Postwar Studebakers

uplanderguy

Last U.S.-built Stude off the regular production line in South Bend built 60 years ago today. Compact '64 Daytona Hardtop:

uplanderguy

1962 US Steel ad. Who'da thunk, 62 years later, it wouldn't be U.S.-owned anymore?

BTW, I would L-O-V-E that red Hawk today.

fintail

Nippon Steel apparently. BTTF Part II is coming true.

Funny that those 1962 models are roughly the same age now as that curved dash Olds was then.

sda

fintail said:

Nippon Steel apparently. BTTF Part II is coming true.

Funny that those 1962 models are roughly the same age now as that curved dash Olds was then.

wow

uplanderguy

fin, that indeed is sobering!

uplanderguy

Off next week (10th) for a winter doldrums breaker--three of us headed to Studebaker National Museum, staying across the street at the Avanti Guest House, then the next morning stopping at the Early Ford V8 Museum in Auburn on the way home. I've been there, but my two friends have not. It's very cool.

imidazol97

I'm jealous. That's a museum I'd love to visit. Enjoy.
Pictures?

uplanderguy

I'll post some when I get home next week. Caution--I'm in lust with that red '64 that was last off the line so I'll probably have to take at least one of it, LOL.

I can't recall if you've ever said if you've been to Auburn or not, but not a bad drive from central Ohio. The Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum is absolutely awesome. I can't use enough superlatives.

I love the Studebaker National Museum, and am a member there, but it's dwarfed by the A-C-D Museum.

uplanderguy

Back from my trip. Here are some Studebaker National Museum photos of my favorite vehicles there. I took a few more Studebaker photos, but won't post them all here. One sort-of cool thing was we drove out to the Proving Ground (yes, singular spelling) where Studebaker President Sherwood Egbert and his family lived. They allowed us to go upstairs in the old living quarters (I was there last summer but the other guys weren't), and saw the custom bathroom Mrs. Egbert obviously had a hand in, and their bedroom. The Proving Ground Clubhouse was remodeled by Egbert when he got to South Bend in 1961. There was a picture on the wall on the ground floor of Egbert and family taken back then, and it was cool to be in the same room now.

Industrial designer Brooks Stevens' own '64 Gran Turismo Hawk, supercharged, Powershift floor automatic (PRND21), disc brakes. Pardon any drool on the photo!


Cute '61 Champ 1/2 ton pickup, with the early-style double-walled bed. Next to it is a gas-powered 'Larkette', available through dealers then.


Number 9 Avanti from the '63 Bonneville Salt Flats land speed record trials.


Brand-new unrestored '64 Daytona Hardtop, last car built on the production line in the U.S.:


Interior of same '64 Daytona, under 24 miles:

uplanderguy

Helen Mirren as Golda Meir. I'm loving the Rose Mist '63 Cruiser, my favorite four-door Studebakers, period.

'65 Chrysler Newport also in photo.

texases

That photo baffles me: what kind of airplane is that? I know of no airliner with four engines, two to a pod under each wing.

uplanderguy

Good question on the plane; I have no idea.

Michaell

This might help…

https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/15jiqki/which_aircraft_is_this_taken_from_trailer_of_golda/

texases

Thanks! I agree with the person who asked why they bothered making up a fictional plane for a docu-drama. Odd.

thebean

@uplanderguy, thanks for posting the pics. I love that Champ pickup. So cool and a midsize truck at a time that didn’t exist.

uplanderguy

Also visited the Early Ford V8 ('32 to '53) Museum in Auburn, IN, on the way home from South Bend. We stayed overnight in South Bend at the Avanti House, right across from the museum, which was fun. Every wall is covered with Studebaker memorabilia.

The Early Ford V8 Museum is definitely worth a stop. Not pictured is a long wall full of old Ford toys, primarily F1 trucks and all subsequent iterations.

This old Continental makes me think of "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?".

imidazol97

Wow. A Tudor 1950 in black and 3rd away from it one has the eyebrow sunscreen that was commong on cars in that early 1950 era. I learned to drive a car in my brother's white 1950 at 12 maybe 13. You put it in 2nd, and let out slowly on the clutch and it usually would start moving. That flathead V8 was hard to kill.

You could continue in 2nd gear for most country road driving on gravel roads. He had an overdrive installed. I suspect the overdrive could be activated and lower the gear ratio slower motor revs.

uplanderguy

I'm still enamored with the '49-51 Fords. What a clean-sheet design....simple and no separate fenders, front or back. I always think that simple styling ages best. I was told that when I was born we had a black '50 Ford Custom Fordor with yellow wheels, but it was soon traded in for a '56 Chevy Two-Ten two-door sedan, gray and white two-tone and full wheel covers, six with stick, that I can remember as we had it until 1964.

fintail

I wished I had visited the early V8 museum when I was there, but I somehow didn't have time. Maybe on another trip. My dad was an old Ford fan, so I am familiar with most of those cars.

