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JL, I got my "Turning Wheels" but hadn't noticed that Wagonaire...Ill have to check it out!
http://www.studebaker.co.za/index.php?option=com_morfeoshow&task=view&gallery=1&- - Itemid=9
Here's a discussion of Studebaker's international sales and manufacturing, including South Africa:
http://www.studebakerhistory.com/dnn/Facilities/International/tabid/77/Default.a- - spx
No one in our family ever owned a Studebaker, but I always enjoyed the 'David and Goliath' nature of Studebaker, being in South Bend when most of the rest were in Detroit, and the fact that they outlived most every other independent. Their cars really were "Different By Design", as their '64 advertising slogan said. The Studebaker National Museum is awesome IMHO and there are tons of factory archives left for the viewing (including a lot from Packard). We're luckier than most to be able to get a build sheet for our cars ('38-66), find the name of the original owner ('61-66), find information/principals of Studebaker dealers, and from a vendor, even get the final inspection reports for each Avanti.
That white car is the best example he could've featured? With those aftermarket mirrors out on the fenders, those wheels, that paint? LOL
Lots of discussion posts for a Studebaker there, although the one poster said Studebaker went bankrupt. It did not. It just left the auto business, but had many subsidiaries that kept it in business. The Parts and Service Division survived in South Bend until 1972.
Our club magazine this month featured letters written to and from Lew Minkel, Stude's VP of Sales, in 1963...compiled by the Archivist at the Studebaker National Museum. One Minkel wrote was in response to an irate Avanti customer in Indianapolis who was pulled over by the Indiana State Police for exceeding noise limits in a new Avanti! Minkel expressed surprise and dismay, although I remember reading somewhere over the years that Sherwood Egbert, Studebaker's president, called for Avanti mufflers to be "...as loud as is legal"!
Egbert was a "take charge" kind of guy. I read in our club magazine last year or so, minutes from a meeting about the '64 Avanti. Egbert liked the idea of a woodgrain steering wheel. Others in the meeting thought it looked cheap. The closing line in the minutes was "Mr. Egbert approved the wheel for production". LOL
http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/showthread.php?18908-Sherwood-Egbert-s-R3- - -Avanti-Pictures-1
His car was the prototype for the '64 model year changes. The car sold for $75K at this auction.
The article is pretty accurate except that it says that the Avanti was originally going to be built in metal. I believe it was intended to have a fiberglass body from the beginning. The front end design itself would have been difficult to do in metal.
The latest Turning Wheels has an interesting article about the very last Avanti built at the end of December 1963. It was ordered in October. I have to wonder why it took Studebaker so long to complete that order. Given that sales were terrible, and that Avanti production peaked in January-February 1963, they should have rushed to build and sell their most expensive model .
It seems like Studebaker really did not want to sell R-3 Avantis. The option was supposed to be available during the 1963 model year but all factory built R-3s were 64 models, and from everything I read, it was hard to get one.
I was surprised to see this once I got home this weekend. There were over 500 cars in the Concours at South Bend that day, and only 13 were featured, and trust me, there were many more beautiful/authentic than mine, of every type of model, but I'm happy to be in there. My car is in Australia now.
Two of my good Studebaker local buddies are in there, too...Ed's '64 Champ pickup (mistakenly labelled as a '59 in the article....grrrr!) and Ted's '61 Lark VIII Regal wagon.
Congratulations.
There is an orphan show next week. Lots of Studebakers there last year including a truck pulling a Stude car on a Studebaker trailer, or some combination like that.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAglZjX3HOk
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Obviously, I'm a big fan of the Studebaker coupes, '53-64. The '64 is my favorite, and it still has some DNA of the '53, but they're just so distinctive IMHO. Dark color, vinyl top, floor shift automatic (PRND21), disc brakes, full gauges, and I'd be all set.
Sigh.
http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/keynews/localeconomy/article_ce5facb8- -2378-11e3-8c86-0019bb30f31a.html?mode=video
Is this a fake Avanti? A replicar? Or a one-off while the name was owned by others after factory production ceased?
Color was rich dark red metallic: if it were GM I'd call it Firethorn red.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
My neighbor has a gold convertible that was built on a Ford (Mustang?) platform in Mexico around 2005. I can't look up the exact year because he borrowed my Avanti book with a picture of his car in it and I never got it back.
Am I the only one who is no longer able to add images, italics and bold to these posts? Has something changed at this site within the past month?
Was the independents show at a dairy? I saw photos of it, and nice comments, on the Studebaker Drivers' Club forum this morning.
JL, the bold, highlight, and other buttons have disappeared from the Edmunds forums of late. One might think it wouldn't be a big deal to bring them back, but it's been a few weeks.
Pictures taken with wife's nonAndroid cellphone.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I'm a purist at heart, but those "Avantis" don't do a darn thing for me. I'm not crazy even about Avanti II's built from the mid-sixties to the mid-eighties--but they're more Studebaker than these 2000-era cars are. I'd still look for a '63 or '64, but that's me.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/showthread.php?75248-Stude1964-s-Daytona-- - hardtop-photo-heavy
I think the '64 styling has really stood the test of time. Simple is usually best IMHO.
BTW, I believe his hood is unlatched (from the inside release, rather unusual for the time) as my '63 would unlatch with a rise towards the driver's side, when the inside release was pulled. The '63 hood didn't go to the entire front of the car though; there was a car-wide front end panel in front of the hood.
