Lookin' for that '49 Hudson...

Neal at the Wheel

Neal Cassady roared across America and into history in Jack Kerouac's famous novel On The Road. His car of choice? The legendary '49 Hudson.

We've been looking to obtain a '49 Hudson for our lobby since the day we opened in San Francisco in 2006. We've been offered a few... $20,000, $30,000 even $70,000. All a tad more than the $1.95 we had budgeted for that particular expenditure.

And then one day a friend of a friend dropped by saying he knew a guy who had a '41 Pontiac in storage and he was willing to let us showcase it in our lobby. I sent Carolyn Cassady an email - "Carolyn, did Neal ever own a Pontiac?" "Jerry," she replied, "in 1950 Neal owned eighteen different cars—one of them had to have been a Pontiac." So, we put the Pontiac in the lobby to hold the space for that glorious day when we find our '49 Hudson.

Oh, and by the way, if you're wondering where the REAL '49 Hudson is, the one Jack and Neal actually drove cross country? The answer is: no one knows. In reality Neal didn't own that car all that long and there is not a scrap of evidence that it ever really existed - no photographs, no VIN number, no bill of sale, no license plate, nothing. Trust me, John Allen Cassady and I have been searching for this evidence for years and none exists. We DO know the Hudson existed because Kerouac told us so in the book and Carolyn Cassady and Al Hinkle (Big Ed Dunkle in OTR) have told us their recollections of that magnificent machine. But the REAL Hudson? Well, as John Allen laments, "It's probably rusting away at the bottom of a ravine somewhere in Arizona."

If you or anyone you know has a '49 Hudson, give us a call!

This 1941 Pontiac Torpedo holds the space for a 1949 Hudson...

Photo by Maíra Soares