1954 Herb Thomas Hudson Hornet

[MarkJ]

Herb won the first Southern 500 for Hudson in 1951 and the last one in 1954. This model depicts the 1954 winner built by Smokey Yunick. It was really hard finding good reference pictures of this car but I'm pretty sure about the colors I came up with. In 1955 Herb won again but this time it was in a Chevy also prepared by Smokey. I believe I have a kit to do the 51 winner, but again it's hard to find color pictures of race cars from back then.

[TarheelRick]

Keep bringing those older stocks, I love it. Beautiful work on this one.

[Rattlecan Dan]

Nice job! Very nostalgic.

[Volzfan59]

Another great model Mark.

[MarkJ]

Thanks guys. If any of you have ref pics of Herb Thomas winning 1951 Hudson at the Southern 500 that year in color, I would really appreciate if you would post them here. I have 2 small ref pics in black and white but that's not going to help me build that car. I hate to guess on color. I've done that before and found out later I was way off when I built Bill Frances 1938 Ford. I painted it red and black and it turned out to be black and silver.

[Rattlecan Dan]

Found a few pics. Hope they help.
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[Rattlecan Dan]

Maybe these pics are more accurate for 1954 Hudson.
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[Michael F]

Very cool model of a cool racecar!

Herb Thomas as driver, a great NASCAR pioneer.

[MarkJ]

Thanks Donato but the 51 Hudson he drove at the Southern 500 was before his association with Smokey started. The livery is a lot different. I found a color picture of the car but it's an artist's rendering and not a photo, so I have to hope the artist got the colors right. Black and white photo below the artist rendering.

[Volzfan59]

I love those old cars.

[MarkJ]

The Hudson's were a car before their time. Their very low center of gravity gave them a huge advantage over other cars like the Oldsmobile's that even though they had v8 power the Hudson's handling made up for the lack of the power. The straight six was still pretty potent and had tons of low-end torque.

[Rattlecan Dan]

I remember getting in one, and the floor was much lower than the door sill.

[MarkJ]

Here is a larger view of the 51 Herb Hornet. My only problem is the kit I have is a 53 Hornet and the hood and hood ornament are different than the 51 Hornet. I guess I could try to change it and also make a hood ornament for it. I'm not sure if the 51 was gray or a grayish light blue. I need to see if I can find a color chart for the 51 Hornet.