Postwar Studebakers

fintail

Umm....a Studebaker? :P

I like the front of the 1938 car, very reminiscent of a period Lincoln.

uplanderguy

I like the front of the 1938 car, very reminiscent of a period Lincoln.

I've always thought so too...that, and some early '40's Studes were bare down the side but with a rocker molding, similar to concurrent Lincoln Continentals.

Making trucks is one thing IMHO that separated Studebaker from most other independents. They built even big trucks right up until the 1964 model year, being built in South Bend when the shutdown occurred in December '63.

imidazol97

I don't recall having seen that early a Studebaker in person. Too bad it wasn't off the carrier so I could peer inside.

I don't think I got a front shot of the truck. There was another old Studebaker pickup there and I don't think I got a picture of it. And the local cruise-in website guru may not have taken pictures at that meet and posted them. I often depend on his pictures.

Since the title of the topic is "Postwar Studebaker" I wasn't sure whether I should post this 1938 picture. But it was after the First World War, so I decided it was okay.

jljac

Since the title of the topic is "Postwar Studebaker" I wasn't sure whether I should post this 1938 picture

I think that it was agreed long ago that “Postwar Studebaker” meant anything produced by Studebaker after the American Civil War. One of the vehicles below is a Studebaker Weasel produced during World War II. Would that be a "War Studebaker?"

You never know what types of vehicles will show up at a Studebaker meet. The imgaes below were taken at Barona Indian Casino near San Diego, CA. The owners of that fine establishment were not too happy with the track marks left behind in the new parking lot by that vehicle.

uplanderguy

We had a Studebaker Weasel show up at our large regional Studebaker meet in Tallmadge, OH two years ago. It was something to see in movement.

jljac

Very cool video of a Studebaker Weasel going through the snow in Sweden is here. I have not seen many videos of them in motion, and none like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxmEApcKvLM&feature=related. That Stude goes places where very few vehicles could go today. Great soundtrack goes with it. Worth seeing and listening to.

Here is a good WWII video about the Weasel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94xw1qxeVCU&feature=related

uplanderguy

I was a little surprised at the sale price of this '55 Studebaker President Speedster:

http://www.rmauctions.com/CarDetails.cfm?SaleCode=HF12&CarID=r144&Currency=USD

Sold for more than a stunning, low-mileage '53 Packard Caribbean convertible and the same price as a '55 300-C Chrysler:

http://www.rmauctions.com/CarDetails.cfm?SaleCode=HF12&CarID=r180&Currency=USD

'66 Lincoln Continental convertible sold for $41,250, nothing to sneeze at either.

Mr_Shiftright

Hemmings has a nice Buyer's Guide for Avantis this issue. Quite interesting run-down on production, pitfalls, values and history.

uplanderguy

Thanks, that is a good article I just looked over for free at the drugstore! And they actually utilized people who know Avantis, to quote...Bob Palma and Don Jones, both people I know. And while turquoise is my favorite Avanti color (like the one in the article), a pet peeve of mine is when people go all the way with authenticity in other ways, but don't paint the wheels off-white! I'd have to change that on the feature car right away! LOL

uplanderguy

...in the Veterans' Day parade:

http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/showthread.php?66767-Studebakers-in-India- napolis-Veterans-Day-Parade

I hope some photos will show up later.

Pretty cool I think. "Hats off" to the Greatest Generation.

uplanderguy

Photos have been added to the above link.

uplanderguy

The seat trim is plain, but I've seen them like that before. There was more than one trim level for Commanders and I have to believe this is the lower trim. That said, I think the car and color combo is striking and to my prejudiced eyes, anything else in '53 just looked chubby in comparison.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/WOW-1953-Studebaker-Commander-Coupe-WOW-/22115139- 2118?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item337da67176#v4-42

uplanderguy

...on the Studebaker Drivers' Club national meet in South Bend this summer. (The meet is only every fifth year in South Bend.)

The article and photos brought back wonderful memories, except for how freakin' hot it was.

My friend's '61 Lark VIII wagon with the Power Pack is photographed and my friend's name and hometown mentioned. Cool. He has '53 full wheelcovers on the car simply because he likes the looks.

