Anyone here know Studebakers?

Found some on FB and I'm kinda digging the look.  Wondering if they have potential.

In reply to stroker :

I hear they go 9s in the 1/4 pretty easy.

There were lots of SBC and Cadillac swaps into the mid 50s coupes.  IIRC the last year or 2 that Larks were produced, they  used SBCs (but maybe I'm thinking of Checkers) . Late 50s thru early 60s Hawks were available with a paxton supercharged V8.  A friend had one of those & ran an inpressive speed at the Maxton Mile several years ago. Check out the sliding rear roof panel on the Lark station wagons. 

How do you define potential? I've never owned one, yet am something of a fanboi. Especially their late 40s/early 50s trucks. But their streamlined sedans are cool and popular for certain types of racing, and the Avanti, while weird looking, was pretty advanced technologically for its time.

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

Our first farm truck was a '51 or '52 similar to the one in your picture. It had great potential as a farm truck.

stroker said:

Found some on FB and I'm kinda digging the look.  Wondering if they have potential.

The guy in Springfield who can't write an ad?  Cool stuff, but he's definitely got "don't lowball me,  I know what I've got" energy 

They're nearly worthless as far as classic cars go, except for a few very rare examples.

The trucks are kinda cool looking but the Larks always looked 10 years older than they really are.

Look up Nivlac57 on U tube!

The Studebaker brand covers a lot of vehicles over a lot of years - which one or ones are you interested in?

M2Pilot said:

There were lots of SBC and Cadillac swaps into the mid 50s coupes.  IIRC the last year or 2 that Larks were produced, they  used SBCs (but maybe I'm thinking of Checkers) . Late 50s thru early 60s Hawks were available with a Paxton supercharged V8.  A friend had one of those & ran an impressive speed at the Maxton Mile several years ago. Check out the sliding rear roof panel on the Lark station wagons. 

You must be thinking of Checker, Studebaker used their own engines. (Among them was a 289ci V8 that was only coincidentally the same displacement as a small block Ford.)

Not true. For 1965-1966 Studebaker moved all production to Canada and no longer made their own engines. They sourced them from GM (283 V8 and I think also a six). They are small block Chevys, but technically are a Pontiac Canada engine.

Studebaker parts are surprisingly plentiful. The contents of the South Bend plant I believe were purchased by the club. 

stuart in mn said:

The Studebaker brand covers a lot of vehicles over a lot of years - which one or ones are you interested in?

Studebaker seems like another example of a company that had a hard time modernizing, destroyed by bad management, though the products were generally good with some bright spots in their design and engineering departments.

I really like what they did with the Daytona in 1964;

They make good gasser projects...

In reply to stroker :

Oh that's in Kansas/Missouri, right?

pres589 (djronnebaum) said:

Studebaker seems like another example of a company that had a hard time modernizing, destroyed by bad management, though the products were generally good with some bright spots in their design and engineering departments.

I know they also had too much debt and were trapped in a bad cycle- they needed to modernize and advance in technology, but that requires sales and liquid cash. But you're not making that cash because you're not modern and your engineering dropped off after 1950... a problem AMC later had in the 70s. 

ddavidv said:

Studebaker parts are surprisingly plentiful. The contents of the South Bend plant I believe were purchased by the club. 

They publish a paper catalog at least yearly with new products. Like you can buy new sheetmetal, weatherstripping, interior pieces, etc...

stroker said:

stuart in mn said:

The Studebaker brand covers a lot of vehicles over a lot of years - which one or ones are you interested in?

I've driven a couple of these. They're a lot smaller than you think they are.

There's also not a lot of room in the tunnel if you're thinking of swapping anything.

GIRTHQUAKE said:

In reply to stroker :

Oh that's in Kansas/Missouri, right?

MO.  Near me.  Saw one (2 door) in the Goodwood races on YouTube.  Seemed to run pretty well...

I have only a passing interest in Studibakers but I did visit the museum in South Bend, IN a couple of times. The main problem I saw with them is they couldn't make enough money off of each sale to have enough to spend on modernizing their chassis. They were able to do styling OK, see the Hawk, but they used the same suspension from post war WW II up until they went bankrupt. 

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

It seems like Studebaker found interesting ways to spend money on efforts that did little to nothing for profitability during the last years of the company. 

I don't know lots of details from then; Packard getting killed in the process of Stude dying seems like a real shame.

Damn Stroker, we ain't too far away then!

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

Makes That Didn't Make It or Ate Up With Motor has the writeup on the entire event; it didn't help that Studebaker lied about their corporate debts or was inefficient with it's practice even by WW2 standards. 

 Here's a thread about a guy reviving an old Hawk. It will give a decent GRM style insight as to how these are to work on.

The lark actually won the shell 4000 rally in Canada in both 1961 and 1962. In 61 thru came in both first and 2.

the original Excalibur ss cars were based on a lark chassis.