Postwar Studebakers

fintail

texases said:

I'm thinking that '1980' photo has been jazzed up, zoom into the right rear part of the photo (tap ctrl ctrl) and you'll see the colors bleed between the cars.

Yeah some HDR junk or digital overexposure. I also notice the bleed to the point where creases in metal are not visible (for instance, Beetle hood).

uplanderguy

I mentioned here previously, that I couldn't remember if the '58 Studebaker hardtop at the Studebaker National Museum was a Commander or President. It's a President. The museum recently posted this interior shot:

sda

Has anyone heard from @andre1969? I haven't seen any posts from him lately.

kyfdx

sda said:

Has anyone heard from @andre1969? I haven't seen any posts from him lately.

He's in the "I spotted an Oscure car" thread, frequently

uplanderguy

Agreed. He never posts here but does in the “I Spotted an Obscure Classic Car” thread.

sda

@uplanderguy said:
Agreed. He never posts here but does in the “I Spotted an Obscure Classic Car” thread.

For some reason I lost that thread when it was closed. Found it and went thru 700 or so posts.🙂

imidazol97

Photo from Seattle Vintage Cars on FB.

uplanderguy

That's pretty similar to this factory photo!

My favorite 1964 compact hardtop, by far. And only 2,414 Daytona hardtops built for the '64 model year, between South Bend and Hamilton. Both cars pictured are Avanti-powered too--you can tell by an oval badge on the front fender.

The recent pic shows tires that look to be oversized by some point--on original-size tires, the centers of the wheel are somewhat indented, for lack of a better word.

uplanderguy

The wheel/tire situation I see in the current pic of the car is probably that it no longer has the factory wheels, as opposed to bigger tires.

imidazol97

I like both of these.

uplanderguy

I like both of those too.

That '41 or '42, I think, resembles the Continental in that it is clean down the side and has only rocker trim.

imidazol97

I'll go to the next cruise where the red wagon was hoping to see it. I captured the Pic from a video by an old guy who visits various car shows and puts the vids online. He does it for love of the sport.

uplanderguy

Here’s the completed sign. My friend from an hour away from Greenville did the repairs, which were mostly broken tynes from E and F letters. The horizontal pieces didn’t mate perfectly with the vertical, but as an amateur job I’m pleased. He used glue, but mostly screws. It’s two pieces—8 feet, and 10 feet. I have it advertised on my FB page and also that of the Greenville Area Historical Society, and have emailed the local newspaper about it this morning. If nothing happens, I’ll try it on Stude FB pages. I’m pleased with the results.

Michaell

Looks good!

Good luck with the sale.

uplanderguy

Thanks. I realize this may be a huge 'white elephant'. It's stored in the basement of the historical society now. If anyone buys it, I'll have to tell them how and where to lift it, LOL. This has been my pet project and I well-realize I might be stuck with it. My friend Joe did virtually all the repair work. The letters aren't independent, and the sign not saying "STUDEBAKER" probably doesn't help. But I appreciate the good wishes.

Michaell

uplanderguy said:

Thanks. I realize this may be a huge 'white elephant'. It's stored in the basement of the historical society now. If anyone buys it, I'll have to tell them how and where to lift it, LOL. This has been my pet project and I well-realize I might be stuck with it. My friend Joe did virtually all the repair work. The letters aren't independent, and the sign not saying "STUDEBAKER" probably doesn't help. But I appreciate the good wishes.

Perhaps a google search for the name might turn up a few Carl E. Filers around the country. Perhaps you could market the sign to them directly.

uplanderguy

As long as they pick up! No way can I deliver that sign anywhere.....too big, and actually a bit fragile.

thebean

🐘😄 Not trying to be cruel. This just seems like a big ask to get anything out of this sign. Fingers crossed, though.

uplanderguy

I have several good pics of the dealership over the years with the sign in place. Amazingly to me, those pics that I posted online years ago are still getting borrowed for various old car and dealership pages.

This older blog surprised me. It’s about the font Studebaker had dealers use in the forties. The one exterior shot he shows is Filer’s.

http://studegarage.com/sign.htm

The town is small, remote, and old-fashioned. If it goes anywhere, I bet it’s local. But who knows.

1964 photo, when they added Simca:

fintail

I can't imagine that won't sell, assembled like it is. Cool thing.

I see the MB star in that 64 pic too.

sda

https://youtu.be/MaV8iOU7GqA?si=-ZDpHil9i1KQZisT

uplanderguy

Adam's voice and delivery are positives, I think. I've heard most things he mentioned, before. While the '54 was very close in design, and had an added frame crossmember and better brakes, the smaller bumper guards, simpler grill, and better Commander instrument panel of the '53 make it more desirable to me.

I do think the styling is perfect. The Starlight pillared coupe is supposedly tighter.

This is a period when Chevy didn't even offer a V8.

I will say in all the years I've been reading about Studebakers, this is the first time I've heard that the door-latch engineer was a 'colonel' and was fired for taking kickbacks, LOL.