Here's a Stude pic I don't think I have seen before - RFK campaigning for his brother in 1960, sitting on a Lark and resting his feet on an apparent 60 Starliner:

uplanderguy

I've seen that pic, but not in color. The Lark is also a '60.

That is a '60 Stude color, amazingly.

I wonder if both those cars were rentals. I want to say, (a) I know you're a Kennedy, but get your feet off the Ford and (b), most people don't sit on new cars.

No radio in the Lark, LOL.

uplanderguy

I always thought the inside mirror on '59 and '60 Larks looks like a breadstick, LOL.

uplanderguy

Probably my favorite '64 Stude magazine ad

imidazol97

@uplanderguy

Beautiful

https://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/comment/6372442/#Comment_6372442

uplanderguy

Black on an Avanti is quite rare. In fact, it was discontinued and replaced with gray for awhile, before it was reintroduced. Thanks for posting.

imidazol97

That posted Avanti is actually a Hemmings sale listing. In the pictures with the listing,
I noticed the interior roof is a ribbed material.
Very interesting.

https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/listing/1963-studebaker-avanti-annville-pa-2741025

uplanderguy

I'm thinking that ribbed headliner is not factory original/correct.

Two unique Avanti items are visible in that pic--the padded roll bar, and the three overhead switches.

thebean

Watching Barrett-Jackson on Wednesday evening, I saw a ‘54 Stude Commander station wagon in sort of a crimson/burgundy color. Looked really cool. The hammer fell at $73.7K, and I don’t know if that was outrageous or not. But since most of the B-J cars are way overvalued, I suspect it was. Not surprisingly, there are only 4 Stude cars & 1 horse drawn wagon in the auction. I hope the pic is visible to you.

uplanderguy

Thank you! That is big $$ for that car IMHO. I'd like it better not lowered (prefer original looks). But those are nice-looking two-door Stude wagons IMHO.

fintail

Some kind of resto-mod?

thebean

Yes, but not a really drastic mod. Description says it had a 2-year frame-off restoration. Current engine is 283 small block Chevy. I didn't realize it had been lowered until @uplanderguy pointed it out. Here's an interior shot:



Here are the other Stude cars that crossed the block (prices include buyer's premium):

'63 Champ pickup that went for $49.5K


'47 Custom (no kidding) pickup - went for $32.5K



'56 Golden Hawk (at least that's what the description says) that goes across the block today

uplanderguy

The price that Champ fetched is astonishing to me.

I like authentic of course, and it has wheel covers (N/A from the factory; easy fix of course), chrome front bumper (N/A from the factory), and most egregious, the old-style bed which by all accounts couldn't be ordered after '62 model year. Some say it was available later through, ahem, "special order", but I roll my eyes at that term, particularly with zero factory documentation provided by anybody--at least that I've seen.

fintail

Beat me to it, just shy of 50K for a Champ, amazing.

ab348

Liquored-up old guys with money do inexplicable things at auctions.

uplanderguy

What did the '56 Golden Hawk bring, anybody know? The Whitney-looking wire hubcaps are inexcusable on that car.

thebean

It went for $68.2K including buyer’s premium. How much too high do you think that was?

uplanderguy

I don't know. Unscientifically, for a few years I remember '57 Golden Hawks, which seem to bring some more because I think some folks think the '56's Packard V8 and Ultramatic are reliability headaches, were repeatedly bringing in the 80's at auctions. (The one former mod here used to say 'anomaly!', even the fourth or fifth time, LOL). If the car was really nice and otherwise stock besides those bad wheelcovers, $68K probably isn't bad.

imidazol97

I saw this picture on one of the local cruise-in FB topics and recognized the two cars.
Malcolm Berry (Xenia?) has passed away, it said. I believe he had other Studebakers
beyond these two.

He'll be missed at local cruise-ins and car shows, especially the orphan show at
Young's Jersey Dairy.

fintail

Kind of fun Stude-related tangent, I was wondering who had the original MB dealership here in Spokane. I was able to search the online newspaper archive, and discovered the first MB dealer here was indeed a Studebaker dealer too (Madren Brothers). In this paper from 1960, MB gets a little blurb along with the rest of their foreign brands:



While the Lark got a graphic ad on the same date:



Another firm, who handled Borgward and other unusual ,makes, took over MB sales in 1961 (this dealership name existed as a Nissan dealer until at least the turn of the century I believe):



In 1962, Madren was still here, with another graphic ad:



MB also got a graphic ad in 1962, with some rare cars mentioned - note "Mercedes-Benz Sales" is referenced, which was Studebaker controlled:

uplanderguy

Thanks fin, I love reading about the dealers in the '60's, when the dealer organization, I think, started to splinter. When I've looked at retail sales records at the Stude Museum archives for mid-sixties, I've been amused at how many dealerships had "Garage" or "...and Sons" in the name.

uplanderguy

imidazol, I had heard of Malcolm Berry's passing. A nicer gentleman you'd never meet. He was an authorized VW mechanic in 1960 or so, I'm thinking his obit read.

