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My dealer friend also gave me his Dad's dealer ten-year pin, which looks like one of the ones in your earlier link....copper, hangs from a bar, and has a picture of John Studebaker on the front. It's from 1936.
Speaking of Studebaker, I know someone here (ahem) thinks it's just awful, but I was reading on the S.D.C. Forum where a 'new' Avanti owner was given the name, hometown, and occupation of the original owner of his car from someone at the Studebaker Museum. Growing up with Chevys, I still find that utterly amazing and cool and see no downside whatsoever.
Not so fast. Shirley Bassey and Ian Fleming belong on Team Avanti.
Popular UK singer, Shirley Bassey, who performed the GOLDFINGER theme song among other UK chart hits, owned a 1963 Avanti.
Ian Fleming, the author of the JAMES BOND series of books as well as the children's classic CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG, was a huge car lover, and was proud to add a black 1963 Avanti to his collection of fine British automobiles.
http://wizbangpop.com/2009/07/09/cars-of-the-stars-the-great-studebaker-avanti.p- hp
Did anybody see her on the Oscars a month or so ago? I normally detest awards shows but my wife and daughters were watching it. I didn't even know Bassey was still alive! She sounded great, and to my eyes, I believe she was actually singing. She is 76 years old! 'Goldfinger' is a bit hammy but I like it..always makes me smile when I hear it, but I am reminded of the Austin Powers spoof "Goldmember" whenever I hear it!
Thanks for the link, but that blue Avanti pictured gives me a headache--wrong color, wrong wheelcovers (or at least, they've been maimed!), and either a pinstripe or chrome strip along the bottom that doesn't belong. My favorite Avantis are bone-stock originals, with the correct size tires, offwhite wheels behind the stock wheel covers, and the factory 'nose down' attitude. And it has to be an R2 so it has the little front fender emblem.
jljac, "Postwar Studebakers" #10, 6 Nov 2010 1:13 pm
The order is copper (5 years), bronze, (10 years) silver, (15 years) gold (20 years), red ball with one pearl bottom (25 years), one ruby bottom, (30 years) two pearls top (35 years), two rubies top (forty years). My grandfather's name is spelled wrong on back of the five year pin.
I have two additional red ball pins I wear on my spots coat jackets because I cannot risk losing any of the original complete set. I have all the little boxes for the red ball pins too.
Also, further down in the link is a '63 ad calling out owners of other compacts by name. That struck me as unusual. Growing up being into Chevys, I never saw Chevy mention another competitor by name. I guess that's the difference between being the biggest in the country and being the smallest!
http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/showthread.php?70440-64-2dr-Bordeaux-Red-- Commander-on-Craigslist
Lark Daytona "Avanti Supercharged" convertible
If it's the 'real deal', it's very, very rare. Dug out my Sept. '88 club magazine with breakdown production data of '63 Avanti-powered Larks and Hawks (always kept it nearby because of my old Daytona Skytop), and it shows 31 R2 (supercharged) Lark Daytona convertibles made. There were also 21 R1 (non-supercharged Avanti engine) Lark Daytona convertibles made. Of the total 52 Avanti-engined cars, only seven were painted Regal Red, like this car. Amazingly to me, Ermine White was the most popular color, with 17 produced. (Lowest production: 1 in Green Mist)
As a Stude friend used to say, the car in this pic has been "hillbillied up"!
The "Studebaker" nameplates in front of the front wheel openings shouldn't be there; there should be individual "LARK" lettering there; across the trunk lid should be individual "STUDEBAKER" lettering instead of the two nameplates this car has; the "Avanti Supercharged" emblem on the front fenders is correct and unique to '63's, but on this car is placed about a foot higher than the factory did it, and that crossed-flag V8 emblem is from a 1964 Daytona. The hood ornament is from a '61 Lark.
Worst of all IMHO, the hood has the addition of a fiberglass section from a '57 Golden Hawk, which makes me think that if this car has a blower it's not the '63 installation but the earlier McCulloch one. '57 Golden Hawks had a hole cut in the hood and that very fiberglass section added to clear the blower.
