Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/22 for details.
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/22 for details.
Options
Comments
http://www.round2models.com/models/amt/63studebaker-avanti/amt780-02
This is the third time for the Avanti and the second time for the 1953. I have earlier AMT versions. The Studebakers with no grilles on the front sell better as models years later than did when they were new because Americans not were ready for cars that looked like those.
I can now get here without going through Google Chrome. Thanks to somebody for fixing that.
My favorites? The oddball stuff...light green '64 Daytona Hardtop, R1 with Powershift automatic, green buckets, original owner. Also, a black '64 Gran Turismo Hawk, black, red buckets, R2 (supercharger) with 4-speed. Absolutely delicious! Also a light green '64 Gran Turismo Hawk with floorshift automatic (Powershift), not R-powered, but just lovely. There was the nicest '38 President Sedan at our hotel all week, and the owner was a morning person like me so we often spoke. Nice guy.
http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/showthread.php?63993-VIDEO-Studebakers-On- -Parade-%283-parts%29
My white with red interior '63 Daytona Skytop, Avanti Powered, was flashier, but for a non-mechanic like me, this '66 is probably better for me in the long run. It's quite rare (under 1,000 of this model made) and I'll proudly park it next to a Chevy II or Falcon or Valiant or Rambler two-door sedan of 1966.
http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/showthread.php?64020-What-a-great-time!
The '66-67 Chevy II's are my least-favorite Chevy II's. The Falcon I sorta like. In two-door sedans, the Darts and Valiants are OK I think, and the Ramblers are a complete 'block'--blunt at front and rear. I'll concede some general similarities between the '64-66 Studes and '63-64 Rambler Classics, which I think are some of the best-looking Ramblers.
I like Stude's wide-open rear wheel openings, which 'lighten' the car visually IMHO.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
They were the kings of making the most out of what they had, for sure. I love the '64 Gran Turismo Hawk, which started life as the '53 Starliner. But I'm not aware of many cars that could have started life in '53 and ended up a '64, albeit with a lot of revisions, and that '64 edition got Milestone status ten years later.
The last cars designed by Brooks Stevens were very nice. The front and rear doors for the white station wagon were interchangeable, to save tooling costs, a trick used on the four-door "Coffin Nose" Cord 810.
I think that Studebaker would have gone out of business before 1980 even if it survived the 1960s because of increasing government safety and emissions requirements. Both American Motors and Chrysler were healthy in late 1963 when Studebaker quit U.S. production, but they were in trouble at the end of the 1970s. Here is a major part of the reason why.
The 1970s were tumultuous for Chrysler. U.S. anti-trust laws prohibited U.S. automakers from forming Japanese- or European-style industry consortiums which helped their foreign competitors to save costs on regulatory regimes of car safety and emissions. No cost-sharing was possible; each company had to solve each problem on its own, and Chrysler's lower sales volumes meant these new development and implementation costs made up a larger proportion of a vehicle's cost compared to Ford and General Motors. To avoid pricing themselves out of the market, they had to retrofit and detune their existing engines to meet emission requirements, which resulted in lower fuel economy when fuel prices were rising. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chrysler
I thought that all V-8 engines had transistorized ignition but the six cylinder models did not because GM Delco did not make it available for six cylinder engines at that time. Studebaker confused the issue by putting ther Daytona badge on too many different models after the 1964 model year. Prior to that I believe that Daytonas always had V-8 engines except for export models.
BTW, you missed a wonderful meet at South Bend...truly wonderful.
But sheesh, was it hot!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LpPKAhW9-s&feature=youtu.be
I believe you can see the Frost & French Studebaker dealership at 2 minutes 10 seconds, look for the red Studebaker ball on the right.
I did not see my Commander, but I did see seven Studebakers and two Henry J's. A blue Thunderbird cut in front of the camera car and nearly caused an accident. No foreign cars except a Nash Metropolitian. I consider myself so fortunate to have been a 5 year old kid in the USA at that time. Many kids today don't even know what a Chevy is.
There's a Porsche 356 in the oncoming lane around 1:25.
I have watched the video several times, and I do see a few foreign-built cars. One is a Simca built in France for Chrysler. I also see an English Hillmon. However, foreign built cars are very rare, and it is interesting to see that in the 1950's all the foreign cars were outnumbered by Kaisers (full size and Henry J) and Studebakers.
If anyone wants to see a lot of Packards, rent the first Superman TV series with Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane. Later the series featured Nash cars including police cars (Lois had a neat Nash Rambler roll-top convertible) and then Plymouth and Chrysler products in the final season that was in color.
Which show was it where Jimmy Olson went over a cliff and was saved by Superman after the brakes on his Studebaker went out? (Someone cut the brake lines so that would happen), I forgot which one that one was.
Mask with Jim Carey is my favorite Studebaker movie followed by the first Muppet Movie.
In 1958-60 our next door neighbor had a 1958 Ford Thunderbird. I was very impressed with the look of that car especially the bucket seats. His wife decided to drive, so she got a Hillman. I remember thinking that it looked like a little Studebaker. When those neighbors moved away
about 1963, the new family had a Simca. Those are the earliest foreign cars remember in the neighborhood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77NxU0CHPw&feature=related
Included are images of the Ford assembly plant on Terminal Island in Long Beach. At that time, there were nine automobile assembly plants in the greater Los Angeles area. http://www.laalmanac.com/transport/tr05.htm My own Studebaker Commander was assembled in the City of Vernon.
