Tuesday 28th December 1915

The Hudson Motor Car Company was issued a United States patent for ‘the Super-Six principle’ relating to automobile engines. Although the patent covers a number of refinements to engine design, the most significant was the concept of counter-balancing the crankshaft to reduce engine vibration at higher speeds. This single modification in design boosted horsepower of Hudson’s basic six-cylinder inline engine by an astonishing 80%, probably the largest single gain in engine efficiency achieved during the entire life of the internal combustion engine. Thanks to this and other features, the big Hudson six-cylinder engine produced more power than larger V-8 engines offered by Packard and other manufacturers of the same era.