Still, I do appreciate the photo. As you know, '63 and '64 Studebakers, in general, are my favorite of all.
The "Frost and French" license plate frames are cool IMHO, as Frost and French of LA was the last Studebaker dealership to remain open, closing on April 27, 1974. I only know the date because I have a Studebaker calendar on my office wall and it lists that information for April 27.
I like the Studebaker, but I really like the bright red Buick Skylark convertible nexst in the site's list.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I saw the '62 Studebaker Champ pickup with the homemade compartments in the bed (ack!). I remember seeing a bedside for a wide-bed Champ at the well-known parts place in South Bend (then called Newman and Altman) probably 15 years ago and being told it was the last one of that side they still had NOS.
That 1968 Kaiser military 2 1/2 ton truck I bet was built in South Bend at the old Studebaker truck plant south of town. When Studebaker shut down South Bend, they were in the middle of a military truck contract. They finished the contract and Kaiser bought the plant and rights to the trucks and continued to build Studebaker-designed military trucks much later.
That old-style (but correct) Studebaker bed is double-walled, somewhat unusual among other pickups with beds with 'external' fenders.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1960-STUDEBAKER-CHAMPION-PICKUP-TRUCK-HALF-TON-/2- - 90894459323?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item43baa931bb
Actually, it should even have white-painted "moon" hubcaps instead of the chrome "Deluxe" caps. I'm not sure if I'd change that or not. Otherwise, the truck sure looks authentic to me. The ad is pretty light on information though.
R1 Avanti-powered, factory air, factory "Skytop" sunroof, disc brake, Cruiser 4-door sedan with the optional broadcloth upholstery:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1963-Studebaker-Cruiser-Skytop-R-1-one-two-made-/- - - 330908972096?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item4d0bb63440
It's too bad the interior is so shot...broadcloth was essentially wool and the design of that interior in '63 could have been used in a Cadillac Fleetwood, it was that plush...tuck and roll and rear-seat center armrest.
In around '90 when I did production order research out at South Bend to determine how many Avanti-powered Skytops were built, I definitely remember seeing this build sheet and thinking, 'what a neat car'. Apparently built for a Studebaker employee by the build sheet shown in the eBay ad.
He's right about that there were only two '63 4-door Studebakers built with Avanti power and a Skytop--I did the research myself and seeing that the seller is in Tucson, I recall a letter received from Arizona after my information was published in the club magazine. He got his 'two' number from me.
That car is equipped somewhat like my old white '63 (R1, Skytop, Twin Traction, factory air, column-shift automatic) but also has disc brakes and in four-door form, is rarer still (eleven R-powered hardtop skytops; only two four-door sedans) and that Cruiser broadcloth interior is simply gorgeous (at least when it was new; sure can't tell from the photos in the ad!).
I'd love to see someone with deep pockets restore this car, and wish it could be me!
The fellow who restored my '63 Skytop had an old rusty hulk of a '63 Cruiser on his property at the time and it had the red broadcloth interior, which was an option. He said since it's basically wool and that moths like it, finding good-condition original broadcloth on those cars was rare and through all the NOS interior pieces I've seen over the years at SASCO in South Bend, I never once saw broadcloth covers.
What'll it take, 50K? You'd be the center of attention at Stude meets, a quirky curiosity at others.
Some old MBs have a wool broadcloth interior too - started with the Adenauer and I think was a possible special order until the early 90s. Very expensive IIRC.
Boy, good question. A guy on the Studebaker Drivers' Club forum yesterday said the same thing...that would probably draw even lookers who don't look at Studebakers. Ad says it has had some rust repair, although from the pics the floors look OK. All exterior sheetmetal except front fenders is available NOS and reasonably-priced. Most all exterior trim and emblems are as well--except the rear quarter trim.
The interior could be replicated by one of two Studebaker interior places I'm aware of.
Needs a trans, power steering, and a host of other stuff, and a convertible top place (are they still out there?) could probably re-do the Skytop.
My mind just keeps going back to what this car was.
