said he restored it and it was nice … Well, he sent a few more pictures and they kind of looked good, but you couldn’t really tell. But we agreed on a price and I went out there - I wasn’t going to buy a car without looking at it.”

 

It was a gamble – the vehicle was in another state, more than 1000km distant.

 

What Bill found was far from just a ‘nice’ truck. It was a stunner, a beautifully presented vehicle that had won prizes at concours events.

 

The seller was Dale Bundy, who had spent countless hours working on it in the previous four years, but he was ready to let somebody else feed and care for it.

 

“He told me they didn’t have a lot of history, but he said the Hudson collector he got it from bought it from a car lot for about 150 bucks back in the 1960s … and he’d been holding it for all that time,” Stanley said.

 

“He had done virtually a concours-level restoration … He drove it a little here and there, so it was not a perfect No. 1 car, but not far from it.

 

“The motor, drivetrain, transmission - it was all original and gone through back in the ’90s. I’m sure when he was done with it, it was done way better than when it came out of the Terraplane factory.”

 

“Sometimes you just get lucky,” Stanley said.

 

“I think he probably just wanted to sell it to somebody who would appreciate it and take care of it.”

 

The Terraplane name began in 1932 as a model of the Hudson Motor Car Co. Wilbur Wright was the first recipient of a new car, and Amelia Earhart reportedly got the second.

 

Terraplanes gained fame for being clocked at 80 mph, (about 130km/h) which could compete with the new Ford V8’s performance.

 

Within a year, Essex-Terraplane became known simply as the Terraplane. Hudson decided to try its Terraplane in racing and hill climb events and the cars went on to collect many hillclimb and speed records.

 

The industry’s first all-steel turret top was introduced on a Terraplane in 1935, and Duo-Automatic hydraulic brakes arrived in 1936.

 

For all its strong points, however, the Terraplane was seen by some within the company as a threat to its parent nameplate.

 

The following year, in 1938, it was renamed the Hudson-Terraplane, meaning it was basically a model under the Hudson umbrella – and by 1939 the Terraplane name disappeared altogether.

 

The Terraplane cab pickup was unique at the time in that the front half of the vehicle closely resembled a passenger car, complete with a fancy streamlined grille and side mounted spare integrated into the passenger side front mudguard.

 

The swoopy art deco design and low profile of the pickup might make it look a little too fragile and sophisticated for real grunt work, but Stanley’s pickup is a beefy 3/4-ton brute underneath its pretty skin.

 

The Double-Drop 2-X frame was certainly suitable for heavy lifting, and the long bed - designed with toolboxes on either side - and the 3.4-litre straight six connected to a three-speed manual transmission with an ultra-low ‘granny’ first gear made the Terraplane a more-than-capable work truck.

 

“It’s pretty funny that it’s actually a 3/4-ton truck,” Stanley notes.

 

“It’s low and looks kind of chopped … but the springs on the back are unbelievable. It definitely rides like a three-quarter-ton truck. And I’ll tell you, it gets a lot of attention!

 

“It drives nice, but you get up to about 45 mph (72km/h) and it’s not too happy. The truck really has to work. I can cruise pretty nicely at about 35…(55km/h).

 

“It’s non-synchro, so shifting is a bit of an issue. First gear is so low I don’t even use it.

 

“Getting off the line is no problem in second gear. First gear would be good for pulling stumps on the farm, I’d guess.”

 

The Terraplane pickups were a little more refined than most of their competion, with a nicely arranged instrument panel at the centre of the dash.

 

It included fuel and temperature gauges and lights for the generator and oil pressures. The push-button starter was accompanied by a key and a choke adjustment knob. A cowl vent lever controlled the fresh air that was funneled into the cab.

 

A notable technical achievement that Terraplane enjoyed in those days was a vacuum electric shift assist system that was fitted on the steering column and basically overrode the floor shifter.

 

It was a pretty nifty device, but Stanley’s bare-bones pickup is not equipped with it.

 

“Mine was very basic,” he said. “It’s got no heater, no radio, no clock. Just the basics.

 

“I don’t drive it too much. I’m a little afraid to drive it because if somebody runs a stop sign and hits you, what are you going to do? It’s not like you can go to a parts store and get a mudguard or grille for a ’37 Hudson.”

 

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!’

 

Some Terraplane sedans were also built in low volume in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and England.

 

Only 7900 of the stylish pickups were ever built, and today there are only about 20 survivors.