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I loved Studebaker's 'pluckiness' in those '62-64 model years, especially. MHO only, but they stretched much more than larger AMC in product offerings.
Probably twenty years ago, I got talking to an interior stylist from Stude at a South Bend meet, who was hired after graduating wherever he went, after writing them saying if he couldn't work for Studebaker, he really didn't want to work in the auto industry, LOL. He was hired in I think '61 he said. I had a name tag on showing my town of Kent, OH and he interrupted my questions to tell me that he grew up in Mansfield, about an hour or so away from me.
I met another guy who was driving the S.D.C. shuttle bus from the meet hotel to Greenfield Village where the '95 International Meet was held. He worked for Studebaker in corporate marketing for twelve or thirteen years, they closed in South Bend, then he went to work for Ford the rest of his career. He said he still said "We..." when talking about Studebaker and "you..." when he would talk to coworkers at Ford, LOL.
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Do they have the same content on-line? Is it behind a pay wall?
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2015 Subaru Outback 3.6R / 2014 MINI Countryman S ALL4
Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snL20nBCi04
Today is our Ohio Region SDC's first meet in over a year. Just a dinner at a local American Legion, but I'll enjoy that. Breaking my Stude out for the first time this year. My 82-year old friend is planning on bringing the '64 Super Hawk he bought last year, and I hope he does. Very nice, original 40K mile car even thought it's silver.
He installed a Studebaker repro mirror last year; it still did not have an outside mirror when he bought it; pretty amazing no one had added one of some kind since Nov. '63 when it was built. The car was always within 35 miles of where he lives although I'd never seen it before he bought it. Just when you think you know where they all are.
I think a magazine like this could source articles from outside an in-house pool of editors if they tried. There are lots of people who have car stories of their own vehicles or their experiences with aspects of vehicle ownership, restoration or design/manufacture who I'm sure would love to have appear with just a bit of editing help. It wouldn't cost much; I bet many would submit them gratis or for a small honorarium. The work at the other end would be editing, pictures, and page composition. But it looks like this one is preparing to exit the stage.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxk-04nC5c8
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech, 2006 Acura TL w/nav
I believe the "I Was There" is missing in the latest issue.
I found many of the editorials pompous in their viewpoints and treatment. Some topics were sophomoric--not any particular writer, just some of the topics.
I continued subscribing for the "pictures" and I pass my copies along to a friend who owns a 1964 Ford convertible in one of the torquoise colors Ford used.
I wonder if they'll improve or struggle along to avoid having to refund to subscribers. When they merged a foreign car magazine in with it, I considered "unsubscribing."
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
1,767 1964-model Hawks built, and only 60 built with the R1 Super "High Performance Package". The only '64 GT Hawk more desirable would be one with the R2 (supercharged) Super "High Performance Package".
And I liked his point about the "Coo-pay SUVs" that seem to be the in thing today. I sort of thought the same thing about them, when they started to pop up in the late 2000s...stuff like the Honda Crosstour, BMW X6, and Acura ZDX. When they first came out, they reminded me a bit of those old '78-80 Century/Cutlass Salon Aerobacks in style, but I sort of looked at them as a personal luxury coupe of an SUV. My first thought was, what's the point? Just get an Acura MDX, Honda Pilot, or BMW X5 if you want an SUV...you get something more practical, and most likely less expensive.
But, you could argue the same thing about most personal luxury coupes. And I'm sure a lot of people do look at them and ask, what's the point?
One thing I will say for that Aeroback look, is that the auto makers have definitely improved upon it in later years. Newer cars like the Audi A7, Honda Civic, Accord, etc have what I call that "Aeroback" look, and I think they're all pretty attractive. And I guess, it was sort of a natural progression, as decklids got increasingly shorter over the years, to where it really wasn't a stretch of the imagination to jump to the hatchback "Aeroback" look.
Or is it a reflection of something out of the picture?
