Back to back: Dual Ghia or Hudson Italia?

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How many Italian styled and / or bodied American cars were available in the mid-1950s? Available, so we are not talking coachbuilt Corvettes by Pininfarina, Vignale or Scaglietti here. Oh, those are younger anyway. Well? We can think of only two of them: the Dual Ghia and the Hudson Italia. And it doesn’t happen very often that both of them are offered for sale on one and the same day. It is the case, however, this weekend when Worldwide Auctioneers will hammer them down at their Pacific Grove auction on the lovely Monterey peninsula.

To start with the eldest of the two: the 1955 Hudson Italia was dreamt up in Detroit, Michigan ‘to create a flagship experimental sports coupe; fast, sporty, based on the hotfooted Hudson Hornet and also for competition in the Carrera Panamericana.’ And to compete the Corvette and Thunderbird they came up with something that these competitors didn’t have: European styling. The chaps in Detroit teamed up with Carrozzeria Touring to get the so much sought-after ‘European feel’. It didn’t exactly become a success though. The car offered here is one of just 26 built. It is said to have had just three owners, with all the bills from new still there, while a concours-level restoration was just finished. The estimate is $400 - $500,000.

The 1956 Dual Ghia Convertible is similar in many ways. It, too, was an absolute prestige project attracting film stars and presidents (Actor Ronald Reagan reportedly had one but lost it in a poker game with then-President Lyndon Johnson…). Meant to be a make on it’s own, Dual Motors’ products were in fact very expensive Chryslers with bodies designed by Virgil Exner but built by Ghia of Turin. Transporting the cars up and down to Italy proved a real pain and this was reflected in the sales price. With 117 made it was pretty rare, too. This is number 101 and is also said to come with an unbroken provenance including two long-term owners in Monterey, while it is also restored to concours-level. The estimate is $450 - $650,000. So there we go: which is the one for you? Full auction list here.

(Words editor, pictures Worldwide Auctioneers)

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