Where was Hudson's Proving Grounds?

[douglasm]

I know GM, Ford and Chrysler all have proving grounds in southeastern Michigan, as did Packard. Studebaker's was [[of course) in South Bend and the Nash/AMC facility was in Burlington, Wis, outside of Kenosha.

So where did Hudson test their cars?

[Packman41]

According to this article, Hudson never had a proving grounds,

http://www.businessweek.com/stories/...to-test-tracks

“Oddly, according to Jack Miller, proprietor of Miller Motors in Ypsilanti, Mich. - the world's last Hudson dealer - Hudson Motors never had a test track, not even to refine the sensational "step-down" body introduced in 1948.”

[douglasm]

Thank you for posting that article, Packman. It was informative.

The only quibble I might have was that GM's high altitude test garage was on Canon Avenue in Manitou Springs, CO. Memory says it was between the church and the back side of the Mineral Spa.

As an aside, Chrysler used to run yearly trips to the Pikes Peak area to do altitude testing. Dad was a bit envious of the fact that GM had a year round facility, but they had to work on the cars in the parking lot of the LaFon Motel.

[Richard]

"Cars then were being tested on public roads,” Sloan recalled in his 1963 classic, My Years With General Motors, “and there was no easy way of telling whether the test driver had pulled up at the side of the road, taken a nap, and then driven faster than the test schedule called for to make up the necessary mileage. Once one of our engineers discovered a test car jacked up outside a dance hall with the engine running up the required mileage on the odometer.

"The most important step we took to standardize and improve test procedures was the establishment in 1924 of the General Motors Proving Ground, the first of its kind in the automobile industry.” The pioneering GM test track was located at Milford, Mich., in hilly open country just 40 miles northwest of the GM headquarters and nascent engineering laboratories in mid-town Detroit.

The streets of Detroit was the test track...lol

I have his book cw 1965 that has a ton of information in and have read it several times if somebody wants to have it. It explains how pretty much the whole industry started ,pretty good read.

[gazhekwe]

I think they continued road testing for certain conditions right on along. While living along Lake Superior on a road that had very little traffic, especially in dead of winter, imagine my surprise to look out the window, winter 1981, and see at least ten Omnis driving by. Turns out they were road testing for snow and ice. Well, we had a lot of that.

[mikefmich]

My g-g-grandmother was run over by a test car at Gratiot & Townsend, broke her neck and killed her in 1910.

According to her DC, there was an inquest pending. Always hoped I could get my hands on that for further details...such as what car company it came from.

Supposedly she was the first pedestrian killed by an auto in Detroit according to family tradition....but one knows how those stories can go.

[jcole]

Detroit businessman George Bissell [[left) astride a horse. In 1902, he became the city’s first auto-related fatality

http://www.hourdetroit.com/Hour-Detr...to-the-Future/

Further research indicates that he was in his carriage when it was hit by vehicle.

[douglasm]

GAzhekwe.....
.......Yup. This is all from memory, but I believe GM generally did cold weather testing based out of Pellston, and Chrysler usually did winter testing on Ontario Rte. 17, using Sault Ste. Marie as a base on one end, and White River, Ont. as a base on the other.

[MikeM]

In the early Nineties I lived at the former Kincheloe AFB. One of the auto companies, or maybe it was a supplier, I never paid attention, would use a closed taxiway in the winter for some sort of brake or traction testing. They would make a long strip of ice on one taxiway and a donut-like strip of ice on another one. A dozen miles west, at the former Raco field, they were doing the same thing. There would be a half-dozen cars, sometimes camouflaged, out there all day doing who knows what. They were kept in one of the old hangars at night.

[Smirnoff]

Woodward Avenue

[Mikeg]

Thank you for posting that article, Packman. It was informative.

The only quibble I might have was that GM's high altitude test garage was on Canon Avenue in Manitou Springs, CO. Memory says it was between the church and the back side of the Mineral Spa.

As an aside, Chrysler used to run yearly trips to the Pikes Peak area to do altitude testing. Dad was a bit envious of the fact that GM had a year round facility, but they had to work on the cars in the parking lot of the LaFon Motel.