Always a smile and a helpful attitude. He lived in Kettering.

uplanderguy

Malcolm's obit:

https://www.routsong.com/obituaries/koral-berry

fintail

On the local Stude dealer note, the downtown location was apparently razed for I-90, I'd guess in the mid 60s. The site today:



The location on the north side of town still exists, a 1920s-30s building with 50s looking angled windows, now a hip barbershop:



While the MB dealership became a kind of boomer-centric auction house which used to have a big annual car auction - this area is developing a bit now and I suspect this building's days might be numbered:

uplanderguy

Thanks for posting. The last Stude dealer where I live now, was bulldozed to make room for WalMart. The Stude dealer in my old hometown still stands and is owned by the local water authority. The dealership building for '55 and '56 Packards, where I live now, is a glass shop. It has windows like the slanted ones in your one pic, in the showroom which was attached to a building with a rounded top that resembles a barracks.

Funny, the term "Salon Showing" was also used by Studebaker at about the same time, when they'd loan a new Avanti to a dealer for three days to drum up interest.

uplanderguy

Here's the Trulia listing showing the Stude/Packard/M-B/Simca dealer in my old hometown now:

https://www.trulia.com/home/43-s-race-st-greenville-pa-16125-305812161#lil-streetViewTab

The ivy-covered building was their six-bay Service Department, with each bay having its own overhead door.

fintail

uplanderguy said:

Thanks for posting. The last Stude dealer where I live now, was bulldozed to make room for WalMart. The Stude dealer in my old hometown still stands and is owned by the local water authority. The dealership building for '55 and '56 Packards, where I live now, is a glass shop. It has windows like the slanted ones in your one pic, in the showroom which was attached to a building with a rounded top that resembles a barracks.

Funny, the term "Salon Showing" was also used by Studebaker at about the same time, when they'd loan a new Avanti to a dealer for three days to drum up interest.

I suppose it was fitting that the interstate came through town around the time Stude closed shop, a final end for what I assume was the main building, as the surviving building is in a neighborhood several miles from downtown. I didn't find any images of that building in a quick search, but I did find that a wife of one of the Madren brothers lived to be 95, passing in 2010.

I can't imagine property prices like that place linked in Greenville - you can't get a 2000 sq ft vacant lot in the absolute worst part of town for that here.

I wonder of M-B Sales provided the ad copy for dealers to use in that event. A 14K 300SL would have been a fine investment - a nice final run 300SL roadster probably starts at 1.5MM now and might get to 2MM on a good day.

uplanderguy

Here's a 190SL in front of the Greenville dealer--I'll guess '58 to '60 or so. Second pic is fall of '65, with the Filer family. Third pic is 2004, when I paid $50 for the door to the parts dept. which I now use as my desk, with a glass cover over it. I'm in the blue jacket; my friend Joe in the dark blue sweatshirt and Tony, the building owner, is in the dark green sweatshirt.

fintail

uplanderguy said:

Here's a 190SL in front of the Greenville dealer--I'll guess '58 to '60 or so. Second pic is fall of '65, with the Filer family. Third pic is 2004, when I paid $50 for the door to the parts dept. which I now use as my desk, with a glass cover over it. I'm in the blue jacket; my friend Joe in the dark blue sweatshirt and Tony, the building owner, is in the dark green sweatshirt.

I believe most 190SLs are almost identical year by year. You got that door for $50?! Awesome score there, that's a cool piece.

uplanderguy

That pic makes the door look perfect, and it isn't.

There are some chips in the black above the word "PARTS". I'd like to think the glass overlay for 20 years has helped preserve it, but on the other hand, it is very near a window on the west side of the house.

I remembered asking him what he wanted for it. He said, "What'll you give me for it?" I said "$50" and he said "Sold!". I wonder if he'd have taken less. I suspect so. He was a nice guy though....showed us back in the old shop, which I'd never been in before.

I told my wife if something happens to me, to offer the door to the Filer grandson, who is four years younger than me. If he doesn't want it, I might offer it to the Greenville Area Historical Society along with the heavy metal 15 year dealer plaque I have for them--I'm on the board of that society--but space is slim there. I would hate to eventually have it thrown out.

fintail

That door looks like the kind of thing an American Pickers style flipper would turn into hipster artwork and charge $1200 for it. Maybe the Studebaker museum would want it if nobody else did? I am sure they have tons of stuff already, but better than tossing it. If anything, put it out at a yard sale and someone would want it.

uplanderguy

Here's the dealer's 15-year plaque I was given (1941). The frames were reused and only the insert changed at five-year intervals. I bought the frame. Together, the thing weighs 11.6 lbs.!

The grandson has their 40-year plaque (1966), their last, which I would give a right, well you know, for. It's in the frame, and the plaque and frame were revised by that time to be much lighter. That plaque has a red octagonal insert around the edge, which looks nice, and the Studebaker logo has the last font and 'lazy S' logo I like. He wishes to hold onto it though.