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I think fintail on here lives near there too. That is a coincidence.
Fintail used to work, literally right next door to the Honda store where I worked. I thought that maybe someday he would pop in to see me but it never happened. Yeah, we probably live 15 minutes from one another but we've never met.
I am the same way about a lot of old cars. The common customs/rods with crate 350s and other stuff that was all the rage in maybe the 70s doesn't get me. I've seen enough mild rod Tri-Chevies (like the one in gagrice's pic) and Chevelles etc to last a lifetime. But show me a nice original style car, and I might look. I like 55-56s more than 57s, 56 Nomad is especially good to my eyes.
Remember how I said Bellingham was a center for odd cars? Funny.
I went to school there and lived there for a few years after. Nice little town, but primarily a college town, not a lot of private sector job opportunity, I moved for a better job.
Maybe the best MB DIY guru in the country is based in Bellingham, too.
Just waiting for you to see a sky blue fintail with wide whites out on the road - you'll know it is me
Yeah, never got around to that - I think you had Sundays off, and that's always my most free day. Or something like that.
Forget Studebakers...if unique is what you seek....
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Peugeot-403-Gran-de-Luxe-cabriolet-cabriolet-Peugeot-403-cabriolet-/301083187519?forcerrptr=true&hash=item4619f4d93f&item=301083187519&pt=US_Cars_Trucks
Think it just might be a bit difficult to find parts for this?
Fintail,
I guy I went to high school and his wife own a restaurant in Bellingham. I really should go and see them. It's called Dirty Dans in the Fairhaven (?) district.
Hey isellhondas, wonder if Peter Falk ever drove that Peugeot?
According to the front license plate, it's his!
Sundays off? In the car business??
I know I've seen your car. Next time I'll try to pull you over.
Gee, hondas, I missed that license plate!
Dirty Dans, I remember the name, don't think I ever went there. Fairhaven is a nice somewhat upscale artsy area, popular with affluent older people. I was up in Bham last Sunday, had been ages since I explored the town. Not much changed - but the low traffic volumes are nice. It's a very mellow place.
I'd think a place like that Honda dealer would practically mint money, you have a devoted audience here. Although I guess Sunday is a big browsing day. Same for the local MB dealer - I know some salesmen do very well there. I've toyed with the idea of selling MBs, but I am not a good closer or pressure-r - I'd say "if you don't want to buy it, fine". I'd need to only deal with kind of old school brand fans.
That Peugeot is amazing, wacky price, but if you want the best, you have to pay.
That Wagonaire is $15,100 with 5 1/2 days left. I'd bet it'll set a record for a Wagonaire, particularly one with a wrong-year engine. I'd still love to own it.
That Wagonaire sold for $28,100. Amazing.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Studebaker-Wagonaire-Daytona-/131108409592
Did anyone you know buy it? That seems like he did alright on it. I think the sliding rear was the big selling point. You could haul a giraffe in it. Great for parades.
Almost all '63 Stude wagons had the sliding roof. Mid-year, they began offering a fixed-roof at $100 less. I think condition and that it was a Daytona model contributed...mostly condition. Pretty amazing that it brought only $4K less than that beautiful '64 Eldorado convertible we were discussing on the other Edmunds old car forum.
Supposedly, the buyer is in Houston and this is his first Studebaker.
I got to see the remains of an old Studebaker truck yesterday, when I went for a jog. I knew about this truck from my childhood, but thought it was long since gone. It used to be perched, on its side, at the top of an embankment at the edge of a farm, overlooking an old defunct railroad right-of-way. This would have been in the late 70's. I didn't know what kind of truck it was, but my uncle knew that farmer, knew the truck, and said it was an old Studebaker.
Well, at some point, the truck fell down the embankment, as the sides eroded, I guess. it was just piled there with a bunch of other junk that had been thrown over the edge, over the years. By the early 90's, I remember the frame still being there, although the cab, fenders, etc were all gone. I can remember taking the dog for a walk back there and tying her to the frame so I could go pee!
That old right-of-way is a hiker-biker trail now, and a lot of effort was made to clean it up. So a lot of that junk was hauled away, and I just presumed the truck frame was, too. But, a couple weeks ago, a maintenance crew came through and cut along the edges. Usually when I jog I go a different way on the trail, but this time decided to go the other way. And, the maintenance crew, in doing that clearing with their heavy duty mowers, had exposed the frame to that old truck!