The General Motors Pike's Peak Engineering Test Headquarters [[photo) was located at 906 Manitou Ave. in Manitou Spring, CO. [[source).

I was there in the spring of 1989 on a pilot production test drive of about one dozen 1990 "A" cars. At the time I was the chief body engineer for structure and doors and the 1990 models had a new passive seat belt system, which included a "D-ring" mounted at the upper rear corner of the door frame. About twenty of the "A" car engineers and managers flew out to the Oklahoma City plant and picked up the newly-built pilot vehicles and drove them in a caravan to Pike's Peak. However, the summit roadway beyond the Gift Shop was still closed while the road crews removed the last of the winter snowfall, so we never made it to the top. After making the first purchases of the year at the Gift Shop, we drove the pilot cars to the Engineering test facility in Manitou Springs, where they were then parked to await the arrival of another similar group of engineers who would resume the pilot production test drive up Pike's Peak and back to the Milford Proving Grounds.

As I flew out of Colorado Springs the next morning, I forgot all about the chrome-plated six-shooter I had purchased at the Gift Shop for my four year old son and which was stashed in my carry-on bag. I quickly remembered it after it went through the x-ray machine and I got asked to step behind the red velvet rope line and carry my bag to the security office!

[rb336]

I think Hudson "borrowed" Packard's proving ground

[douglasm]

Very interesting, Mikeg. You'd think I'd remember a big garage building opposite [[Murphy's) Town House, down the street from the Royal Tavern, but I don't. Took a Google walk down Manitou Avenue and it's sure changed. But then, I haven't been back in 35+ years, so it could be expected.

My apartment [[20 Ruxton), which was converted from a storefront, is now [[you guessed it) a storefront.

I'm guessing you made it to halfway house, right? Dad was part of Chrysler's radiator design lab when they ran cars up and down the mountain. This would have been in the early 60's.

[ElbertHanks]

I think they continued road testing for certain conditions right on along. While living along Lake Superior on a road that had very little traffic, especially in dead of winter, imagine my surprise to look out the window, winter 1981, and see at least ten Omnis driving by. Turns out they were road testing for snow and ice. Well, we had a lot of that.

My parents lived in Sault Ste. Marie in the late eighties and early nineties. There is an old WWII emergency landing airstrip for bombers nearby [[I don't know the name or exact location) that I believe Bosch and some other companies were using to test anti-lock brake systems. There employees were lodged in the Sault.

[MikeM]

My parents lived in Sault Ste. Marie in the late eighties and early nineties. There is an old WWII emergency landing airstrip for bombers nearby [[I don't know the name or exact location) that I believe Bosch and some other companies were using to test anti-lock brake systems. There employees were lodged in the Sault.

Yes, that was Raco - used as a BoMARC missile base in the 1960s before being abandoned.

[ElbertHanks]

In the early Nineties I lived at the former Kincheloe AFB. One of the auto companies, or maybe it was a supplier, I never paid attention, would use a closed taxiway in the winter for some sort of brake or traction testing. They would make a long strip of ice on one taxiway and a donut-like strip of ice on another one. A dozen miles west, at the former Raco field, they were doing the same thing. There would be a half-dozen cars, sometimes camouflaged, out there all day doing who knows what. They were kept in one of the old hangars at night.

I somehow missed your post when I posted below. My dad was friendly with some of the workers. As I recall, and wrote below Bosch did their cold weather testing for anti-lock brake systems there.

[MikeM]

I haven't been there in nearly 20 years, but I see they are still up there, testing: http://www.wintertesting.com/1e-raco.htm

I have a friend who used to work for Bosch; I remember him traveling to either Brainerd or Ely, MN to do winter testing.

[MikeM]

Back to the original question; Harry Kraus writes in his book, "Fun at Work, Hudson Style," that besides a road test garage at the factory, they would road test cars by driving them up M-53 to Port Austin and back during the day.

[Packman41]

I think Hudson "borrowed" Packard's proving ground

Nope, not that we are aware.

But, if you know otherwise, then we would like to see your evidence.

[Mikeg]

The suggestion that any car company would let one of their competitors "borrow" their proving grounds is laughable on its face.