ICON Derelict 1949 Hudson Coupe

[Music] [Music] let me introduce the 1949 Hudson super 6 coupe arguably one of the most innovative shapes of its time they have such a wild low roofline and sweeping grace to them and that was allowed because of the unique construction technique at least back then called unibody which gave them a very low floor height and allowed for this radical body shape when I was stumbling around on Craigslist and I stumbled into this car I immediately knew I had to build it I didn't even have a client when I found the car I just fell in love with a car fortunately a client who I already really enjoy appreciated it just as much as I did so he jumped right in and we were off to the races as with all of our derelict sit started with us bringing in the original car studying its conditions documenting and scanning many components such as all the - knobs the underside of the body and the like so that we could start to Sketch up and then 3d model all the associated components let's face it many industries today especially transportation design is it really so much about the design as it is the business model about Wall Street about the shareholders so ever since the Industrial Revolution there's been a constant perversion of quantity over quality but back in the day brands weren't trying to come up with one thing that fit everybody they were trying to come up with something that said something distinct something unique something that represented a particular design perspective then came Wall Street then came the focus groups then came the pencil pushers and it's just been whittled down ever since that's why I love building these icon Darrell X then we media blast the underside of the car to reveal the bare metal to get a better understanding of the conditions present then we cut out the entire floor section interfaced the body on the new chassis elements and then hand-built the floor with stones metal shop to perfection once the vehicle was entirely built with the exception of fluids and wiring harness we took it all apart and built it a third time just to make sure everything fits together and everything's seamless it's really helpful to do the build that way takes a lot longer but it adds a lot to the finished product before the body was reattached to the powder-coated chassis the entire underside was epoxy primer tin sealed then we did our signature polyuria heat cured coating on that primered steel on the inner floors as well as the entire underside of the vehicle once the chassis came back from his ink rich epoxy base coat primer which is actually intended for undersea pipelines then we did the black color coat which is called black cat and then we moved towards final assembly the chassis was engineered by our dear friends at Art Morrison it's a one of one chassis engineered specifically for this vehicle much more difficult than let's say the chassis on a traditional ladder frame but really worth the effort we're able to maintain that low slung stance but now we have four-wheel independent suspension we're running at Dana 60 nodular third member in the rear with adjustable coil over shocks all the way around and then independent front suspension art Morrison's famous sports suspension setup for brakes running the Brembo six piston calipers in the front with four piston calendar rear and that brake system is hydraboost assisted this results in a very responsive pedal and it can move a whole lot of fluid which is perfect for what we need for steering we're running a rack and pinion set up by Flaming River and for the engine we are runnings of ls9 one of my all-time favorite engines and unfortunately they've now been discontinued and they're getting quite difficult to find the famous ls9 engine was originally developed for the sixth generation zr1 Corvette it is a 6.2 liter aluminum motor with a very unique four lobe rotor design supercharger which allows the ls9 to produce copious amounts of power over a broad power range crank horsepower is rated at 638 and torque at 604 on our dyno runs we were delivering 478 horsepower to the tarmac and 457 foot-pounds of torque the transmission is based on the general motors for l/70 II so it's a 4-speed overdrive but with burliest internals and larger planetaries so does a good job managing the copious amounts of horsepower is pulling out of this motor [Applause] [Music] believer in six beads always ask me why don't you run at six feet it's just two more gears to shift through two more things that can break and in the end of the day you're not getting any benefits in the performance all you're getting is the OEM benefiting from better fuel efficiency on paper which allows them to put off actually engineering the mechanical system of the motor to be more efficient so I don't know I've done a couple six speed builds but I prefer the floors the exhaust system is built in two and a half inch stainless steel it's all mandrel bent and ceramic coated it's bridged in the middle so you get a nice muffled quiet balanced exhaust tone but when you stomp on it it really comes to life [Music] so as you know we always work really hard to keep a vintage wheel aesthetic while dealing with the engineering constraints of these super large Brembos and wanting to fit a high-performance sticky zr rated tire so this is running the icon forged aluminum wheels they're 18 inches and we ran a staggered setup of goodyear eagle RSA's so in the front were running 235 58 teens in the rear were running two 45 55 18 and then the wheels were patina painted and this sort of funky modded black and gray setup to match the original paint on the body the hubcaps are actually the original hubcaps that have been with the car since it was born [Music] [Music] did the