Joseph L. Hudson owned Hudson's department store in Detroit and he capitalised the venture to build cars in Detroit and gave his name to the cars in place of Howard Earle Coffin. Coffin was one of 8 ex-Oldsmobile employees who with Hudson's capital founded the Hudson Motor Car Company in 1909 with an aim to sell a car for less than $1000. So Successful was the Hudson Twenty that in 1910 Hudson were ranked 17th in the car industry. The company was innovative in many ways and sales continued to climb, and in 1925 opened a factory in England. In 1919 Hudson created the 'Essex' brand to build lower-priced vehicles, but this was phased out for the brand 'Terraplane' from 1934-38. Production resumed after World War Two in 1946 with restyled 1942 models until the 1947 'Step-down' models were launched. A new in-line 6-cylinder engine at a time when V8s were coming saw Hudsons victorious in NASCAR racing. But Hudson didn't have the capital for new models and merged into Nash-Kelvinator in 1954 with the 'Hudson' nameplate last seen in 1957.