+1
In road racing, Hudson’s big advantage was on the curves, when they would leave everyone else in their dust, due to Hudson’s superior handling, but they were also able to hold their own on the straightaways.
The two things that killed Hudson–IMHO–were the inability to substantively restyle the old step-down body, and they simply didn’t have the funds for a total redesign. Then, instead of using their dwindling resources to design a V-8, Hudson’s management chose instead to build the compact Hudson Jet. It sold moderately well for the first year–until they ran out of customers looking for a compact car–and after 3 years the Jet was dead. Unfortunately, Hudson management didn’t understand that the market for a small car was very limited in those days.
Also, some Hudson maintenance could get pricey. In those days, it wasn’t unusual to have to replace shock absorbers ever couple of years, and replacing the rear shocks on Hudsons required the removal of the rear seat and the upholstered rear passenger side panels, thus adding to the labor costs. And, while they did have a mechanical brake system back-up, the tendency for rust to jam it up meant careful cleaning and lubing of that system on a regular basis.
Neighbors of mine had a '55 Hudson, which they used to drive the whole family (2 adults, 5 kids) to Florida. They made it to FL and back without problems, but when they got to our street–which was on a fairly steep hill–the automatic trans died. A few days later, the father was driving a new six-cylinder, stick shift '59 Chevy which he said was inferior to his old Hudson in every way.