40th Anniversary Dinner – Hudson-AMC Car Club

The 40th Anniversary of the forming of the Club was held at the Bankstown Trotting Club. 

Excellent presentations were made at our anniversary dinner, initially by Laurie Ottley on the formation of the club, and then Les Pendlebury spoke on the first attempt at forming a Hudson Car Club & the subsequent success on the formation of this club along with both its growth & ups & downs over the 40 years.

Elizabeth Lynch followed with a talk about being a member of the club for many years from a ladies perspective & had all present in the room in the palm of her hand!  Elizabeth told us all about the outings in their early days with the club & said that things aren’t much different these days as the men in the club all still “HUB” as soon as they arrive at any outing!  She then proceeded to explain that “the ceremony of Hubing is Heads Under Bonnet” - & takes precedent over setting up the picnic on arrival or packing up to go home.  We learnt that ‘Hubing’ was the time in which the “tweaking” was done when out & that the ‘tweaking’ ritual of the men was also a priority prior to leaving home for an outing when the picnic needed preparation & on arrival back home when the cleaning up needed to be done.

Elizabeth then proceeded to tell us all just how lovely & glamorous the ladies were on the night & then proceeded to tell them it was time to ‘make over their men’!  She singled out several men such as Les Pendlebury, Mick Haynes, Fred Rodgers & Tony Atkinson & had everybody in stitches with laughter.

As Greg Palumbo was working & couldn’t be with us, he put a few words down on paper & asked his lovely wife, Sue, to present the words on his behalf.  Sue did a magnificent job for Greg & the words that he had written for Sue to present were most sincere & straight from the heart on just what the club & its members mean to him & the friendships that he has made during his membership.

We had a great selection of music during the night which was provided by Glenn Longbottom.  We enjoyed great dinner music before launching into a Barn Dance & then the good old Rock & Roll music for more dancing.

The age group in attendance on the night spanned over 50 years & it was fabulous seeing groups of people of varying age mixing, mingling & talking with each other – all the while with smiling faces.  This was a sure-fire sign that those of us who attended the dinner really enjoyed being there.

Anniversary decorations & displays of memorabilia of both the club’s past & the Hudson marques generally were placed around the room adding to the celebratory atmosphere of the night.  Also, a magnificent anniversary cake was sourced for the consumption on the night by Carole Wheeler & this cake had a photo of the whole group of people in front of their cars which was taken at the last President’s Weekend in March this year.

We were also treated (& I use the term ‘treated’ very loosely) to a couple of songs by our now, world famous Hudsonettes …… singing HUDSON songs from the song book that was given out in Detroit at the Centenary of Hudson Meet.

Wendy Atkinson & Carole Wheeler organized & laboriously wrapped prizes for everybody and towards the end of the night, held the lucky draw.  And, surprise, surprise, nobody missed out on getting a prize. 

This was another lovely touch & many thanks got to the ladies for looking after this.

Happy Birthday Hudson-AMC Car Club of Australia!