four-wheel independent suspension that required us reshaping the entire floor in fact we replaced the floor front to back because of the condition there was a lot of surprised rust hiding down there but it also allowed us to maximize the ergonomics and take advantage of every nook and cranny so this is a false firewall behind which we are hiding Electronics amplifier bass speakers as well as this is part of the dry sump system for the ls9 so all super sexy high-end us-made aerospace Ian fittings stainless plumbing when it's a hard line this is all om or better and then that's fluted into the body through the pan and back out in the engine bay batteries back here so we created these post covers if you come back over here stupid little detail but kind of fun we did these little brushes so you can protect the hinge point try and keep stuff clean on the inside for the fuse panel the wiring system of course is all new and designed by us we're using Bussmann or packard or all the OEM fittings that are triple seal connection and all cross-linked wire to the left of the fuse panel is a master dead switch fuel system of course brand new stainless steel tank of our design to manufacture we created this access plate so when you have to deal with the fuel pump one day you're not dropping your tank you just pull in the plate and then everybody comes up and then another issue we have oftentimes with these earlier cars is actually even into the 70s is they can't take the modern fuel pump fill rate so the tank was designed with that in mind as well as it has internal baffles the internal om pump and all that goodness but also the actual architecture and design of the fill neck has been completely rethought to keep up with the modern fill you'll notice a tank hiding in this quarter panel and that's an expansion tank for the fuel system as well all of those changes to the way the fuel system was engineered allows us to keep old school until you're inside so modern sealed fuel cap isn't the sexiest looking thing but it's hidden but again that let us keep the exterior the vehicle dead clean and stock I guess the original owner of this car was a little JC Whitney happy because this thing had all sorts of accessories some cool some silly and some silly cool so this is not stock for this vehicle this is an old period piece and after market turn signals and third brake light I suppose you two wired either way there's single filament bulbs so we did it LED and we connected these two the turn signals reverse lights super-groovy these are a guide light so these may have actually been a factory accessory because the original single red gas lenses did not give you reverse but these weren't cool we upgraded them with modern internal optics LED but we left the original housing and glass over plastic any day car also came with an old spotlight which we thought was super groovy so we didn't really alter it visually again we kept the original housing and everything but then we modified the optics so it really blasts a pretty good amount of light and just kind of cool they have like a neat period funk too more grace in the front and tons of subtle mods that are hard to catch immediately we stayed with a halogen h4 by hella I like using these on the real early cars instead of the light emitting diodes because they're just I don't they jump the shark visually but these are glass and keeping with the original quality and theme and really give you some good lighting it's interesting up here and there front through so many bars in the thing is going on when we got the car again the guy was a bit accessory happy so there was actually another Tower of bumper guards with another horizontal bar up in the front and he just looked wrong but when actually did the research it was an accessory on the car's back in the day I just didn't get it and it looked like poo so we took it off so you could see more of the horizontal details up here in the front we also removed the wave art that goes down here because they couldn't make it up my driveway if I left but still in the fence we might put it back on you might notice our elaborate aftman ship via duct tape actually I can't take credit for that that was on the car when it came to us and it's hiding a big ugly like chisel hole but I think it's kind of fun it's kind of part of the funk part of the charm so we just left it's good to go [Music] so letting in more let's talk about the - these have such a cool - and I think Hudson was probably one of the best American manufacturers at painted steel to have the look of wood the patina on it and everything literally looks like wood how its patina you know people been polishing away over the years the icon lizard as you know changes we put on all sorts of different spots depending on the build it's kind of up to the lizard in this case this seemed like a really good spot you got such a raked windshield he gets to bask in the Sun there and he's got a killer view the original rear view mirror was maintained even all the patina and cracks because it still works great it's just the foil on the backside that's starting to age like an antique mirror so the functionality is there but it just had that style and vibe this front light is original again updated to LED this is the bakelite control for the antenna which is kind of silly doesn't do anything anymore but it looks cool so we left it and I'm a sucker for bakelite as you move into the main body of the - this has been extensively modified but it's hard to see which was the goal so this is stock this is stock this is stock this is stock that stock in this old-school Hudson this would hold your Kleenex tissue brand which I wonder if the modern size even fits this is a really interesting piece so