Even though it was totally useless junk, and nothing more than a ghost from the past, I still thought it was kinda cool that it was still there, after all these years. As for the year, I'm only going from a vague childhood memory, but I'd say 40's or earlier. It had a narrow cab and sort of a needle-nose hood with separate fenders. So definitely NOT 50's or later. And I think it might have been a flatbed truck at one time, or a pickup with the bed pulled off, because I'm pretty sure it was just a cab/frame by the time I first saw it in the 70's.
Wonder if it might have been an "M" series, like this:
http://billstudepage.homestead.com/files/mpu.jpg
That's what a Stude truck looked like through much of the forties, until the '49 came out in mid-'48.
My dad had two or maybe 3 Styude PUs from the early 1950s. I remember they all had flathead 6 engines. Very easy to work on. Seems like it was a regular thing to have the hood up messing with the Carb or????
That style Stude truck your Dad has was considered to be advanced in the day, with concealed running boards (inside the door) and lack of rolled edge in the bed, as well as double-walled bed. I like the big white, vertical-tooth fiberglass grilles they put on it in '57, although it was long in the tooth by then. The big trucks (up to 2 tons) continued with that cab right up through the end in '64.
It could have been that style, but my memory's really fuzzy. From my late 70's memory, I just remember an old truck, perched on its side, up on top of the embankment. And it was overgrown with weeds and brush, plus there was other junk piled around it, and flowing down the embankment. When I was a kid I was always fascinated by trains, so I begged my Mom to take me for a walk on the old railroad bed. Granddad used to take me back there as well, but we always walked in a different direction, as the side where that Studebaker truck was on was on the other side of a road, up an embankment, as there used to be a bridge over the road.
I remember begging my Mom to let me climb up that hill to get a better look at the truck. But, Mom said no. Pretty wise of her, in retrospect, considering that truck eventually slid down the hill!
Did Studebaker ever make medium/heavier-duty trucks? Next time I'm out that way, I'm thinking about digging around the frame some, to see how thick the frame rails are. Wonder if it could be identified by that? There's also a little bit of the suspension left, with one brake drum partially exposed. Much of it's kinda buried though. From what I remember, the frame did seem pretty beefy, but then maybe that's just how all pickups were back in the old days?
Yes, Studebaker made trucks in one-, 1 1/2, and 2-ton sizes...right through 1964. Not the era the truck you're talking about is, but nobody else offered a one-ton diesel in the early sixties.
I remember when I was a kid seeing fairly large old Studebaker trucks with water well drilling equipment. Those kind of trucks don't get a lot of mileage on them, so you'd see some pretty old beasts drilling home wells.
Studes abused in an old music video - I think I see a Packard at the end, too.
Looks like a 1953 Packard on its nose to the left. Forgot about those hair styles. I have some pics somewhere when I had my hair like that. Too funny. With my dad and son.
The powder blue Lark is a '61; the other, a '60.
The '61 Lark had a good number of one-year-only parts and was the year the six went from flathead to OHV, but I never liked how they moved the side trim above the natural crease in the sheetmetal. That was a one-year idea, thankfully!
First Stude I ever rode in was a Colonial Red '60 Lark VIII owned by a friend of my parents'. This would have been the late '60's. The family also had a two-door '64 Chevelle wagon. I remember kidding the Dad about the Lark then, and he told me "that Lark will run rings around the Chevy".
I notice that only the nameplate "Lark" is visible on any of the cars. Wonder if they felt they wouldn't get any crap from automakers if they featured a defunct brand up-front....although Studebaker was still providing authorized service and parts through June 1972. Even when this video was made, Hawks got a lot more love than Larks. Lark love came later.
OUCH! There's a 1957 DeSoto Firedome in there as well. At least it's "just" a 4-door sedan though...if it was a hardtop coupe like mine, I'd be cringing right now! It is kind of a shame though, thinking about how rare a rust-free '57 DeSoto fender would be, and here in this video, I see that fender buckle, as it rear-ends that Lark and pushes it into that psychedelic Olds. Oddly, the fender buckles towards the back, aft of the wheel opening....but that's how those old cars were...very unpredictable in an accident.
And, I guess it's possible that even by 1972, that DeSoto could've had rust-out in the fenders, around the headlight area. Even in California.
I've seen old pics from that era, with my Dad, uncles, etc, and also with my Grandparents and their generation. Seems like most of the young-uns turned into hippies, while the parents were still stuck in the 50's.
Andre, your assessment of that general time period, at least where I lived, is true. I went away to college a few years later, in 1976, and I remember coming home and having my grandmother tell me first thing that I needed a haircut!
What were just obsolete out of style junky used cars in 1969 are desired by many today. Orphan depreciation probably had a Stude or DeSoto down to about zero resale value by then, too. I bet the junkyards then were a real sight.