A '66 that looked very much like mine but with different wheelcovers is in the background of a photo in the article.

jljac

I think that is a very nice car at a very reasonable price ($14,500). When I looked, the best offer was $8,200, but the car should not be sold for that low amount. I especially like the three speed with overdrive transmission.

explorerx4

a local dealership has some photo's from their past.
look at the police cars

bhill2

look at the police cars

OK, I looked. The two non-Larks are Presidents. I have seldom seen a police car that was the top trim level for the make. Any thoughts?

uplanderguy

I believe those are Commanders, and they're '57's. Commanders were the lowest-priced Studes that had V8's then.

uplanderguy

...and I saw it up-close and in person in South Bend this past summer. While the white color is not that exciting, it's original/authentic. The badge on the bottom of the front fender reads "Avanti Supercharged".

I tend to like the '64 Hawk better as it has the smooth decklid with no insert, but man do I LOOOOOVVVVVVVVVVEEEEE this car!

I'll be curious to see how high it is bid.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=261126837936

jljac

I have to disagree with Uplander guy on the indentity of the 1957 Studebaker police cars. If you click on the image you can enlarge it and two of the cars seem to say President on the front fenders forward of the wheel openings.

uplanderguy

They're certainly not President trim level, but IIRC, the President had a larger engine than Commanders so it's possible that to get the President engine in a police car, it had "President" nameplates.

jljac

Here is a neat video of a 1964 Studebaker (Lark) Marshall police car taken in 2011 at the Emergency Vehicle Show autocross. It is racing through a speed course, not on display at vintage car show. Roll Studebaker. . . . .roll! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb3f4tNUhss.

uplanderguy

I've seen that car and met the owner before. Pretty darn cool. Some of its restoration was done at the same shop that did my '63 Skytop...Westmoreland Studebaker (now Westmoreland Restorations) in PA.

He also owned a black '62 Lark Daytona Skytop. Not sure if he still has it or not.

explorerx4

Saw that car at the museum exactly 2 months earlier. I remember that because it was my birthday!

uplanderguy

The supercharged, four-speed, disc brake '63 Hawk on eBay I mentioned in my earlier post was bid to, and sold at, $34,999. Nice money, gorgeous car.

uplanderguy

We saw this movie last night, and I thought it was terrific. I haven't felt this way about a movie since "Saving Private Ryan".

Spielberg had a sound man go to the Studebaker National Museum in South Bend to record the sound of the door opening and closing on the carriage that took Lincoln to Ford's Theater!

http://articles.southbendtribune.com/2012-11-13/entertainment/35095088_1_lincoln- -carriage-studebaker-museum-mary-todd-lincoln

Now that's a movie budget!

jljac

Very interesting article. I always thought that Studebaker built that carriage, but that article says otherwise. It is also pretty neat that Clem Studebaker saved that important part of American history by buying ithe carriage in 1890.

uplanderguy

...in my '63 Studebaker Lark Daytona Skytop with Avanti power, taken about four years ago. I think it's a neat picture, no matter what anyone might think about the car:

http://www.studebakerskytop.com/billpresslerpics7.jpg

The photographer had his daughter (age 15!) drive his Tahoe in the left lane and had me pull my LF wheel up towards their RR wheel and hung out the right side window and snapped the photo. It was taken near Mantua, OH.

The car is in Australia now...I sold it last year.

jljac

Nice image of the car, but I cannot see you. Do you know what the sales price was new? The '63 models had many mechanical improvements over the 1962 models, but they don't look much different. I wish Studebaker had moved on to the 1964 style after 1962. This is not to knock the 1963 models, but the front end style of the Lark was in its 4th year in 1963. That was too long , especially when the front end looked similar to the Valiant.

uplanderguy

I always wish they'd have 'skipped' the '61! LOL...I know what you mean.

That Skytop stickered at $3,900. Serious money for a car like that, but the R1, A/C, Twin Traction, and Skytop added some serious money to the price. It was ordered new by a contractor as payment for construction work done for the Studebaker dealer in Moorhead, Minnesota!

I've had three 'later' Larks and I've liked how they drove, not wallowy but pretty 'tight', and had chair-high seating and minimal trans hump. My elderly mother had no trouble sitting down in the Lark nor getting out of it...unlike my late-model Chevy van and Cobalt!

fintail

Must still hurt to have parted ways, my condolences. Was that your favotire or most admired car ever?

uplanderguy

Of the three old cars I've owned ('63, '64, and '66 Studebakers), that was the most desirable for sure. I bought it rusty, and found a Studebaker restoration place (Westmoreland Restorations) to do a body-on for me. I reined them in on costs and they did a great job within my budgetary constraints. As years passed there were a couple times I'd wished I'd have let them go further. I was emotionally attached to my '64 too, which was sold new in my hometown and that I actually remembered seeing around town from about the age of 16 and whose original owners I knew as well. But its condition was so exaggerated (it was in Wisconsin when I bought it), it was a huge disappointment when it arrived. Personally, I like the '64 styling better than the '63. I still want a '63 or later Stude at some point.