Other than AMC, which was really mostly the remains of Nash by the time, I always thought it was amazing that Studebaker built cars until 1966 and trucks, even big trucks, into the 1964 model year.

imidazol97

From the Studebaker museum's facebook. Beautiful.

uplanderguy

Boy, that is beautiful. Long been a fan of the '64 Daytona hardtop. That color is called Laguna Blue.

It's really a compact, 109-inch wheelbase, but I always thought the 15-inch wheels, full rear-wheel cutouts and four headlights made it seem more like a mid-size than other domestic compacts.

Make mine supercharged with disc brakes.

fintail

Not postwar but interesting, this popped up on local CL again, been offered off and on for a few years:

https://spokane.craigslist.org/cto/d/columbia-falls-1939-studebaker/7852007492.html

A very elegant car and has to be rare, I can imagine Glenn Miller on the radio.

ab348

The ‘39 Stude was a very attractive car in its day. Styled by Loewy IIRC.

uplanderguy

That is really elegant.

And in '55 its owner was still taking it to a Stude dealer to be serviced!

fintail

I recently came across this and thought it was interesting, a 1959 ad for SAMAD, who built VWs in South Africa. They also built Austins and Studebakers - I wonder if the stylized S logo at lower right was the SAMAD logo or supposed to be Studebaker, as they assembled Studes and VWs at the same time. Interesting to see even at that time there was a thought as to when the cars would be old, and 66 years later, the cars are indeed vintage and desirable:

uplanderguy

That sure looks like the 'lazy S' logo Stude used for a good while. Interesting, thanks for posting!

imidazol97

The Indy Eastside cruise-in FB page reported the owner of these two beautiful Studebakers has passed away. Beautiful cars.
The cruise-in is one I've hoped to visit some Friday evening--95 miles away.




Joe Bacon was the owners name. His wife is president of the Studebaker Club there.
1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk and a 1964 Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk

uplanderguy

I’ve met them before but can’t say I knew them. Both their Hawks are absolutely stunning in person, restored to factory. I read that Joe suffered a fall.

imidazol97

I believe the red Studebaker was in some pictures of the cruise-in that posted to the FB occasionally.

uplanderguy

Another pic of his '56 Golden Hawk. I'm not generally a Golden Hawk fan, but his was the most beautiful I've seen.

fintail

That 56 probably qualifies for "best color combo".

On "Happy Days" where Mr. C replaces his DeSoto with a Studebaker and says something along the lines that he wanted to try something sporty, he should have had one of those!

uplanderguy

RE.: The old Filer sign...it's tucked away in the basement of our historical society building. It's funny--a former local is filming a horror movie in and around the area now (his second there)...they could film a horror movie in the basement of our historical society! When we moved the sign down there, I could hear 'rustling'.

Anyway, as a minor update, I was interviewed by the local newspaper about it May 9 as an aid to help me sell it for the historical society. My sister was murdered the next day and I told the paper I didn't want my name, phone number, and email in the article as the murderer's family lives near there. (it happened in Arizona.) A few days passed and I asked just to withhold the article for the time being. I could probably get away with them not having my name in it it at all, just the historical society info, but my heart's not much into it now. I'll try it again when the mood hits.

My original goal was to get $100 for the historical society. I donated that myself recently, and the daughter of the family who owned the dealership, gave a much-more generous donation herself, excited that I and a friend 'saved' the sign. She's also sending me a gift card to a fancy restaurant about ten miles away, that her family always enjoyed back in the day for holiday meals. Very generous of her. I do hope I can find someone who wants the sign, eventually.

imidazol97

Hawk sighting at a church car show I hit after the Lincoln Continental regional near Cincy.

Temperature felt like 130 in the sun. The owner didn't seem very friendly and I didn't take any time to disavow him of the idea I was just another idiot gawking at the cars with no appreciation of Studebakers. This was the first car I saw when I got there and the other 80 or so cars didn't impress me. At least they handed me a free water on behalf of the church. Much appreciated.

These pics zoom nicely. I love the cameras in my midscale Samsung phone. I quit using my Sony H5 digital camera.

uplanderguy

That is a very sharp '61 Hawk.

I don't recognize the owner's name.

Just for authenticity purposes, a couple non-factory-accurate things about that car. The wheels on all '61 Studes were painted silver, and the 'stripe' on the rear quarter was a light beige, no matter the color of the rest of the car. I'll agree that the red is much more attractive on this car.

I used to not like these Hawks. They've grown on me. I like Gran Turismos of '62-64 better, but as old as the basic design was, I'd still proudly park a '61 next to any other domestic '61 two-door sedan.

'61 Hawks were the first Studes available from the factory with 4-speed, and first Hawks with bucket seats.

Thanks for sharing!

ab348

imidazol97 said:

Hawk sighting at a church car show I hit after the Lincoln Continental regional near Cincy.