And speaking of bad/big hair, it seems to have lasted well into the 80s, from the photos I've seen.
I'm old enough to remember reallllly low Stude used-car prices in the late '60's/early '70's. Edsel and DeSoto were still fresh in a lot of folks' minds. You read folks on the Studebaker Drivers' Club site, and some are guys who bought them new, but a fair amount are guys who bought them as cheap used cars after they were discontinued, guys who wanted a cheap second car, and ended up liking what they were. The NOS parts situation was excellent, really cheap, well into the '80's and even the '90's. Still better than a lot of folks would think. When I got into them, I just wanted something different, but the parts situation was a pleasant surprise.
In 1971, I bought a one owner, little old lady's 1955 Commander with a V-8 and automatic with
16,055 miles! Her son sold it to me. It was yellow and white, Still had the original whitewalls and the jack was still in the wrapper. The car was FLAWLESS. Southern California always garaged car. I paid his asking price of 300.00!
I was always afraid to drive it so six months later a guy offered me 750.00 and I took it.
Yeah...I know....
Yeah, but you got off lucky, because, as Freddy Prinze once said on "Chico and the Man", it ain't easy trying to sell a Stoodee-Baker in a Chebby neighborhood!
Oh, and on the subject of cheap cars, my Dad bought a '64 GTO 2-door post in 1973, for $400. It was a pretty ratty car, admittedly. I still remember the night he bought it, riding with Mom as we followed him home. The exhaust or something was dragging, and it would emit a shower of sparks on occasion. I was actually afraid of that car for awhile.
I don't think anybody in my family, in recent memory at least, ever had a Studebaker. I remember Grandmom's Aunt Nancy mentioning a '29 (I think) Studebaker that someone in the family had, and they referred to it as a brick "out" house (I'm paraphrasing here, as that's NOT the word Aunt Nancy used!)
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2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Odds are it either ended up scrapped, or out in a field somewhere like sturdy old cars seemed to go.
Speaking of cheap cars, around 1968 maybe, my mother bought a white on red 61 Impala convertible, according to her, in beautiful condition. I think she paid something like $750 for it.
isellhondas, the '55 coupes and hardtops were apart-from-the-crowd, and I liked the proportions. The foglights hammed them up IMHO, but you could get them new without them, and I'd have not ordered the backup lights too. An elegant car in trim proportions, IMHO.
I always thought it was a bit of a shame that Studebaker (and Packard) waited until 1958 to come out with that pretty "Starlight" hardtop coupe. I wonder, if they had come out with a hardtop for the more upright sedan body style a few years earlier, if it would have been a strong seller?
I like the '58 hardtops too. They're pretty rare. Stude had comparatively low beltlines then, which I liked. I could enjoy a '58 President Hardtop.
Some of the most coveted classic cars of the 1930s were looked at as costly white elephants in the 1940s, and even the 1950s, and probably ended up in some scrap drive during WWII. Imagine buying a classic Duesenberg J for $35 in 1949. I recall older guys with impeccably restored Cadillac V-16s who bought them for peanuts in the late 1940 and early 1950s.
I've seen things like that - some of the classics shown on Chasing Classic Cars have ownership like that, guys who picked them up for peanuts after the war, and realized the cars were something special.
The same thing was true elsewhere too - you could buy prewar RRs for next to nothing in England well into the 60s. Thirsty and obsolete in a world where modern and economical were in demand. Other prewar highline cars were worth even less. Bugattis weren't expensive either.
Old high end MBs like 540Ks were worth little during the 50s, too - I remember reading that Goering's custom 540K brought something like 2K at auction in the mid 50s - might have been a lot, the price of a cheap new car, but even with unloved provenance, it would soar into 7 figures today.
My Aunt Marsha had a new yellow 1954 Studebaker Commander Starliner coupe with a white top way back in the day. This was well before I was born, so I don't personally remember it. My FIL also had a 1937 Studebaker which was his first car and a 1950 Champion of which he he a picture of on his will. After the Champion, he bought a new 1960 Ford Galaxie.
A '54 Commander Starliner is a beautiful car IMHO. I wonder if your FIL felt, like I've heard others say, that they couldn't swallow hard enough to buy a new Studebaker after '58, with no "full size" cars to buy (although the Hawk was really full-size, just didn't look like it). My BIL's former boss (now deceased) could not see himself trading his '56 President Classic on a '61 Lark, so bought a Mopar of some kind instead. Ironically, I've read that's one reason Studebaker introduced the long-wheelbase "Cruiser" model in '61, to try and get that kind of buyer back. It still looked like a Lark though.
My FIL had three kids at the time. My wife, (# 5) and her older brother, (#4) were still in the future in 1960. I doubt he could've fit such a large family in a Lark.
