A reader alerted me to an article that appeared yesterday in a publication called Air Mail: "Coachbuilding Goes Electric." The subtitle of the article reads: "Dacora Motors, which hopes to be the Rolls-Royce of America, is putting an E.V. twist on car-making for the 1 percent." What makes the article of interest to us in Hudson is contained in its opening paragraph:
It's not every day one gets invited to inspect a prototype of a $650,000 Pininfarina-designed battery-powered limousine, much less a retro-pastiche land yacht with a wooden hood that's still being fleshed out on Long Island but it is slated to go into serial production from a factory with an adjacent hotel and hospitality center in Hudson, New York, in 2028.
The car is being developed by Kristie and Eric D'Ambrosio-Correll, and its name--Dacora--is an elision of their surname. These photographs of the car appear in the article.
In the article, Kristie D'Ambrosio-Correll is quoted as saying:
We're in the process of closing on a 100-acre property [in Hudson, New York], and we'll be developing it to be a combination manufacturing site and the property we'll be renovating. Owners will get a chance to come stay with us, have a membership-type of experience, and get to interact with the craftspeople at the factory to be run much more like an atelier than a large assembly-line factory.
According to the article, Dacora Motors currently employs ten people but hopes to staff up to three hundred by 2028, the year they plan to go into production in Hudson. The fact that the proposed site is a 100-acre property, however, suggests that this enterprise will not be located in the two square miles that is Hudson but rather in Greenport, which assumes Hudson's name because it shares Hudson's zip code.
Update: Minutes after this post was published, a Gossips reader offered this speculation about the property Dacora Motors may be acquiring. Mount Merino Manor, located at the point where Route 9G enters Hudson, across the road from Mount Merino, has been on the market for the past three years, but it recently disappeared from Zillow. A website called Bed & Breakfast For Sale provides this description of the property:
Pampering hospitality venue on 100 acres with expansion potential just minutes from downtown Hudson, NY! Exquisite estate on 100 park-like acres with historic 6000SF manor house, 2100SF guest cottage and a cavernous 7,000SF Barn structure.
Sounds like this could be the property in question.
COPYRIGHT 2025 CAROLE OSTERINK
Could also be Stockport. I've certainly heard nothing about it here in Greenport.
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing to me reads like a satire of what Hudson has become: Someone gets to drop $50k to reserve one of these ridiculous cars - just look at it - and then can stay at a hotel (possibly in Greenport, no less) attached to an atelier-like factory to see it built by "craftspeople"?
This is a lock and it will play out exactly like that.
It does seem counter-intuitive to place a swank hotel next to an automobile factory. I think TvP may be right -- this has to be satire. If not, it's either sheer genius or completely bats. Currently leaning towards "bats" but I'm prepared and willing to be swayed or wowed or whatever. Remember, the first antique dealers to come to Hudson were considered rather bats themselves at the time. Now, they're understood to be plucky and forward-thinking pioneers.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to seeing one of those being used as a float in a Warren St. parade, LOL...
ReplyDeleteRegarding the update: 🤡🤡🤡
ReplyDeleteYou're a start-up in a highly-competitive market, having chosen a particular niche of said market that may be entirely non-viable to begin with. Your product requires a workforce that does not exist in the county you want to settle in and the teaser product you showcase, as PJ remarks, is more reminiscent of a carnival float than the thing it's supposed to be - a car.
Naturally, the very first thing you do is buy a bed-and-breakfast for $7.3M.
Hugo, next time I run into you, remind me to ask you how venture capital works. I might be misunderstanding something.
This will 'short out' in no time...
ReplyDeleteDidn't folks want more local manufacturing?
ReplyDelete