Whenever I see a Studebaker at a show or cruise, I am taken by it and have to look it over.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Now, I'm sure that these cars were designed somewhat on the cheap, but still, considering the low volumes, I'm sure they lost a good deal of money on them. I don't know if they shared windshields and A-pillars with existing 2- and 4-door models, but designing a new roof, rear window, and other assorted unique sheetmetal couldn't have been cheap.
My favorite of the 'Packardbakers' would be a '57 station wagon. All had blowers. Make mine a three-speed with overdrive in either gold and white or the Lilac (lavender) color.
That's just a reflection under the mirror on the GT Hawk. The car was built without an outside mirror and didn't have one until my friend added the correct mirror I had sold him for $30 some years back. I had bought it to replace the mirror on my old Skytop but never used it.
Whenever I see a Studebaker at a show or cruise, I am taken by it and have to look it over.
No one in my family had one, and my Dad never looked at them. I guess I'm of the age where I remember seeing them, and our town had a dealership which I remember driving by, and seeing the signage. I like the rarity. The history is interesting I think and the Studebaker Drivers' Club is a great support.
As much as I grew up "Chevy", when it came to getting an old hobby car, I really didn't consider Chevys very much--generally commonplace even as hobby cars. I do remember looking at a light turquoise '67 Impala SS hardtop for sale for about $800 more than I paid for my white '63 Daytona Skytop. I also looked at a white '64 V8 Studebaker Commander two-door sedan for the same (low) asking price as the Daytona with R1 I bought. The Daytona needed a lot of work but I'm happy to have bought it. At Studebaker meets it stopped traffic, having both an Avanti engine and the sunroof.
My dad was an old time car guy, never said much about Studes, but didn't say anything negative - maybe in this part of the country, fewer survived than elsewhere. I recall around 1997 or so, when my sister was shopping for her first car, she had a thing for a purple Lark coupe with flames, it was for sale for like 2K, but my dad knew it might be too much for her to maintain at that age. Thinking of it, she also coveted a pristine K-Car T&C wagon at a used car lot, and ended up with a Dodge Rampage as her first car, so she got some kind of obscure car thing from my dad, too.
RE.: Wayne Carini--he had a beautiful low-mileage '54 Commander Starliner hardtop a couple or so years ago too.
The '58 Packard wagon is astonishingly rare at 159 built. I love that, but I can't get past the double fins on each side, LOL. A NOS tailgate emblem for one sold on eBay for $1,200 a few years ago.
Last thing on my friend's Hawk, above....I never cared for the metal overlay on the decklid of the '62 and '63 Gran Turismo Hawks. Underneath it was the old decklid with the ribbing in the metal. They retooled the decklid to make it smooth and plain for '64, which I like a lot, but not a wise tooling expenditure for 1,767 units; of course no one knew that at the time. All '64 Hawks were built from August to Dec. 20, 1963. Our chapter's president has a white with black vinyl top example that I found out from the museum was built on Dec. 20, 1963, the last day South Bend assembled cars. His was 32 cars before the final car, the red Daytona, that's on display as a NOS Studebaker in the museum. Pretty cool. And amazingly, he and I were at a Stude swap meet in York, PA about six or seven years ago and there was a decent (not great) '64 Hawk for sale there. I opened the door and the serial number was ONE car before his! Those are lottery odds.
Thinking of the hood up, I have this pic, over 20 years old now - this was at Kent Bergsma's place (MB internet celebrity), he was local to me at the time. I recall it clearly, I went out to ask about something, he told me a car he was parting out had almost new spark plug wires, which I could have for free. I was still a student at the time, and jumped at the offer - installed them right there. I had an early digital camera with me (I think a Sony of the type that took an entire floppy disc), and snapped a pic:
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I also recall visiting him for something, and he had a W108 being parted out with nearly new shocks - gave those to me too, so long as I removed them (many 108 suspension parts interchange with fintails) Couldn't say no to that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOjAzI5zALo
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I'd always said it like "MAHN-i-KO"
But, the other day I was watching an old tv show (can't remember what it was though) and someone pronounced it more like "mu-NAHK-o"
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Kind of a fun video if you can stick with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blt__gezHw8
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That brocade interior is definitely an odd choice, as well, but not the first time I've seen it. Supposedly, "CHiPs" used real poilce cars that were de-commissioned. As a result, they were usually a few years older than what the real CHP was using at the time. By the 3rd or 4th season, they were using de-commissioned Monacos, and every once in awhile, you'd see an interior shot, and get a glimpse of that same brocade pattern.