stock this was just one piece and then there were knobs but a varying design and they were not all evenly on the horizontal plane which just killed me however the audio knobs with these cool little details I really like the shape and design of that that design was repeated on a couple of these knobs but not all of them so we see and see this entire piece and steel and then we did that because I wanted to keep the vintage vibe but I wanted to add all the functionality that we need to support now in all honesty I'm not really 100% happy after this video I'm redoing it I screwed up the CAD files on these knobs and it's hard to notice until I just like an idiot pointed it out to you but they're scale is a little bit off and the rake of the dome the radius varies so whoopsies but since I have to redo them anyway I don't like this ivory white that we did so we're gonna machine those and leave them raw and then I'm gonna have our patina artist give it the vintage effect of the worn bakelite I think that's gonna look a lot cooler and then I don't I might infill so you have headlights fan vent temperature and wiper these AC vents again always a challenge on the classic but I didn't want some modern mail-order catalog vents screwing up the Grace and balance of this - so I designed this shape taking inspiration from the Spears on the glovebox door and on the left hand side so it still has that form terminates these flow better in the middle and then we 3d printed a reinforced polymer with laser cut stainless control so now you have directional louvers which is something we rarely do it's a lot more complex but now that we've figured out the CAD model on that I think you're gonna expect to see it on more and more builds this right here is the stock Calvin control that's left all alone steering column is by our partners that I did it so it's a collapsible tilt column you'll note we have patina painted it so it flowed with the rest of the vehicle and what about that steering wheel unbelievable so this would have been an optional wheel on a hornet or one of the highest trim level vehicles back in the day this was actually a pretty low level trim vehicle and the original wheel was nice once I discovered that these happened we had to do it so we went ahead and reduced the diameter of the wheel by scanning the then modifying the CAD file then creating the molds and having the acrylic poured so this has this wonderful kind of luminescent pearl situation going horn ring stock color was killer patina was perfect unrestored left it alone other details on the column you'll notice that the transmission control knob as well as turn signal tilt and even the little hazards knob have all been redesigned again and chorus with the original knob that inspired everything else we did on the - since I'm pointing at that ever so nifty radio the radio is designed again to look that stock it does luminate like it is going to work and it actually does work what happens now is you hit any memory preset button that excites the Bluetooth signal and then you control system volume from the knob on the left and from the knob on the right you control specifically the bass output and then that's all fed through a digital sound processor paired up with focal audio speakers and jail audio amp and base stereo rocks but again didn't want it to jump the shark so it did not change the visual and the technology on audio changes so quickly especially head units more and more I like to run these Bluetooth dependent systems so you're always update your phone you're not having to screw with your vehicle this little bejeweled piece right here is again not stock nor is this this beautiful gauge with this kind of neon effect that's on all these gauges actually is stock but again the internal workings have been modified so it's all circuit board driven vehicle speed signal driven no capillary tubes or any of that old nonsense quartz clock these jewels now are for check engine and for oil pressure and that obnoxious beeping you're hearing is for the parking brake so you'll notice I kept the original parking brake handle but we interface that with an e-stop electric parking brake system it's often quite difficult to get the fulcrum point mechanical leverage you want for modern brake calliper enabled parking brake but with the e stop you're getting a worm gear that's really putting a lot of pressure and holds things nice and tight the audible tone while annoying is very helpful it reminds you idiot your life trip art can brake on as does this vintage aerospace salvage part we got four jewel for the key this is actually a Toyota Landcruiser part but I've always liked them so when we designed this piece we made it so you could fit a 95 to 97 fzj av ignition key housing ring which is what gives us the illumination and then we went with our usual icon ignition switch we didn't do power windows on this one we did manual client like that mechanical interface fine with me and we did do power door locks because no one likes dealing with that [Music] how cooler these opera lights love them we just changed the LED bulb for out still we'll polished him and partied on and again quality quality quality all the way down to a glass lens which you just gotta love more details on the audio system so the idea was again non-invasive but needs to pump because the whole point of this ride is to enjoy Nashville so it's going to live in Nashville it's going to do it a fair amount of bar-hopping and musical scene situations so I once owned a 37 Lincoln Zephyr in the trunk of that Zephyr was a single speaker grille that was just too cool so it had the music note it's cast aluminum but I only had one so what I did was when we started this car and I knew we were gonna go