Abraham Edward Barit (August 30, 1890 – July 14, 1974) was an American industrialist who served as the president and CEO of the
Hudson Motor Car Company
The Hudson Motor Car Company made Hudson and other branded automobiles in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., from 1909 until 1954. In 1954, Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator to form American Motors Corporation (AMC). The Hudson name was continued through ...
from 1936 to 1954 when Hudson merged with Nash Motors to form
American Motors Corporation
American Motors Corporation (AMC; commonly referred to as American Motors) was an American automobile manufacturing company formed by the merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company on May 1, 1954. At the time, it was the ...
. Barit served on the board of AMC following the merger of the two automakers.
Career
Barit was born to poor parents in
Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.Chalmers-Detroit Motor Company. He began his career with Hudson in 1910, by joining the firm's purchasing department, less than six months after the production of the company's first automobile. He was a stenographer, and had no flair for market analysis, product development, nor design.
Barit was named president and CEO of Hudson following the death of the corporation's founding president and CEO Roy D. Chapin in 1936.
Using lines of credit arranged for Chapin prior to his death, Barit helped to steer Hudson back towards profitability in the late 1930s. Sales of Hudson rebounded through the economic recession of 1938. The company also survived a negative financial year in 1941, recouping its loss through
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
production contracts. In 1945, Barit successfully fought off a below market rate
tender offer
In corporate finance, a tender offer is a type of public takeover bid. The tender offer is a public, open offer or invitation (usually announced in a newspaper advertisement) by a prospective acquirer to all stockholders of a publicly traded corpo ...
for Hudson Motors by the Fisher family—founders of
General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
Fisher Body
Fisher Body was an automobile coachbuilder founded by the Fisher brothers in 1908 in Detroit, Michigan. A division of General Motors for many years, in 1984 it was dissolved to form other General Motors divisions. Fisher & Company (originally Allo ...
division.
The conservative Barit gave the go-ahead for Hudson's step-down body design—a revolutionary design that catapulted the firm to the forefront of automotive body engineering in the postwar market. When combined with the firm's Twin-H
straight-6
The straight-six engine (also referred to as an inline-six engine; abbreviated I6 or L6) is a piston engine with six cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. A straight-six engine has perfect primary and secondary engine bal ...
, Hudson's corporate sponsored race teams, headed by Marshall Teague, dominated the
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and hi ...
circuit from 1951 through 1954.
In the early 1950s, instead of reshaping Hudson's aging step-down design, or investing in
V8 engine
A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration.
The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and us ...
technology, Barit instead guided the company toward developing a compact car that Hudson could market. He "meddled" in the development and design of the company's products, failing to capitalize on the expertise of the firm's professionals in those areas. Instead of relying on engineering and styling to duplicate the previous success of the step-down design, Barit imposed his own requirements for chair high seating, and allowed others outside of Hudson to influence the design, namely
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
Hudson dealer
Jim Moran
James Patrick Moran Jr. (born May 16, 1945) is an American politician who served as the mayor of Alexandria, Virginia from 1985 to 1990, and as the U.S. representative for (including the cities of Falls Church and Alexandria, all of Arlington ...
, whose dealership became number one sales outlet for Hudson, accounting for about 5% of Hudson's total production. Moran fancied the 1952 Ford's wrap around rear window and roofline, and influenced Barit to introduce a similar design for the Jet. The final result was that the Jet's styling closely mimicked the larger
1952
Events January–February
* January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses.
* February 6
** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...
-1954 Ford in many respects which emerged as the antithesis of the low-slung step-down bodies.
The new compact car, named the
Hudson Jet
The Hudson Jet is a compact automobile that was produced by the Hudson Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, during the 1953 and 1954 model years. The Jet was the automaker's response to the popular Nash Rambler and the costs of developing an ...
, did not attract buyers, and the expense of its development (and failure) combined with Hudson's lack of resources to update their senior line of cars spelled the end for the company. Hudson Motors was subsequently acquired through a friendly merger by
Nash Motors
Nash Motors Company was an American automobile manufacturer based in Kenosha, Wisconsin from 1916 to 1937. From 1937 to 1954, Nash Motors was the automotive division of the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation. Nash production continued from 1954 to 195 ...
in 1954, creating American Motors.
Barit served on the board of AMC until 1956 when he resigned in protest over the likelihood that Hudson would be phased out of production. Barit felt that his trust in AMC had been betrayed.
George W. Romney
George Wilcken Romney (July 8, 1907 – July 26, 1995) was an American businessman and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as chairman and president of American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962, the 43rd gover ...
, AMC's president, felt that Hudson and Nash were no longer relevant players in the automotive market and retired both names at the end of the 1957 model year production to make way for the new
Rambler
Rambler or Ramble may refer to:
Places
* Rambler, Wyoming
* Rambler Channel (藍巴勒海峽), separates Tsing Yi Island and the mainland New Territories in Hong Kong
* The Ramble and Lake, Central Park, an area within New York City's Centr ...
brand.
According to his son, Robert Barit, the last car that A. E. Barit owned was a Hudson, and after it was retired, he refused to own any other make of automobile.
A. E. Barit died at his home in
Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan
Grosse Pointe Park is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 11,555 at the 2010 census.
Bordering on Detroit with frontage on southern Lake St. Clair, it is the southernmost of the Grosse Pointe suburbs. Gros ...
, on July 14, 1974.
Footnotes
External links
*
Sources
* "Business: Happy Days". Editors. ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'', April 5, 1948.
*
*
*
Social Security Death Index
The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) was a database of death records created from the Social Security Administration, United States Social Security Administration's Death Master File until 2014. Since 2014, public access to the updated Death Mas ...