Identify This Week's Classic Car

Time for our third round of Identify the Classic Car! 

There's no cash on the line, no medal, no confetti cannon. Just the eternal bragging rights of being the one who called it, and the very public reminder that you didn't if you're wrong (chuckles). Drop your guess below. History is watching. Mostly me, but still.

CLUE: Up front, there's a shape with three sides holding court dead centre, like someone welded an arrowhead right into the bumper. Flanking it, two round eyes sit tucked low into the fenders rather than up high where you'd expect them, a low, ground-hugging stance that made this one famous for hugging corners as hard as it hugged the pavement.

Answer: Friday August 7th.

The Hudson Hornet

*Marshall Teague 1952 Hudson Hornet, (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0)

Spec Sheet: Hudson Hornet (1951–1954)

Engine: 308 cu in flathead inline-sixHorsepower: 145 hp with "Twin H-Power" dual carburettors (up to 160 hp on later tuned versions)Top speed: just under 100 mph, the fastest American production car of its day

Wheelbase: 124 in

Weight: approx. 3,500 lbs

Transmission: 3-speed manual (overdrive optional); Hydra-Matic automatic optional; 0- 60 mph: approx. 12-13 seconds

Body: Unibody "step-down" chassis, passengers seated within the frame rails rather than on top of them

The Hudson Hornet looked like it shouldn't have stood a chance. While rivals like Oldsmobile and Chrysler were racing brawny new V8s, Hudson stuck with a six-cylinder engine, betting instead on its radical "step-down" design, a low-slung unibody that put the floor pan below the frame rails instead of above them. The result was a car that hugged the road far better than anything else on the grid.

It worked spectacularly. Under legendary driver Marshall Teague and the factory-backed "Fabulous Hudson Hornet" racing team, the car dominated NASCAR's Grand National series, winning the majority of races in both 1952 and 1953 against bigger, more powerful competition. It remains one of the great underdog stories in American motorsport, and decades later it became the inspiration for Doc Hudson in Pixar's Cars.

*Marshall Teague 1951 Hudson Hornet, the actual NASCAR racing car (photo licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0)

Or browse the full set here: Category:Hudson Hornet - Wikimedia Commons, which has both stock sedans and race-liveried cars if you want a different angle.

Look in on Monday for the new challenge.