down that rockabilly theme I went to the client said come on look at this thing it's just too cool isn't it fortunately he's a geek and he agreed with me so we employed this cool business in downtown Los Angeles third generation they do justice and casting just aluminum so we took that original piece and we had it cast and I it's just so cool so I went ahead and made a dozen of these so I have some spares but they just had such a great vibe to them and we modified the layout so they were compliant with the modern speakers but it's just such a cool look now what is that directly next to that speaker grille you may be wondering is that fake alligator the answer is no sir it is not fake Alec this is sustainable wild-caught American alligator so those of you that follow my antics on Instagram know I am a bit of a leather craft geek so I've been studying from the Masters in different techniques ranging from like Western tooling to early Europeans staining everything I do is hand burnish hand stitched and I'd hand stained blah blah blah so this started as crust alligator meaning it had been through the majority of the tanning process but no pigments or oils were reintroduced so literally starts bright white then we did a technique that Ramez used to do and they in fact today still own the company that provides the system but it's a variety of organic pigments that you use and they're in different suspensions and each suspension creates a different effect we literally hand-painted every single tile of every alligator to create this interior now looks like it's blue it's kind of blue but it's blue copper brown orange red and black so that we could create more patina and more funk and more surface variation and then last coat is like a Bluegreen wash that we do so you'll see there's just so much character in the surface and the effect is just entirely unique every single time it's its own creation and it's it's really been fun to do so I brought in my friend Kathleen she's an expert in this and we did a little bit of video so here you can see the process as it was happening actually use a gray wash as a base and then go over with a mixture of blue green and red which I know it doesn't make me look like it but this leather isn't exactly just navy blue there's a lot more colors in it so color matching is probably the trickiest part and check this out I love these backseat ohmygosh handles I don't know why you've used it in the original and except pull yourself out of the car but then why would you do that because you're going to rotate the seat forward when you get out of the car it doesn't matter we created a reason for it by having about 500 horsepower hitting the tarmac so it's your yeehaw handle so we did a climbing rope in here and then we took trimming of our leather and we skived it down a bit thinner and then hand wove it to create the grab handle while the steel hardware is original to the car again you'll notice a transition so you have all this patina and what they call a Himalaya style where you've got a color bleed fade on all the hard back panels that also continues through with the alligator for the door panel inserts the rear quarter inserts but then the upper band of leather the door handle the lower section and the main seat bodies are all done in a special Morin Jail's leather that we had tanned our specifications and that kind of funky blue green for the headliner we stayed with an old-school mohair wool and the nice gray blue and then for you Builders out there a lot of times people will use the leather on the welting around the door don't it creates so many squeaks because it's back and forth and it really sucks so more and more we've been using the headliner material and it quiets things down of course as you can see and all the footage of the build process inside of the doors are copious layers of Dynamat on the floors are five different layers of heat and sound deadening products upon which we put the rolls-royce Wilton wool carpet and then another set of that carpet as removable rubber backed mats with another layer of Dynamat and then those are hemmed in the scrap leather from the seats there's no piping on any of the seats it's all French stitch which is more durable more classic and I just kind of dig the vibe we did do three-point belts for safety we color matched them to the interior but you have now two three-point belts for the front seated passengers as well as the center lap and then three more laps in the rear all the original spring structures from within the seats have been deleted and replaced now with a memory foam we sculpted the seats and gave them a pattern that's inspired by the original with a little Tufts but isn't really an honest representation the original because I had already taken many liberties but I like the look we did reduce the height of the seat a lot because despite the unique low floor format on these early unibody Hudson's there's just not much Headroom at all so now with the reduced seat height you actually have better visibility and it's way more comfortable [Music] [Music] [Applause] as always thank you so much for taking the time to watch my crazy videos Bader and I spent a lot of extra time on this one because well we spent a lot of time on this one so thanks again keep in touch any questions reach out old school telephone eight one eight two eight zero three three three three website is icon 4x4 dot-com Instagram is icon 4x4 thanks again peace out see on the next one

Channel: Jonathan Ward

Views: 259,039

Rating: 4.8990135 out of 5

Keywords: ICON, ICON 4x4, Derelict, Jonathan Ward, Hudson, Art Morrison Chasis, ICON Derelict

Id: 9MSXSKR2N9U

Length: 29min 55sec (1795 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 16 2019