Temperature felt like 130 in the sun. The owner didn't seem very friendly and I didn't take any time to disavow him of the idea I was just another idiot gawking at the cars with no appreciation of Studebakers.

Why would you bring a car and a setup like that to a car show and then act like a grumpy Gus when viewers come around? I don't get it.

imidazol97

I think I remember that guy many years ago from a show at a city park in Reading OH. Lots of interesting cars at that show. Most owners will be courteous if not pleasant.

At the Lincoln Continental show earlier that day a guy offered to move his canvas chair so I could get a pic of his beautiful Lincoln without him. Others yelled at their buddy, who was leaning in the back window of his car trying to get something, that I didn't want a picture of his butt so could he back out. I said I've been taking pics for decades and I'm very patient.

uplanderguy

I've met some real a-holes at cruise-ins and shows. That hobby needs all the goodwill it can muster, which is why I always took time to friendly-answer questions about my cars.

A friend of mine brought his '64 Hawk once to a cruise where he usually brought his 442 (I never saw it, but he said it was sharp). I did see his Hawk and it was an extremely nice original car. Someone said to him, seriously, "Why'd you bring that POS here today?". He never returned.

The local cruise I frequented until a couple years ago--the loudest, most uninformed guys in my mind were the Big Three muscle-car crowd, with cars with aftermarket wheels and the owner's initials monogrammed below the driver's glass. LOL.

ab348

Even when I had my Cutlass, the last several years of that tenure I tended to avoid shows and events because of that trend, which I can only imagine has gotten worse since. The best example of why was a large weekly cruise-in during the summer at a large parking lot that emptied out at the end of the work day. Initially it attracted hundreds of vehicles every week, an eclectic mix from very old ones to 1950s and '60s foreign cars you seldom saw otherwise, to the usual '60s and '70s muscle cars and even a few newer exotics. By the end of my time going there though, it was mostly highly modified '60s and '70s Detroit iron usually with tons of aftermarket crap ladled on and driven by people who often acted like idiots, wanting everyone to hear how loud their (illegal) exhaust sounded and then doing burnouts on the adjacent street in traffic when they departed. I had zero interest in any of that so I stopped going. Not long thereafter, the police started writing up some of the worst offenders and shortly afterwards the municipality, who owned the lot, closed it down entirely to such gatherings. They tried migrating to other privately-owned spaces but soon insurance concerns by those owners led to the same result.

uplanderguy

I was at a dinner meet with some western PA Stude friends and my last car, the ‘66 Cruiser with just under 28k miles when I sold it, came up. Here are a couple of pics of it. It was an original car which was sold new with the Stude wire caps. Sold to a fellow in FL whose father invented Gatorade. He still has it.

Nice, honest car. Nerdy, but nice, honest, and unusual.

It was bought new on April 16, 1966, a month after the last car was built. Owners were born in 1904 and 1905, and traded in a 1953 Stude per info the museum sent me. My guess is he wanted one last Stude, and I'm sure the dealer there in Grand Junction, CO was dealin'.

fintail

A friend in the Seattle area saw this at a show last weekend:







Then spotted this at a local shop:

uplanderguy

I like that '65, in an unusual factory color, but I loathe the red-stripe tires!

Although I had owned two '66's, I think the '64-65 detail styling is better. That one has nice original seats.

I think that's a '40. Luxurious-looking IMHO.

EDIT: Duh, it's a '39!

uplanderguy

Here's one that same color, but with the white vinyl top instead of black (vinyl top was standard on Daytona in '65 and '66).

Whitewalls, and white wheels as was factory, look so much better.

uplanderguy

I always mention disc brakes, which were optional, but even the standard drum set up had dual-chamber master cylinder. The Daytona had transistorized ignition standard sometime through the '65 run (optional on other models), and also split-bench seats with or without recliners were optional on all models. Nothing huge, but things the Big Three seemed to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into.

fintail

Ha, I had a feeling those redline tires were wrong.

I wonder if the brakes/seats etc were an attempt to seem sporty or European, differentiate the product and aim for a demographic. Reclining seats, dual circuit discs, etc are in the fintail too.

sda

Too bad Studebaker didn't offer some power accessories like power windows and seats to complement the optional luxury upholstery.

uplanderguy

I think Stude, in the '62 and later years, was trying to differentiate by talking about exterior size vs. interior space (Suddenly it's '77 at GM! LOL), and maybe even trying to come across as a domestic, low-cost 'Benz imitator in a few small ways. Those few engineering things were decidedly non-Big Three at the time.

The only '60's Stude available with power windows was Avanti. Seems like the Gran Turismo Hawk should have been available with them, but they weren't.

In the pre-Lark years, power windows were available on sedans and Hawks, but only the front windows on Hawks. Not sure on the sedans and too lazy to check.

uplanderguy

I've posted this before, but my favorite Stude sedan seat trim, the optional broadcloth for '63. My favorite exterior Stude sedan styling too, I think M-B influenced even if no one would confuse the two.