This was taken in Aug. '12 at the S.D.C. International Meet in South Bend. It was 97 degrees with probably matching humidity that day, I remember that...hence, the "Rerun"-style hat I had on!
http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2013/11/01/hmn_feature4.html
Wish I'd have told the Hemmings guy that the big news Studebaker advertised for the '66's were transistorized ignition and flow-through ventilation ("Refreshaire"). Where the taillight was on a '64 or '65, there were exhaust vents on a '66 and the taillight was in the '64/65 backup light position, with new backup lights placed lower on the car.
http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/studebaker/lark/1579832.html
In two-doors, I like the '64 styling, but in four doors, I like the '63. I really like the rear-door cut and "C" pillar styling. It's a 113-inch wheelbase; seems more like a midsize car in character than other compacts out there. The '63 is odd IMHO to have the clock/tach position in the center of the cluster and the speedo to the right (this car has neither clock nor tach). In '64 the speedo was moved to the more-logical center position, and the ignition switch was moved to the right of the steering column.
Also, on craigslist there is a green '63 Hawk very near me that is advertised as 'powered by Avanti' (Stude folks really like that option). "Barn find". I've offered to go look and get the serial, engine, and body nos. which can easily be verified by lists out there of the original Avanti-powered car build sheets. It'll be fun.
Some rust in lower fenders, typical, but trunk corners looked very good. Patches in front floors.
He's asking $6K OBO, which is probably optimistic, but who knows.
It has been in dry storage since '91 when last driven. He says he sprayed oil down where the plugs are and got the car to turn over.
Way above my pay grade, but an interesting car I'd have loved to see when new. It's "Blue Mist", a lightish metallic blue, with blue interior and white bucket seat inserts.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
http://www.gentrylane.com/s/domestic-inventory/sold-domestic/1963-studebaker-haw- k-gt
Just for fun, I'd like to see where it was sent new. I don't want to spend the $25, but I'd love to know who bought it new, if it was ordered or not, and what the guy traded in. Someone is checking on the first thing for me now.
Here is a good site that shows the Avanti colors BUT it says that no black Avantis were sold. This is wrong because James Bond author Ian Flemming had the first black one and that color was offered in both the 1963 and 64 model year at an additional charge. http://www.theavanti.net/paint_colors.html
I always have to chuckle a bit at what is considered 'low production' for a Big Three model. A fuelie '62 Corvette (absolutely delicious to me!) was posted as being very rare at 1,900+ units. Rare for a Chevy, but that's how many 1963 AND 1964 Studebaker Hawks and Lark-types with Avanti powerplants, supercharged and not, were built!
P.S. I know rarity doesn't equate with value, just sayin'.
To be exact, it's a '63 Lark Custom two-door sedan, highest trim level you could get in a two-door sedan that year. Nice car.
I'm also loving the Idaho Potato grower's commercial featuring the bone-stock red and white '55 Studebaker pickup, of late.
Here is that current Idaho Potato Growers' commercial with the Studebaker pickup, a '55:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4fPSwqIsz4
That is actually correct factory colors and how Stude did the two-toning that year. That truck, I'm nearly certain, was on the cover of our international club magazine some years back.
On Friday, Dec. 20, 1963, this red Daytona was the last car off the 'regular' assembly line (i.e., Lark-types and Hawks; last Avanti was built 12/26 and last trucks were built 12/27). It's in the Studebaker National Museum and has only 28 miles. I've seen it many times:
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1964Daytona.jpg
It's an Avanti-powered R1 with four-speed, disc brakes, in-dash tach, and 50/50 split bench front seat. No radio though.
It had been ordered for a customer, but at the last minute Studebaker decided to give it to the City of South Bend and filled the customer's order with a similar car in factory inventory, adding and deleting options. The dealer in eastern PA never knew that Studebaker did that. Here's a neat story about his finding out, many years later:
http://articles.mcall.com/2005-07-24/news/3625494_1_boyer-bros-studebaker-nation- - al-museum-berks-county
Interesting articles in the South Bend Tribune today.
http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/studebaker/article_ebd9614a-5ec3-11e3-83b8-- 001a4bcf6878.html They bring back sad memories. I took this image and lightened and sharpened it. Note that the American flag is at half staff because of the President JFK assassination.
The image above is much better than the one in the South Bend Tribune, which is too dark, because I lightened and sharpened it. In the factory sponsored movies, Family of Craftsmen and Beyond a Promise the buildings look new and modern, which is how I remember them. Most of them were built in the late 1920s, and they were 20 years newer than the Packard buildings. Big fires can be a good thing.
The facilities were much better than Packard or Nash/AMC had in Kenosha, which is why I put the South Bend facilities way down the list of reasons for Studebaker's failure. Studebaker could build three times more than they could sell and the workforce at the end was only 7,000 which is about a third of peak employment and the average age of employees was 54.
I feel fortunate to have been a kid in South Bend in the 1950s when anyone who wanted a job could go to Studebaker or Bendix and make enough to money to own a house, a car, a TV and get two weeks paid vacation a year. Any woman who knew how to sew or type could get a job too. My grandmother and her sister both worked on making cloth interiors for the cars far many years. My grand mother was sewing curtains for the touring cars when my grandfather met her in the building around 1922 in the building that still stands Union Station.
My mother saved my hospital bill from 1952 and it cost $115.00 to have me born at St Joseph's hospital, where she stayed for two days. That less than two weeks salary for the average employee at the time. No need for health insurance then.