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Dan Cohen's beautifully restored 1949 Hudson Commodore Custom Eight convertible stirs up memories. In a lifetime of paying attention to cars, I've only ever seen one step-down Hudson convertible with my own eyes. In 1948, it was parked behind Analy Union High School in Sebastopol, California, where I was a schoolboy who had yet to think of becoming a professional car designer. The main reason for remembering it was the highly unusual sheetmetal panel above the windshield, something I'd never seen before. I never saw it again until some firms started making convertibles out of coupes in the 1970s, once it was understood that U.S. safety laws had not actually banned convertibles forever.