For a guy as stern and secretive as Doc Hudson, I think the fact that the entire town calls him Doc instead of Doctor or Mr. Hudson or something shows a really nice kind of familiarity and closeness. Like, they don’t know that he’s the Hudson Hornet, but consider what they do know: he’s a grumpy old car who tends to stand on his dignity a bit because it was stripped from him once by others early in life but they don’t know that part and he’s one of the most respected folks in town and yet they’re all so casual with him because for all they don’t know the Hudson Hornet, they do know Doctor Hudson, and the affection between him and the rest of the town is mutual even with his prickly exterior. You get the feeling that he must really love them to let them call him by a nickname, and they must really love him to ever have tried it in the first place.
