Video: Introducing the 1933 Essex Terraplane

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Meet the popularly-priced Essex Terraplane, one of the hottest cars on the road in 1933. 

 

It’s not documented as such, but we believe this awesome film clip from the King Rose Archives is an excerpt from a Hudson Motor Car Company presentation at the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago (also known as the Chicago World’s Fair). There, the automaker hosted the Hudson-Essex Television Theater, where visitors could view an early form of television and also learn all about the company’s fine automotive products. We recognize the energetic announcer’s voice as belonging to Billy Repaid, a Hudson spokesman and  popular radio personality of the day in the mold of Paul Harvey. In the Television Theater, Billy was billed as the master of ceremonies.

At the very top of the clip, there’s a brief (and shaky) look at the Hudson flagship for 1933, the swank Pacemaker Eight, and then the story swiftly shifts to the carmaker’s popular low-priced car, the Essex Terraplane. (Read our Terraplane feature here.)  A 1932 reset of Hudson’s junior Essex line launched in 1922, the Essex Terraplane was successful enough that the Essex name was dropped for 1934 and the cars were badged simply as Terraplane through 1938.

There were two complete Essex Terraplane lines for ’33, Six and Eight. Both were strong performers: The 193 CID 6 offered 70 hp and the 243.9 CID straight 8 was good for 94 hp, while prices ranged from $425 to $745, right in the middle of Ford and Chevy territory. With a wheelbase of 113 inches and a curb weight of 2400 to 2700 lbs depending on body style, the Terraplane 8 had one of the hottest power-to-weight ratios on the road in its time. Terraplanes set a whole slew of AAA stock car records that weren’t bested until after World War II, and here the Hudson test drivers appear to be having a fine time beating the tar out of their demonstrator fleet. Video below.

 

5 thoughts on “Video: Introducing the 1933 Essex Terraplane”

  1. The Terraplane 8 went zero to 60 in 14 seconds, several seconds quicker than the Ford V-8.

  2. I may be wrong but Terraplanes here in Oz were marketed as Hudsons.
    The Essex brand was quite seperate and disapeared after the war.
    Hudsons were around to around 1960

  3. Nice looking car seldom seen today. I guess the scrap drives of WWII got most of them. By then they were over 10 years old, ancient by the standards back then.

  4. I have a copy of this film, and what you don’t get to see is that this presentation was part of Hudson’s exhibit for television at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. The exhibition was stationed across the road from GM and Chrysler. Hudson probably didn’t have a lot of money to spend on their own exhibit, so this film was a sly way to still be on Transportation Row at the Fair.

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