Custom Commander Studebaker Wagon on BAT

Saw that.  The conversion looks first rate on an already cool car.

Just needs to black those windows out ....

Honest question:

What is it about Studebakers you guys love so much?

Personally, I just have a thing for stealth hot wagons and this fits the bill. At least the hot wagon part. The fact that you can throw the wife and kids, suitcase, a cooler and 200 pounds of dogs in there is just a bonus.

There was a direct relationship (albeit short) between Dr Ferdinand Porsche and Studebaker in 1952-4 brought upon by none other than Max Huffman.  Porsche designed a Studebaker with a rear engine V6 - one air cooled and another liquid cooled.  It was a unitized body with full independent suspension.  3 prototypes were produced and kept secret until 1974.  Studebaker was too far in debt to benefit from Porsche's assistance.  Seems a lot of cars out there that could still be if it wasn't for bad luck/business plans.  Despite Studebakers South Bend construction - it was more European in design/styling.  Maybe best example would be the Avanti?  Heck - we could be all driving Tuckers if things had gone right ways back.

Porsche typ 542 Studebaker (Hemming’s sport’s and exotic car mag., 09/2007) | Porsche cars history

@Stan Galat posted:

Honest question:

What is it about Studebakers you guys love so much?

Not all Studebakers, but the '53 Starlight Coupe was way ahead of its time in styling, and still looks good today - at least to me.  They added a lot of gingerbread to it in a vain attempt to keep sales going into the 60s, but the original was clean, sleek, and well proportioned.  Compared to everything else in '53 it must have looked like a spaceship.

I just wondered. There are times when it seems this is more a Studebaker appreciation website than a replica Speedster/Spyder forum. I know Laner and Greg can always be counted on to wax lyrical about them when they come up.

I never found them attractive. I love the hot wagon thing, but I also like LWB Rolls Royces, limos of any make, and Soviet s**t-boxes. Studebakers were never really mainstream -- and while I can appreciate the styling of the Starlight, if it had been as revolutionary-cool as a spaceship, it seems like people would have bought enough to keep the company afloat. They didn't.

I understand liking the weird thing. I've been on a back-burner hunt for a decent and affordable Autobianchi for a couple of years.

Bearcat V-8.  A Studebaker thing.

We had Studebakers when I was very young - a 49 bulletnose, and a 53 Commander.

My dad always liked something a little different.

that wagon looks like the wagon version of the batmobile, only thing missing is the sign saying 20 miles to gotham city, and don't pretend you didn't watch it , or you're too young !! KaPow...

A hearse.

Wind wings......Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet

I learned to drive and pass my Driver's test in a Studebaker. In California, in the 50s, part of the driver's road test was parking facing up a hill, facing down a hill and pulling away from stop signs while facing up or down a hill. I believe if it wasn't for the "Hill Holder" feature in the Studebaker's standard shift I probably would never have gotten my Driver's License at the age of 15. Any roll back more than foot was instant failure.

My God-Mother's husband, who happened to be a Harvard graduate with a good head on his shoulders, bought a 1964 Studebaker Lark to commute into Boston, delivered just before Studebaker ended production.  

Not only was it a seriously ugly car of mediocre quality, suddenly he could not get it serviced, nor could his dealer get parts for it, either.  He always bought Studebaker because Studebaker bought Packard and his father had always bought Packards because they were quality automobiles.  It was in his blood.

Alas, and in spite of outstanding past designs like the Avanti and supercharged Hawk, not to mention beautiful designs like the Packard Caribbean, Studebaker never got their act together and quietly went away in 1966 or so.  

I think that a Lark, if you could find one, would make a pretty cool "24 Hours of LeMons" race car.
Whether it would last more than a few laps remains to be seen.

They were gone before I cared.

AMC was the Studebaker of my generation -- always close to bankruptcy, some decent ideas with half-baked engineering, lots of "huh?" in the product line (Pacer? Gremlin?). The AMX was cool-ish... until you put it beside a contemporary Camaro or Mustang or 'cuda.

Just not my jam.

It's the failure of Hudson that always made me think that the big 3 must have just had an absolute stranglehold on things back in the day. In that light, it's a marvel that the brits and VW made any inroads at all, and that Porsche was able to get a toe-hold with a glorified Beetle. The 911 was an entirely different situation, but Max Hoffman must have been one of those guys who could sell ice to an Eskimo.

@Stan Galat posted:

Honest question:

What is it about Studebakers you guys love so much?

The Hawks for me. Probably started because it was a favorite of the LSR guys at Bonneville.

Before it was our local VW dealership, the building was a Studebaker-Ford-Edsel dealership. The picture doesn’t show the layer of Studebaker letters under the Chuck Peterson Motors sign, but you can still see it in person.

It’s been converted into an event space now and thankfully, they’ve saved some historical details.

@WOLFGANG posted:

There was a direct relationship (albeit short) between Dr Ferdinand Porsche and Studebaker in 1952-4 brought upon by none other than Max Huffman.  Porsche designed a Studebaker with a rear engine V6 - one air cooled and another liquid cooled.  It was a unitized body with full independent suspension.  3 prototypes were produced and kept secret until 1974.  Studebaker was too far in debt to benefit from Porsche's assistance.  Seems a lot of cars out there that could still be if it wasn't for bad luck/business plans.  Despite Studebakers South Bend construction - it was more European in design/styling.  Maybe best example would be the Avanti?  Heck - we could be all driving Tuckers if things had gone right ways back.

Porsche typ 542 Studebaker (Hemming’s sport’s and exotic car mag., 09/2007) | Porsche cars history

They designed two. Type 530 and Type 542.  Note the family resemblance of the 530.

https://www.macsmotorcitygarag...-porsche-connection/

@Stan Galat posted:

Honest question:

What is it about Studebakers you guys love so much?

Notably, Studebaker successfully transitioned from being a wagon/buggy  manufacturer to an automobile manufacturer at the turn of the century. Not many companies could make that technology leap.

Jason

I always thought the one my parent/I had in '64.  It was a '53 2 door with flat head 6 cyl with 3 speed column-mounted manual.  Was originally red with an off-white top.  Recall my dad paid $50 for it in 1962.  It needed a right grill which he had a hard time sourcing.  Can't remember if he replaced that right fender too - but something prompted him to repaint it.  He worked for NJ State Highway Dept and someone gave him a gallon of highway yellow enamel paint.  Remember going local hardware store and buying tubes of artist blue oil paint to tint it.  It turned out a pea green color!  (My parents liked green and my dad was frugal).  Sold it for $100 (or $300?) in 1965 - it needed a water pump.

You can see the red in the door frame.  I'm guessing it was a Champion vs Commander model - I think the Commander was a flat head V8 and automatic.  I was 16 or so - wish I had known about 1500 WD sandpaper and rubbing compound.  Might have been able to get it to sparkle.

@WOLFGANG wrote: "Wish I had known about 1500 WD sandpaper and rubbing compound.  Might have been able to get it to sparkle."

Given that you/he used yellow DPW paint, it might have had powdered glass in the paint to reflect headlights in the dark.

Did the car glow yellow when headlights hit it??  🤣🤣

The real gem in those pics is the Nova wagon. Pinnacle of automotive excellence.