A Lark was actually full-sized inside; a six-seater; much roomier than a Rambler in comparison. The trunk was skimpier though. All they did was saw the front and rear end off of a standard-sized Stude sedan.
Was the Lark any narrower than the standard-sized Stubebakers had been? One thing I remember Consumer Reports griping, about the regular-sized Studes, was that they were a little tight on shoulder room compared to a Ford, Chevy, or Plymouth. I think this was around 1955 or so. I don't know what various shoulder room dimensions were back in those days, though. I would imagine that the Stude was comparable when it came out for 1953, but then the competition kept getting bigger and bigger.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean they got bigger on the inside. I think Plymouths were always pretty big on the inside, even those stubby '53-54 models. By 1957, Plymouth was using the same body shell as Dodge/DeSoto/Chrysler. I remember taking a tape measure to my DeSoto once, and I think it was about 62" across, door panel to door panel. I'm not sure that's how they measure shoulder room, though. I'd imagine a Plymouth would be the same. I also remember seeing a '57 Ford ad that bragged about it having something like 59" of shoulder room. By the 1970's, that was barely midsize...my '76 LeMans has 59.6", up front.
I think the Chevy might have actually gotten a bit smaller on the inside for 1958, although when they started getting more hot and heavy into platform sharing for '59, it probably gained a bit.
I wonder if Studebaker should get credit for creating the midsized car? I always thought those Larks definitely looked roomier inside than any of the Big Three compacts. I imagine they stacked up pretty favorably to something like a Fairlane/Meteor, the shrunken '62 Dodges and Plymouths, and GM's '64 intermediates
I believe that the Lark was no narrower than '58 and earlier Studebakers, interior-wise. Magazine comparisons to Ramblers always noted the Lark's larger interior. It was primarily a 'sawed off' '58 Studebaker. In fact, if you look at the center section of a '59 or '60 Lark, it's the same as '55 1/2 (wraparound windshield) to '58 Stude sedans.
I remember that Automotive News overlaid a '64 Studebaker and a '77 Caprice Classic, comparing interior space, seat width, etc. I do think Studebaker was first to do the 'big interior, smaller exterior' thing, but nobody was thinking much back then about that with cheap gas.
I just pulled up some pics side by side. Looks like for the Lark, they moved the rear axle forward a bit, as the wheel opening cuts into the back door on the Lark, but not on the big cars. However, in those days there was often wasted space, where they could do that without sacrificing interior room. They probably moved the front axle back a bit as well, but, once again, there was room to do that.
Chrysler pretty much did a similar trick with their 1957 cars. Plymouth was on a 118" wheelbase, but to make a Dodge, they moved the rear axle back 4 inches. It gave no more interior room though. As a result, Plymouth and Dodge front clips are interchangeable. So is the DeSoto Firesweep, which was on the shorter Dodge wheelbase. Then, to make a Chrysler or senior model DeSoto, they added another 4" of wheelbase up front, which made for a longer hood and fenders.
GM did similar tricks through the years. For instance, a 1967 Bonneville has no more interior room than my Catalina, although it's on a 3" longer wheelbase. They simply moved the rear axle back. And then tacked on some extra trunk length, to make the car about 7-8" longer, overall. It's really noticeable on the 4-door models, less so on 2-doors. However, at the GM show in Carlisle, my Catalina has been parked next to a same-year Bonneville on a few occasions, and when you see the two side by side, you can really see the difference. Makes my Catalina look downright stubby!
Yes, the Lark wheelbase is shorter than an earlier Champion, say, but I believe that was all from before and after the passenger compartment. The '59 and '60 Lark even still uses the '56-58 bottom of the instrument panel, with the center glovebox.
Re.: "short" versus "long" wheelbase big Pontiacs--I think the shorter-wheelbase ones look nicer. The other ones to me look so long in the behind--and for some reason, the four-door pillared sedans seem the most noticeable, I don't know why. Take a Star Chief or Executive four-door "post", and compare it to the Catalina/Ventura, and those extra inches around the rear wheel opening look awkward to me. I do like the Bonneville interiors though, and in '65-68, I like how you could get buckets and console in a Bonneville, like the Grand Prix, but it had the fastback roof which I preferred. No rear-seat center armrest in a '67 or '68 Bonne with buckets though, like a Grand Prix had.
Oldest Avanti in private hands restored; from New York Times' site:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/automobiles/collectibles/after-15-years-reunited-and-restored.html?hpw&rref=automobiles&_r=0
This is two serial nos. earlier than the white car sold at auction a year or two ago for $74,800.