Here are a couple more pics of the '63 and also the '64 (about halfways down the threads):

http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/showthread.php?16626-Bill-Pressler-s-63-a- nd-64-Daytonas&highlight=Bill+Pressler

fintail

That sunroof car really is pretty cool. I respect the unusual. Would have killed me to sell it - I'd tell the kid "get a job" :shades:

There's a very late Studebaker (quad lights) I see in my area every now and then.

uplanderguy

The sunroof car was often (not always) popular at local car shows, and was usually a hit at Studebaker shows, the twin options of Avanti power and sunroof on the same car being very unusual. It had "Twin Traction" too, a nice feature.

fintail

Any idea what the production numbers were with those options?

uplanderguy

Yes, I can..only because I looked at the build sheets myself (with my young wife at the time).

Someone before me (a professor of music, of all things, and a Studebaker buff) went through all the 1963 and 1964 build sheets in South Bend. From there, he recorded the data for all Avanti-powered Larks and Hawks. There were 628 Avanti-powered Larks and Hawks in the '63 model year.

From their printout, when we went to South Bend, I looked at the serial numbers for all two-door sedans, four-door sedans, and two-door hardtops--the only bodystyles available with a sunroof. No Hawks were available with the sunroof, only Larks.

There were fourteen '63 Studebakers built with Avanti power and a sunroof. And, '63 was the only year you could get both.

Ours was actually the first serial number.

Seven were R1 (non-supercharged, like ours) and seven were supercharged. I have all the breakdowns, but of the 14, eleven were Daytona Hardtops, like ours. One was a Custom (mid-line model) two-door sedan, and two were Cruiser (top-line sedan) four-doors.

uplanderguy

Correction: There were 1,384 '63 Studes with Avanti engines. Only 628 were installed in Lark two-door sedans, four-door sedans, and hardtops, which meant my wife and I looked at 628 build sheets.

There were only 276 R2 Hawks built for '63, like the one that was on eBay recently that I posted here. That includes all transmissions...column-shifted Flightomatic, floor-shifted automatic 'Powershift', and 4-speed.

fintail

So it was very rare. Unfortunately not the kind of rare that makes crazy money - but probably meant you never saw a twin at a show.

uplanderguy

Well, with all those numbers I threw out here, only 14 were built with Avanti engines and sunroofs, so that is pretty rare. When I sold it to the Australian fellow, I had a few Americans who weren't happy with me for not advertising it here first. In fact, I never advertised it at all; the fellow pursued me.

jljac

There was a guy offering to buy my 1955 Commander for $12,000 about ten years ago with the intent of shipping it to Japan. I owned the Commander since 1979 and have too many memories to sell it. I sold my Avanti in 1982 to keep it.

If I still lived in a cold climate instead of Southern California, the decision might have gone the other way and I would have missed all the fun of driving the Commander to the James Dean crash site whenever September 30th falls on a Friday. On the 50th anniversay of the crash, my car was the only one to drive the same route James Dean took from Los Angeles that same day, powered by its original engine through heat that was 102 degrees when we passed through Bakersfield around 4:30 p.m. There is a short musical slide show about that event at the bottom of the page here. http://stude.net/commander.html
Rock On!

fintail

I wonder how many of the complainers would have bought it anyway.

Reminds me of a funny story - several years ago a guy I know who has many MB was considering selling his very nice insanely rare fintail "Universal" wagon. He listed it on ebay with an insane reserve, just to see what it would do. He was flooded with messages from the obsessed, especially from western Europe. A few of them said they would buy it, only if he never told anyone where they bought the car. Weird.