Here's a Rose Mist version of the car, without the Skytop. Per the badge in the correct location on the front fenders of this car, it's also Avanti powered. Picture this car black with a white sunroof, and it'd look the same (this car has the correct wheelcovers and off-white wheels behind):
http://www.hotrodhotline.com/feature/2009show/09northwestoverdrive/html/09northw- - - - - - estoverdrive_16.php
Here's the '63 Cruiser broadcloth interior, in Chestnut instead of Red (page down)--the car for sale also has the optional front headrests:
http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/showthread.php?9765-Broadcloth-Upholstery- - - - - -
That car would sure be tasty to me. Too bad it needs so much. I see the in-dash tach has been removed. That would be my absolute favorite four-door Stude.
Someone on the S.D.C. forum identified the name "E.D. Stebbins" on the build sheet as the Studebaker Zone Manager for the Cincinnati zone at that time.
Another interesting coincidental link, at the time, MB also had optional headrests. They are pretty hard to find, and usually seen on the passenger seat. I've seen them only a few times.
Here's a glimpse of the MB woolcloth interior, in a highline fintail probably from 1964 -- And another, maybe the same car - this upholstery is the rarest type, most of these cars would have leather. Two (I think) different cloth choices were also available ( One like this garish version ), along with vinyl/tex.
One thing I like about the R1 engine is all the factory chrome. My old '63's original owner's wife told me he loved to have the oil checked at gas stations as usually attendants weren't used to seeing Larks with chrome valve covers and other pieces. She said one time her husband passed a Cadillac en route to Yellowstone and at a gas station the Caddy pulled in and said, "What the hell do you have in that Lark?".
I daydream about being able to go to South Bend after the shutdown in Dec. '63, and walk through the storage lots of unsold cars which included leftover '63's. Ahhh, to dream.
Pictures of the plant on the last day it operated, 12/20/63, show the flags still at half-mast for the death of JFK. What a double-whammy, and right before Christmas.
One area where they don't match is chromed engine pieces.
How many final run Studes were put away and never driven?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjb4photos/7143686819/
I never understood why the info board on this car says 'less than 50 miles'--it's like someone couldn't remember and wasn't by the car to check!
I've probably told this story before, but the car was ordered for a retail customer by the dealer in Moselem Springs, PA (near Fleetwood, PA). At the last minute, Studebaker decided to give the car to the City of South Bend, and they picked a similar car in unsold plant inventory and added and deleted options to fill the order. Less than 10 years ago, someone was in the Museum and saw the name of the dealer, Boyer Bros., on the window sticker and went home and told one of the brothers that a car of theirs was in the Studebaker National Museum. He had no idea of the 'switch' or that a car he had ordered for a customer was the last off the line. He took a bus to South Bend and was photographed with the car in the South Bend Tribune, but I understand he was not allowed to sit in the car...a bit of a shame I think (and I'm very pro-Studebaker National Museum).
The last Hawk was also a retail order to Alhambra, CA and was in the hands of its original owner into the '90's. Sadly, he was killed in a car accident and I don't know who owns the car now.
Our Ohio Region S.D.C. newsletter editor who lives less than an hour from me has a '64 Hawk built on the last day, serial number 32 cars from the last (the red one above) and seven Hawks back from the last.
The last Studebaker of all, a turquoise with white vinyl top '66 Cruiser built in Canada, was given to a Studebaker exec in South Bend to drive and he did until 1969, when it was donated to the City of South Bend with 19K miles on it. Studebaker operated their Parts and Service Division out of South Bend until 1972.
The similarities in certain Studebakers and Studebaker features, and Mercedes-Benz cars and features, I believe was totally due to Studebaker being the American distributor for M-B from 1957-65, actually after South Bend closed. (M-B influenced Studebaker, not the other way around!)
Funny that late Stude styling even kind of resembled MB - but the Stude was actually more modern looking by 63 or so, with MB sedans still wearing fins stuck in the 50s. Strange marriage, but the products were interesting.
Too bad it's such a lowly model, but it was sold new at Mathis Motor Co., by then a Benz dealer, in 1969, when the car was over five years old!
http://www.rmauctions.com/lots/lot.cfm?SaleCode=HF12&CarID=r145&fc=0
I like the later Larks. Trim outside, full-size inside, and unusual (er..."Different By Design" as Stude would say!).