As for the comment about hitting the peak hp at 4,000 rpm, but being able to rev higher, isn't that the case for just about every engine, though? So just because it hits 255 hp at 4,000 that doesn't mean it's going to hit 300 at 5,000.
One thing I never really thought about with these cars, but for some reason now just noticed it...I'm impressed that they were able to get those rear bumpers to pass the 5 mph crash test. Usually bumpers that have the lights actually in them don't do well in that test. That's why the Dart/Valiant, Impala, and just about every other car that had them worked into the bumper got rid of them after '73. I guess those rear bumper guards, that seem a bit oddly placed, helped somewhat, though. And it looks like they designed the lower part of the rear quarter to have a little plastic spacer piece that could flex on impact, rather than immediately crunching into the sheetmetal.
I guess Mopar deserves some props for keeping the bumper fairly integrated looking, rather than just going for one of those jutting rear bumpers like what everybody else was using. Even though, these cars weren't exactly petite. Something like 218" long, from stats I could find. For comparison, a '78 LTD-II 4-door sedan was 219.5". And the final Colonade Malibu sedans were only 209.7" (per automobile-cataloque.com) But Good lord, I wonder how long the Monaco would have been if Mopar had simply gone the jutting-bumper route, instead.
A lot of that started when the insurance companies started cracking down on muscle cars.
Here's a photo from my recent visit to the Corvette museum.
Did tires back then have DOT date stamps on them? If so, I should look. I also have the original spare tire for my '69 C20, which is a hard-as-rock heavy duty bias ply time bomb.
I have radials on it now, those kind that have the wide whitewalls so they still look somewhat authentic. I think they're a 225/75/R14. I think the old bias-ply size was 8.50x14.
I seem to recall that some cars in the 60's got so heavy, that there is no radial tire size in existence that's adequate for them, if you want to keep the stock wheel size. I'm thinking this was stuff like the Fleetwood 75 limo, and maybe some of those 60's Continentals that, despite their somewhat tidy dimensions, were still porkers when it came to weight.
Regarding the spare tire I have, it seemed like it was in good shape when I first acquired the C20, so I figured I would save 20% of my total tire cost by just keeping it. After all, it was a SPARE! However, the one time I did need to use it, the "performance" it provided was less than ideal.
Now, though, I cannot even get tires for a 16.5" rim. There's one: A Firestone trailer tire, and it's just not cut out for quality use on a truck. Plus, it must be gold-plated, because it costs north of $300 per tire. For that cost, it's better to just replace the whole setup with 17" wheels and get good tires for a reasonable price. Since my tires on the truck are now 24 years old, they're really operating on borrowed time!
My friend's Super Hawk in the photo above, had bias plys (plies?) when he bought it last year. The size, whitewall width, and closeness of whitewall to the wheel looked very much like the brochure, but I know that bias-ply tires didn't last 40K miles and that's what it had when he bought it last year.
For years I didn't care for the looks of the '53-'55 Corvette, a bit bulbous, but they've grown on me as you just don't see them. I'd have to have a '55 V8 of that era, in a color besides white, but beggars can't be choosers! I've mentioned this many a time here, but a Fawn Beige '62 with hardtop is a Corvette I'd do something bad to own! I realize I probably couldn't get my gut behind the wheel though.
The spare on my '66 Studebaker Cruiser is the original spare, as the build sheet shows the tire brand, but I can tell it has been used before. I can't make myself get rid of it in the trunk though.
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