There's a hole in your piston, dear Heidi, dear Heidi...

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We introduced you to Heidi last year (click) when she started her ambitious trip around the world in “Hudo”, her 1930 Hudson Great Eight Saloon. She started in July 2014 following (more or less ) in the footsteps Clärenore Stinnes, who made a similar journey from 1927 to 1929.

Heidi’s travels have taken her through Eastern Europe, Central Asia, China, South Asia and Australia and it was in Adelaide that two pistons broke. She has driven about 30,000 km so far and along the way “Hudo” has had a piston and clutch replaced in Uzbekistan.

Wisely, Heidi had bought two Hudsons when preparing for the trip so she had a good source of spares when needed . The second engine was shipped to Melbourne where she met Michael Martin who offered his skills, tools and workshop to fit the motor. She also had a new wheel made after the wood gave way on one of her originals.

Heidi will never be short of helpers with her ready smile and joie de vivre and it’s no surprise that Ray Pank tracked her down. He’s a 98 year old ‘gifted engineer’ who owns a 1934 Hudson Straight Eight and described by Heidi as mentally sharp but has difficulty walking. She then wrote, “aus dem hüftgelenk knochen hat er sich einen schalthebel für den Hudson gemacht”. Does that really mean he made a gear lever from his old hip bone?

The slower pace of the Hudson has taught Heidi patience…” At home I was a race car driver and I always wanted to be first, now I have to learn that everybody passes me,” she said. “Now, in one day, if I pass three cars I go ‘yay!’ and have to write it in my book.”

You can follow the progress of Heidi and Hudo on her blog HERE and you can track her position live on THIS MAP. From New Zealand, she travels to USA in June starting in LA, heads north to Canada, east by way of Chicago to New England, south to Florida and west finally back around Thanksgiving 2015. Then she will drive her Hudson south all the way to Patagonia and cross the southern Atlantic to South Africa (April 2016). Finally back home to Berlin by June 2016 in time for her 80th birthday.

“Then I make the next plan.” She is contemplating planning another trip, taking 10 companions, on a similar journey.   “I don’t think this will be the end, no.”

Text by Robin Batchelor,  pictures courtesy Heidi Hetzer (see her blog)

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