In the first link you posted, there is a Champagne colored W126 directly in front of the subject vehicle. It looks like an SEL rather than an SE, but other than that, you have my W126. Even the same wheels.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
I see these as having kind of a MB look (radiator shell grill, profile and size are similar) to them, with a little Mopar mixed in (foreshadowing the "merger" 35 years later? :shades: )
It was a VERY popular color on both cars from beginning to end.
see. It was a Champagne S-Class sedan with those wheels, so I expected it to be a W126 like mine.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Hate that mirror out on the fender, though!
That blue '63 is a sweetheart; those aren't the right wheelcovers though. The '63's have a broad band of white on each wheelcover. I've heard quite a few people say they don't like that feature though, and have put other wheelcovers on their cars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AVMXubc-Vg
Definitely a goofy ad, but moving film footage of a new '62 Lark with Skytop!
The white hubcap trim would give something of a MB theme on a white car. That 62 does have the image, with the grille divided as it is. Neat car, 2 door with that top, very European vibe to it.
http://nozama.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54ed05fc28833014e87d60e32970d-popup
A guy in Youngstown, OH went to a nearby dealer to buy an Avanti, in late calendar 1964, after production was long over. He apparently wanted an R3 and the dealer in OH located this car in Mississippi at a Stude dealer. The guy flew to MS and drove the car home. Only after he got home to OH did he find a note under the trunk mat, signed by a South Bend employee, including his employee number, saying "This is the last Studebaker Avanti built in South Bend, Indiana. Happy New Year". The owner wrote Studebaker and got a letter back saying that it was indeed the last Avanti built by Studebaker. That has since been verified many times over by production order paperwork.
At the risk of causing eye-rolling (!), in this link are a couple pics of my old white '63 Lark Daytona Skytop. Page down, and the folks in the pic in front of the train car are Mr. and Mrs. Duginski, the original owners of the car and real nice folks. The pic from the rear seat of the car shows Mr. Duginski and the guy with the big bald spot, driving, is me:
http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/showthread.php?43864-Met-the-original-own- ers-of-my-Skytop-yesterday
I disagree that the Studebaker manufacturing facilities were a major reason that Studebaker went out of the auto business. A friend bought me this book and it shows many photos that prove show the large main buildings under construction the 1920s when the requirements of mass auto production were well known.
http://www.amazon.com/History-Studebaker-Corporation-Albert-Erskine/dp/111737805- - 5
The Studebaker main plant was designed to build 300,000 autos and engines per year which was nearly three times the number they needed to sell to make a profit. Packard merged with Studebaker in 1954 believing that Studebaker would make a profit if Studebaker could sell approximately 160,000 cars year but then believed that Studebaker's actual "break even" point was actually than 260,000 cars per year. This table shows that in 1955 Studebaker sold 116,333 autos and they had huge losses and that In 1960 they sold 126,156 (mostly Larks) had made a good profit.
http://www.ask.com/wiki/U.S._Automobile_Production_Figures?o=2800&qsrc=999.
Yes, some of the Studebaker buildings were from the horse and buggy days, but they were surrounded by larger buildings that were built in in 1920s. Studebaker was fortunate to have some big fires which cleared out many of the old buildings. Packard, Nash and Hudson were not so fortunate. In fact, Nash Rambler had older facilities in Kenosha Wisconsin and they used to truck the bodies from the body plant to final assembly into the 1960s, a problem Studebaker eliminated with its conveyer system in 1954. On the other hand, Kaiser and Tucker had some of the largest and most modern facilities in the industry but it did not do them any good.
Studebaker actually had large modern facilities at the Chippewa plant or Plant 8 a short distance from the main facilities that was built by the US government for production of aircraft engines for the B-17 Flying Fortress. Studebaker later used it for building army trucks and postal vehicles with plenty of room to spare because there was no reason to move auto assembly to the more modern facilities.
The final assembly buildings below were not built during the horse and buggy days, neither was the main body plant, the foundry, engine assembly or any of the main buildings used to manufacture autos. The old house in the slide show below was probably standing there when the buildings were built.