All are gone now. The last to close were the GM plant in South Gate in 1982 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Gate_Assembly and the GM Camaro-Firebird Plant in Van Nuys, which closed in 1992. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Nuys_Assembly.
Here is a good LA Times article about the once booming Los Angeles auto industry. http://search.aol.com/aol/search?query=image+of+Studebaker+plant+City+of+Vernon&- s_it=key
word_rollover
These days LA's illustrious Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa thinks that it is a big deal to employ 30 workers to assemble 1,000 Chinese electric trucks a year.
Http://ourweekly.com/los-angeles/new-electric-truck-manufacturer-comes-southland- . Big deal. The Vernon Studebaker plant alone used to assemble 6-000-12,000 cars a year. It shows what a sorry state Los Angeles is in.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1964-Studebaker-Daytona-convertible-/160864179449- ?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item25744094f9
It is now a beautiful, low-mileage example with factory air and power windows and Powershift automatic on the floor (P-R-N-D-2-1). Many running changes were made in Studebaker's 20-month Avanti production, and Mary Anne's would have all of them, being built the last day. The final Studebaker Avanti, a white R3 and only nine serial numbers after Mary Anne's, resides in the Crawford Museum in Cleveland and was on loan/display for the International Studebaker Drivers' Club meet in South Bend last month.
Happy news all-around for all involved.
http://www.rmauctions.com/featurecars.cfm?SaleCode=HF12&CarID=r145&fc=0#
It'll be interesting to see what it brings. I know a guy who knew the original owner who recently passed and says it is the real deal.
I like the '63-66 Stude instrument panels. Real glass bezels, real chrome metal rings around them...plastic hadn't infiltrated Stude yet (and really never would).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjb4photos/7143686819/
This red car makes me weak in the knees whenever I see it in person.
Not sure why the placard at the museum says 'less than 50 miles'--in person I looked in and saw the odometer. I remember it being 28 miles.
I like the colors Studebaker used in its final years and the car pictured is no exception. I wish they had not made the Commander a low-price model (the Challenger below the Commander) because that was contrary to its past history. The Commander was the high price model or second to the President models during years when that model was offered. Studebaker generally had good model names (except for the Dictator) but some off-beat colors (such as Varsity Maroon).
My grandfather bought a 1963 model with the Skybolt 6 when he retired. He was proud of that engine at the time, but that did not last long. He liked his 1952 Champion much better, even though that was not one of Studebaker's best years. It rusted so much more than our 1951 Champion, but that could have been because our 1951 had better undercoating.
I've owned '63, '64, and '66 Studebakers. On a personal note, I liked the styling, but I also enjoyed the interior space versus exterior size (I think they did the "'77 Chevy Caprice" thing a dozen years early), and I also liked the seating position, instrumentation, and steady, non-wallowy ride. The comparitive rarity was a bonus IMHO.
I find it hard to believe that the 1959 Lark style was influenced by the 1960 Valiant. The Valiant was a top secret project at Chrysler. The two cars look most similar at the front end, but Studebaker was working with that style when they were designing the Hawk in 1955. This is more apparent in the Hawk protypes than the Hawks that actually made it into production.
After Studebaker quit US production, Virgil Exner gave an interview in and article titled, "Who Killed Studebaker?" where he blamed Studebaker for its demise by not investing its post-war profits back into the automobile business. This was unfair because Studebaker did invest its war profits in the automobiles and trucks in the years following WWII. Between 1947 and 1953, Studebaker produced three new car bodies, a new pick-up truck that sold very well, an OHV-8 engine, automatic transmission and independent front suspension. In 1954, sales plumeted and Studebaker had huge losses, which they were able to claim as tax credits in later years by diversifying into other industries.
The Virgil Exner line of thought is that Studebaker failed because it did not put its profits back into the auto business. Others have argued that Studebaker moved too fast and spent too quickly after WWII. Studebaker should have waited on the new bodies because customers would have bought the old models for a few more years. They came out with the V-8 engine too soon so that it had too small displacement was was too heavy for its displacement. They should have bought automatic transmissions from a transmission suppler (such as the hydramatic) instead of delevoping their own auto transmission with Borg Warner. One can argue that it was "too much too soon" or "too little too late."
I personally think that Studebaker made most of the correct choices, but they should not have intrdouced both the Lowey coupes and the sedans in 1953 because they had too many productions problems by introducing both models at the same time and could not begin production of the 1953 models year until January 1953, nearly 5 months late.
The sedans only looked short and frumpy because the coupes and hardtops were so low and long. I always liked the sedans and think they looked good next to everything else produced at the time except the Lowey coupes and hardtops.
Back in the mid 70's a guy was selling his 85 year old mother's 1955 Studebaker Champion and I bought it for the 300.00 he was asking.
It had 16,000 actual miles on it! It was a four door yellow and white DIAMOND of a car that had spent it's life garaged. It still had the original
clear plastic seat covers and all five original whitewalls. The spare tire
was still in the wrapper.
The only flaw was a broken rear door handle.
Someone told me about Frost and French so I gave them a call.
Yep, they had a lot of these in stock so I drove the 30 miles and picked it up.
They no longer sold cars but they had a VERY busy parts and service operation at the time.
Take out one phillips screw and it was a three minute job.
We lived in an apartment at the time and I lived in fear something bad would happen to it in the underground parking so I sold it for 750.00.
Oh, I wish I had it back!
Guess the brand of the truck carrying the vintage Studebaker.">
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,