Strange but true: For two brief years, Hupmobiles borrowed their body shells from the 1934 Ford Model 40.
As a point of reference, shown above in blue is a 1934 Ford Three-Window Coupe. (Essentially similar, the ’33 and ’34 Fords were known collectively as the Model 40.) We show it here first to note its uncanny similarity to the 1934-35 Hupmobile Model W—which is by no means a coincidence, it turns out. Indeed, both the Ford and Hupmobile bodies were manufactured by the Murray Body Corporation of Detroit, using dies originally engineered for the Ford Motor Company.
How this unusual arrangement in sheet-metal sharing came to pass is not totally clear, but we know that both Ford and Hupmobile were important Murray customers. Meanwhile, Murray CEO Clarence W. Avery was a former Ford executive and a close associate of Edsel Ford. (Years earlier, Avery had been Edsel’s industrial arts teacher at Detroit University School.) In the early years of the Great Depression, the Motor City’s auto suppliers were in desperate shape, Murray included, and it seems Ford decided that it was in the automaker’s best interests to keep Murray in business. We can bet that the recycled Ford body dies saved a considerable amount of cash for both Murray and Hupp.
While the Ford and Hupmobile coupe bodies are similar, there are some interesting differences. The Hupmobile coupe (above) uses Ford Cabriolet doors, which feature three hinges and roll-down window frames, creating a hardtop-like effect. The Hupp body also employed unique fenders, hood, and radiator shell, and it rode on a different chassis with a 117-inch wheelbase compared to 112 inches for the Ford Model 40. By the way, the Hupmobile plant was located not far from Murray near the Milwaukee Junction neighborhood in Detroit, on the southeast corner of what is now the General Motors Hamtramck complex.
For 1934, the Ford-bodied Hupmobiles bore the model ID 417W, while the ’35 cars are designated 517W. There were just two body styles, a coupe and a four-door-sedan (below). Both were part of a low-priced line added by Hupmobile to complement the larger and more expensive Aerodynamic series designed by Raymond Loewy and introduced in 1934. Priced roughly in Oldsmobile Six territory at $795, the Ford-based junior Hupmobiles were not big sellers, unfortunately, as total volume for both production years amounted to fewer than 5,000 cars.
Didn’t Hupmobile also re-purpose some Cord stampings? And it seems like Brewster also shared some stampings with Ford.
Yes. Hupp acquired them from Norman DeVaux, who owned the dies. But they weren’t really suited for mass production, so together Hupp and Graham built Skylarks and Hollywoods, respectively, redesigned by John Tjaarda but using their own engines.
By the time the Cord body dies and tooling were acquired at the September 1938 auction, DeVaux was the general manager of Hupmobile. Murray Body built the bodies for the entire production run of the Hollywood/Skylark. True, the roof of the Cord was seven pieces as a press able to make that in one draw had yet to be developed by the 1935 body design but that was Murray’s problem. Hupp initially had Murray build 30 bodies for a preproduction run of the then named Junior Six. They were aware that they didn’t have the financial resources to go into production so DeVaux negotiated a deal to have Graham build their now named Skylark and to license them to build a companion car, the Hollywood. By the third week of July 1940, Hupmobile ran out of money and stopped Skylark production at just 319 units produced and went into bankruptcy on November 1, 1940. Graham produced 1,825 Hollywoods before they stopped production in September 1940.
I’ve often wondered what could have been if they had used a canvas top with door frames like the 1950 Rambler instead of the multi piece roof of the Cord.
4-door body was used in the Soviet Union on the GAZ-M1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ-M1