Mortal enemies?
This is a detail of a photograph taken in 1949 by Sanford Goodrick, currently in the Krambles-Peterson Archive. The original full scene was published in the Summer 2020 issue of Classic Trains. I have zeroed in on the billboard advertising the streetcar's mortal enemy, the private car. The wooden-bodied Pacific Electric streetcar of 1907 vintage was not long for this world, but in the event, neither was Hudson Motor Car Co.
The photo caption records that the route being traversed by the streetcar from Santa Monica and Venice to downtown Los Angeles ceased one year later, in 1950. Pacific Electric itself withdrew its final streetcars in 1963. By then, Hudson was already defunct. Its stylish cars sold well in the immediate postwar years but Hudson was eventually crushed by the might of Detroit's Big Three, lacking the funds to develop a competitive V8 engine. A merger with Nash-Kelvinator did not save Hudson, and the marque was dropped in 1957.
Mortal enemies?
This is a detail of a photograph taken in 1949 by Sanford Goodrick, currently in the Krambles-Peterson Archive. The original full scene was published in the Summer 2020 issue of Classic Trains. I have zeroed in on the billboard advertising the streetcar's mortal enemy, the private car. The wooden-bodied Pacific Electric streetcar of 1907 vintage was not long for this world, but in the event, neither was Hudson Motor Car Co.
The photo caption records that the route being traversed by the streetcar from Santa Monica and Venice to downtown Los Angeles ceased one year later, in 1950. Pacific Electric itself withdrew its final streetcars in 1963. By then, Hudson was already defunct. Its stylish cars sold well in the immediate postwar years but Hudson was eventually crushed by the might of Detroit's Big Three, lacking the funds to develop a competitive V8 engine. A merger with Nash-Kelvinator did not save Hudson, and the marque was dropped in 1957.