Resurrecting a rare Hudson, a wrecked ’47 pickup

On any given weekend during the car show season, you’ll find Mick and Dody Franklin out and about in one of their beautiful Hudson street rods – a ’47 Hudson coupe powered by a Camaro V-6, a ’34 Hudson Terraplane with 350 Chevy V-8 power, and a ’46 Hudson 4-door with a 302 small block Ford under the hood.

Every one of their cars is a consistent award-winner, thanks in no small part to their son Mark’s amazing paint and body skills

But there was something missing from their Hudson fleet: a pickup truck.

“I always wanted one, but they were so outrageously priced,” said Mick, who does all of his own mechanical work. He did know of one possibility, a 1947 Hudson Super Six pickup that had been mangled almost beyond belief. It belonged to a young friend, Jeremy Petty of Smolan, who used it as his daily driver as a sophomore at nearby Southeast of Saline High School.

“It was in 1999 … a woman in a big LTD pulled out in front of him and hit him right in the door,” Franklin recalls. Petty was seriously hurt, but would eventually recover and go on to a career as a round track racer.

The totaled burgundy-colored pickup had been sitting in a field, stripped of much of its drive train, ever since the accident. The cab was crushed, with one corner folded flat against itself.

“I was talking to Mark about it and we went to look at it. He said, ‘Oh, we can fix that dad.’ I said, ‘Maybe you can fix it, but we can’t’,” the elder Franklin recalls. “ He said, ‘This ain’t that bad … if we can fix that panel, it will be alright.’ ”

So a deal was made for the wrecked pickup, along with a ’41 Hudson 4-door parts car, and the project was hauled home. That was in December, 2014.

“He showed me where to cut the top off .. and it kind of popped back into shape. Mark said, `Everything metal has a memory.’ He cut that rear cab panel off and started beating on it.”

The next thing he knew, the project looked do-able.

The Hudson pickup was built on a 128-inch wheelbase. Father and son decided to use the prewar ’41 four-door chassis, which is seven inches shorter, for the frame. Luckily, little had changed during the World War II years and they were able to use the ’41 cowl and doors; a new lower cab back was fabricated to fit.

With the roof back in place and the cab on the frame, the father-son team decided to shorten up the 8-foot long cargo bed, trimming seven inches off the front of the bed, to match the shorter wheelbase, and another nine inches at the rear, for a total of 16 inches.

“I like the proportions better. The Hudson guys might not,” grinned Mick Franklin. New bed sides were made from sheet metal, with tubing welded along the top for a finished look. A tailgate is on the “to do” list.

“It will look just like the original … Mark can do anything,” Franklin beamed proudly.

Spare parts from other Hudsons were used to finish out the front of the truck, with the rearmost tips of the fenders extended to match the pickup contours. The truck looked good enough without running boards that they decided to leave them off.

While all of this was going on, Mick was at work finding a power plant. He had gone to a car show in Wellington, where another car guy noted Mick’s love for GM 3.8 liter V-6 engines. He offered to give Franklin such a power plant from his 2002 Pontiac Firebird, wiring harness, engine control computer and all. Franklin wasted no time picking it up and getting to work on it.

“But I didn’t want to go to all that hassle, with the computer,” he said. In fact, he did away with the electronic fuel injection, milling the aluminum intake plenum off to accept an old-school 2-barrel Rochester carburetor.

For the ignition, he wanted a distributor that still had vacuum and centrifugal advance, instead of a computer module. So he found a Ford Thunderbird distributor that rotated in the opposite direction, built an aluminum bracket and mounted an old alternator body on it, with a cogged belt running down to the crankshaft pulley. This left the distributor lying horizontally across the top of the engine, which saved space and works like a charm.

The truck employs a 700R4 automatic overdrive transmission and an 8-inch Ford rear end with tall 2.79 gears.

Franklin built his own dual exhaust system, which he admits is a little loud and will be toned down for the benefit of is wife, Dody. Inside the renovated cab, he installed a set of cut-down Ford van seats, also temporary, and retained the original dash board, minus the speedometer. He installed a bracket that allows him to use his smart phone’s GPS as a speedometer/trip planner.

Mark Franklin finished off the now-smoothly flowing body in Hot Rod Black satin paint and Dody applied the stain to a new plywood bed floor, just in time for this year’s Leadsled Spectacular in Salina.

With a new set of American Racing Torque Thrust 5-spoke mags and 215R/15 Goodyear All Season radials bolted on, the unique shortbed ’47 Hudson pickup has been a hit at every show since then.

“It’s just what a guy needs … another Hudson,” grins Mick Franklin.

This story was originally published August 16, 2017 at 8:14 PM with the headline "Resurrecting a rare Hudson, a wrecked ’47 pickup."