I remember seeing GM Lordstown when it was built, in '66. When I saw what South Bend was still building cars in only three years earlier, I was pretty stunned.
One-story assembly was the rule in new plants by the '60's I think.
Still, there are few GM's I'd rather own, seriously, than a handful of '63 and '64 Studebaker models (no doubt a function of my age; born '58).
It's cool you know the history of your car. I can get the names of old owners via old documents in my car, but I have no old pics and have met none of them, other than the guy I bought it from. I know the original owner is long gone - he was old when the car was new.
The 'ghosts' are still there. From NPR:
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/05/155916837/a-company-town-reinvents-itself-in-south- -bend-ind
With some exceptions--like the Avanti, and other Studes with the Avanti performance options--the average Stude owner from, say '62 to the end in '66 leaned elderly too!
(At least that's my memory, in my hometown...a friend's grandfather; spinster old lady school teacher, etc.).
My friend had a '64 GT Hawk. He went with me to the Stude Museum archivees a few years back. He found the retail sale card for the original owner of his car, who was from California. His occupation on the card was listed as "Retired". When I got home, I googled the guys' name and hometown. He had been born in 1892!
Similarly, this same friend of mine and I looked a couple months ago at a '66 Commander two-door sedan about an hour from here. It was in better shape than we had thought we'd see. The seller, second owner, had new-car paperwork for it, plus the letter from Studebaker to the original owner telling her they were stopping building cars and if her dealer stopped servicing Studes, had a list of all of Stude's Parts Depots across the U.S.--where her independent garage could get parts. I googled her name when I got home, and she was born in 1896!
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/29/business/time-runs-out-at-old-car-plant.html
The Kenosha operation is actually two factories separated by several miles. Parts of the main facility date to the turn of the century, when Thomas Jeffery moved his bicycle company here from Chicago. The other plant, on the shore of Lake Michigan, is even older, dating to the 1890's. The five-story former mattress factory, which looks like something out of a Charles Dickens novel, is a nightmare for production experts.
The auto bodies that are welded and painted in the lakefront plant must be carried in open trucks to the main plant for final assembly. This extra handling is costly and greatly increases the chances of scratches or chips.
=====================================================
The argument above is that the AMC plant it was too old and spread out. It seems like a description of the Packard facilities in Detroit which were closed in 1956. That is why I said earlier that Studebaker was fortunate to have some big fires early in the century.
http://sometimes-interesting.com/2011/08/15/largest-abandoned-factory-in-the-wor- - - - ld-the-packard-factory-detroit/
I am editing this post to note that the link above is really worth seeing. It says main Rackard factory was built in 1903, twenty years before the main auto facilities in South Bend.
One way in which we're lucky compared to AMC buffs, is that so much Studebaker history, and NOS parts, survived the shutdown and are available today. Have you toured Studebaker International in South Bend--I mean, when they give tours of the stock in back? It is utterly amazing, and this is with some stuff being thrown out when the move from the old SASCO to this new location happened several years ago.
I've read that when Chrysler bought AMC, and then when Kenosha was torn down, tons of AMC parts and tooling were destroyed. I'm not an AMC fan, but feel sorry for AMC fans about that.
What car brand name can be read from aircraft or perhaps even spacecraft traveling above Indiana?
A. Studebaker
B. Subaru
C. Toyota
IIRC last month's question also was Studebaker related.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I did not actually become a Studebaker owner because of the South Bend Studebaker side of the family. An aunt from Chicago who was not related to the South Bend side of the family decided to learn to drive because she saw a yellow one in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's and thought they were so cute. It was a two- door Lark VI with an automatic transmission. Her husband also liked it so much that often drove it instead of his Pontiac.
Although they liked the Lark a lot, it would not start in cold weather no matter what the mechanics did to solve that problem, so they sold it to me cheap when I got a driver's license in 1968. Therefore, although my South Bend side of the family all had Studebakers because of employee discounts, they were four door dedans or station wagons and were not the reason why I ended up owning and driving them.
I also note that many women liked Larks which helped sales. My girlfriend is the same way. She does not care much about Studebakers generally, but she likes Larks.