He did eventually sell it, for something around 20K - big money for any fintail related vehicle.

uplanderguy

Very cool JL, thanks for posting.

jljac

Making a musical slide show is like putting a puzzle together. I did the one below using a Studebaker radio commercial. I still keep an open movie file, so I could substitute in some of your Lark images if you would send them to me. This one is actually version No. 2 which I modified to add my niece and nephew after the annual Studebaker night at Irwindale California Toyota raceway. http://s1095.photobucket.com/albums/i480/JLJac1/?action=view&current=11LarkShowK- athyKylie-1.mp4

uplanderguy

I don't really have any images of my Studes on this computer that aren't from the S.D.C. website.

I particularly like the Golden Sand '64 Daytona convertible in your clip, and also the red '62 convertible your lady friend is sitting in. With only 703 '64 convertibles, my little hometown Stude dealer sold a Bordeaux Red one, black interior, 289 and 4-speed. We have no idea what happened to it (in NW PA, I have an idea! LOL) but the original owner died in a car accident in the '70's sometime I'm told.

uplanderguy

I might add, your '55 coupe looks great on the track. Stude aficionados say the '55 isn't nearly as 'clean' as the '53 and '54, but by '55 standards, it's pretty darn sleek and 'lithe' compared to certain other cars, IMHO.

jljac

Any time the “Stude aficionados” favor the 1953-54s over the 1955s, I just point out that the American public did not feel that way at the time. Sales increased nearly 70% from 68,608 in 1954 to 116,333 in 1955. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Automobile_Production_Figures

It is rather unusual to have a car sell that much better in its third year of production than in its second year. When I was a little kid and did not appreciate the annual model change, I thought the 55's were the expensive ones and the 53-54's were the cheap ones.

All of the Hawks are further removed from the original design than the ‘55s are and the Packard Hawk shows what happened when all the chrome (except the bumper) was removed from the front end. I like the one I have.

uplanderguy

Maybe I'm so jaded by the ridiculous styling of so many of today's cars, but for all the flak the Packard Hawk took for its frontal styling, it doesn't look that bad to me...certainly not compared to 'chromium-encrusted gin palaces' (can't think who said that first) put out by other manufacturers that year.

I don't like the 'toilet seat' on the trunk though, but Packard Hawks in great shape often bring big money, more than the uninitiated would think.

Function of my age probably, but I really like the Gran Turismo Hawks, especially the '64's. Give me one with Powershift on the floor (P-R-N-D-2-1), disc brakes, full instrumentation, in Jet Green or Bordeaux Red and I'd be a very happy man.

jljac

I don’t think that Packard Hawk is a bad looking car, I was only making the point that if the ‘55 models had a painted front “grille” instead of the chrome, they would have looked like the 1958 Packards. Designer Bob Bourke and many others have said that the Lowey coupes and hardtops
were ruined by the additional chrome in ‘1955 and that the front end surrounding the bumper should have been body color. I disagree because I have seen pictures where the chrome front is painted over to black or body color and I don’t like it. When painted black, it looks like an overgrown mid- 1970's MG with its front rubber bumper.

The “European look” was not selling, so in 1955 to Studebaker added chrome, increased V-8 power and changed the theme to the first “American sports car” or “family sports car.” Sales increased by nearly 70% plus V-8 Commanders and Presidents outsold Champions that year.

Studebaker added a bit of glitz and glamor, which is fine for a 1950's car. I like the paint scheme they borrowed from Chevrolet too. So I tell others to lighten up on the ‘55s It’s Vegas, baby!!!!


As for the "toilet seat" on the Packard Hawk trunk, Studebaker borrowed that idea from Chrysler who liked it so much that they continued to use it on the 1960 Valiant. At least Studebaker had the good taste not to put it on their Larks.

uplanderguy

I'm typically not a fan of this era of Studebaker, and I don't think as a model they're all that rare, but what a beautiful example:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Studebaker-Commander-Starlight-Hardtop-1952-Stude- baker-Commander-Starlight-HT-37K-Miles-V8-Pristine-/281035517339?pt=US_Cars_Truc- ks&hash=item416f05ad9b

Interesting to see what she'll bring.

I'm a little skeptical of the solid black paint scheme being original. I'd send for the production order from the Studebaker National Museum before I'd buy that car.

uplanderguy

For fintail--can't recall if we were discussing here or on the general old-car thread.

http://www.oldcarmanualproject.com/brochures/Studebaker/1963/pages/1963studepage- 06_jpg.htm

I'd have loved one in the factory "Blue Mist" color.

fintail

Definitely the color I would have chosen. The best blues came out of the late 50s-60s.