Evolutionary: The long, storied life of the Hornet nameplate

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This week, the automotive sphere was abuzz with the news about Dodge’s new Hornet crossover. Swarms of opinions of all stripes have been flying around, like an angry nest had just been disturbed. Some of those comments were barbed and poisonous, while others merely—

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[Editor’s Note: Brendan, I swear if you make any more wasp puns, I am going to swat you.]

Well that stings. But fine.

Anyway, here we are with a storied nameplate, resurrected as a crossover. It’s a story that’s been remade more times than A Star Is Born. Remember the [fill in the blank] that you loved? Well, we jacked it up in the air, and gave it four doors and some plastic body cladding. We know plastic body cladding is catnip to consumers. The sales charts prove it.

Whether or not the Hornet can manage to pester the best-selling likes of the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V remains to be seen. The midsize crossver segment is fairly conservative – and the competition is cutthroat – but Jeep’s made a go of it. A bit of Dodge’s signature braggadocio might give the Hornet the boost it needs.

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But perhaps more interesting is that the resurrection of the Hornet as a plug-in hybrid crossover isn’t quite the blasphemy it might seem. Or at least, it’s no worst than the “Ford Maverick” nameplate being attached to a little car-based truck these days. Here’s a look at a little Hornet history.

Doc Stock Car

Weirdly, even kids will be able to identify the first Hornet, thanks to a little ol’ movie franchise from Pixar. Ka-chow! The Cars movie made the Hudson Hornet a star, with a dusty but wise blue coupe called Doc Hudson. Voiced by the late Paul Newman, himself a bona fide racing talent, Doc Hudson helped teach the basics of racing to the brash Lightning McQueen.

In reality, the Hudson Hornet had genuine racing pedigree. Hudson was a Detroit-based company, founded in 1909, and initially known for manufacturing the sort of Model-T-ish-looking jalopies you’re probably picturing in your head. After the Second World War, the company launched the then-innovative “step-down” body, which was pretty much what it sounded like. Instead of climbing up into a box mounted on a frame, passengers opened the door and stepped into a compartment surrounded by a frame. It was still body-on-frame construction, but of a kind that would still be used in something like Ford Crown Victoria cop cars in the ’90s.

Compared to the older style of vehicles, the new Hudsons were safer and more comfortable, but they also handled much better. In 1951, Hudson introduced a new, more powerful version of their inline-six engine, and called the car the Hornet. The 5.0L engine eventually made 170 hp, and had oodles of low-end grunt.

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Stock-car racing was becoming popular at the time, and the Hornet would prove to be nearly unbeatable. In every year of production, 1951 to 1954, the Hudson Hornet was a winner at the track. Florida-born driver Marshall Teague dominated the racing scene with a pair of cars painted with “The Fabulous Hudson Hornet” down their sides.

However, in 1954, Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator, a combination car-refrigerator company (yes, really). The Hornet would continue, but not as a true Hudson, more a rebadged Nash product. The racing days were over.

Built to beat the Maverick, a few Gremlins emerge

The Hornet nameplate took a nap for most of the 1960s, but by the time the 1970s rolled around, it was back and ready to party. And by “party,” we mean “save fuel,” and “be affordable.” Real fun stuff.

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Designed as a replacement for the Rambler, and now part of the American Motors Corporation (AMC) brand, the Hornet was… surprisingly not bad! It was slightly larger than some of the other compact offerings at the time, and the standard 3.3L inline-six was a bit less thirsty than the competition’s engines.

AMC was so pleased with the reception to the Hornet that it turned it into the Gremlin. Today, the Gremlin is a bit of a punchline, but at the time it was fun and quirky and not as horrible as everyone remembers. AMC would squeeze every ounce out of the Hornet’s metaphorical toothpaste tube, eventually using the platform to develop the four-wheel-drive AMC Eagle.

And AMC would also give the Hornet a bit of a sting in its tail. [Careful, now. —Ed.] A 5.0L V8 engine provided a bit of muscle for a performance version, and the car even achieved a bit of stardom. In 1974’s The Man With The Golden Gun, Roger Moore as James Bond steals an AMC Hornet from a showroom and executes a highly technical barrel-roll jump with it — a complex and impressive stunt almost completely undermined by the idiotic idea to play a slide-whistle as the soundtrack.

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Perhaps more relevant to the Hornet as it is reborn today, AMC used the 1970s Hornet as a testbed for all sorts of alternative propulsion. A gas-turbine-engined Hornet was tested out in New York in 1973, and later in the ’70s, California’s Air Research Board used hybrid-converted Hornets to test that technology out. There was even an experimental full-electric powertrain Hornet called the “Electrosport.” This last actually worked, after a fashion, with a range of several hundred kilometres. Regrettably, it was also unbelievably slow, and cost six times as much as a normal Hornet.

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By 1977, the Hornet had run its course, and disappeared into history even as AMC leveraged the platform to create other products. It would next emerge as a largely imaginary product.

We nearly got a supercharged Nissan Versa

Chrysler acquired AMC in 1987, and along with that takeover came the rights to use the “Hornet” badge. The company immediately didn’t, choosing instead to sell its own compact cars. Up went the Hornet on a shelf somewhere, to be dusted off after everyone finished panicking about the Y2K bug.

But dusted off it was. Seeking to make an entry into the European market, Dodge launched the Hornet Concept at the 2006 Geneva motor show. It was even more of a toaster-on-wheels than the Kia Soul turned out to be, but given that the Kia Soul was actually a success, perhaps Dodge was on to something here?

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Fitted with rear-opening rear doors like a Mazda MX-30 and seats that folded completely flat, the Hornet looks incredibly cool in retrospect. The engine was a 1.6L supercharged four-cylinder, of the same kind as found in BMW-built Minis. However, Dodge was only going to (maybe) build the engines in cooperation with BMW/Mini. The idea was to find a shared platform with another manufacturer, and a couple of years after the concept came out, it looked like the unlikely co-host would be Nissan with its Versa.

Later, a tie-up with Fiat nixed that plan, and eventually the Hornet idea gave way to the ill-fated Dart sedan. Today, the modern Hornet shares its platform with the Alfa-Romeo Tonale, and will be built in Italy.

In the context of the nameplate’s whole story, the Hornet being a crossover with available plug-in power and a sporting GLH trim makes more sense. Yes, the Hudson Hornet is a distant ancestor, but this car is more related to the compact competitor and experimental powertrain machine of the 1970s.

And that car, as an AMC product, was a success. Dodge could have a similar hit on its hands with this all-new Hornet.