This is Studebaker

As some of you folks may be asking 'what's a Studebaker?', here is an excellent article on Wikipedia about the firm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studebaker

I have a 1950 stude,which is the first car I ever owned .
The gas mileage was excellent for that big old junk of iron and steel and it amazes me that they can't build a car as heavy and get better mileage today.
Hopefully one day I can restore it to the point of at least driving it around.
Seems every time we get in position to start on it something comes along and stops us
Thanks for the link with the info on it

Hi Doc:

A 1950 Stude, first car and plans to restore in the future? Such sentiments are those of us who own Studebakers.

I own a 1953 Studebaker Champion 4 door sedan which was manufactured in Hamilton, Ontario Canada. It was owned by a gentleman in Manitoba who drove it until about 1974 and sadly, it became a field car for the Mexican workers in rural Manitoba. It appeared that this old beauty had reached its end as it sat sadly in a farmer's junk yard amongest old tractors and other machinery.

As luck would have it I went on a family holiday which included a visit to my uncle's vegetable farm in Portage Le Prairie, Manitoba. I spent much of my time sight-seeing from the seat of an off-road motorcycle. One day as I roared along the Assiniborne dike I spoted what appeared to be an old automobile among the grass and weeds of an equipment graveyard. I rode in closer to find a blue 53 Studebaker.

To make a long story short, I located the farmer and made a deal for $100 dollars and he kindly loaned me his garage and tools which enable me to tow the car back to safety. I went home to Ontario and returned with a so-called float trailer and with the help of my brothers I brought it home.

The car was almost rust free with a few minor dents, etc. etc.

At the moment the car is in need of new upholstery which I hope to install, you guessed it! in the future.

My hat is off to all who have saved a Stude from the crusher and have over many years enjoyed dreaming of a finished project. Talk about life-long learning.

Sincerely
Ptrebor

Hey, that's a great story.
Whenever I am on a road trip with the wife she lives in fear of my finding old cars / wrecking yards etc by the side of the road because she knows I'll waste lots of time looking around.

I ride dirt bikes a lot (have been for 30 years) and have found some great long - abandoned cars/trucks/machinery off in the bush. I'm glad that someone has rescued one of these fine machines.

BTW what bikes do you ride?

A 50 Bulletnose ( 245 six) isn't heavy by today's standards or 1950 standards for that matter. Studebaker always relied on it's MPG Economy as a selling point. The Champion Six and standard trans with OD was a real winner then and would be today also..

Hi:
I enjoyed your observations on the 50 Bulletnose. I agree that the 245 cid inline 6 in combination with the 3 speed overdrive transmission was an amazing combination offering 28mpg or higher along with decent acceleration. This was a low tech engine using pre-war designs and was still ahead in its time and an example to designs to follow. Somehow, in our drive to develop horsepower, the simplicity of these old engines were lost. These engines ran clean and did not require EGR, AIR or use a catalitic convertor to deminish emissions. Such engines could have been cleaned up without spending billions on research which conclude that low compression ratio etc. help engines to run cleaner.

This is just an observation. In 1959 to 1960 the Studebaker Lark was an almost perfect family car from a mechanical point of view. Great fuel economy, decent performance and mechanical longevity. In addition, the cost of maintainance and repair was also low. The problem with these cars was body rust, a problem which could have been controlled using the methods of today.

Studebakers were a tradition in my family: My father owned a '40 something 2 door coupe www.avigex.ca/Scan62d.jpg then a 4door '49Champion, '52COmmander,'54Champion,'60Lark,'62LarkV8,'65Lark V8. I and brothers owned '61Lark www.avigex.ca/Scan81b.jpg
,'64LarkV8,'66Lark2door....
ALl I have left now are a few 15" wheel covers and tail lamps clusters from the '65.. a few 8mm movie clips....and a 259 V-8 installed in an Essex 1927

I had a 62 Lark 6 cyl. Fun to exchange horn toots with other Studebaker drivers. Surprised not to see more activity here.

I have a 62 hawk that I can't wait to get on the road. Having the transmission changed to a mustang t5. Will be great when finished.

Judging from the time lapse between post I guess there are not many folks interested in Studebakers. I feel they were ahead of their time. I just purchased two trucks. 1 49 1 ton and a 53 1 1/2 ton. My family owned them back in the mid to late fifties. the engines were built to last, timing gears versus chains, case hardened cylinder walls. Unfortunately their body designs were not with the times. I am new to this forum and hope I may contribute useful information.

2studedude, if you want to see a real "hotbed" of Stude activity, go to the "Studebaker Drivers Club", and go to the forum there. Lots of activity, lots of pics:) .
To Dallas75208, my fiance lives in 75209, and I also have a 62 Gt. 4speed, with Air. A must in Houston, where I live now. I am intrigued with the 5 speed you are putting in your car. I hope that you are taking lots of pics of the changeout. I am very tempted to do this, just to slow the engine down. Although, as a kid growing up in Midland, Texas and going to school at ASC, now UTA(A&M sold it to UT for a school to be named later), I used to drive a Hawk between Arlington and Midland for years with no problems.

I used to be asked "What year is it"? Now the question is "What is it"?
when I tell them "it's a Studebaker" the person gets a puzzled look on their face, Why is this? Could it be that me and my cars are getting so old not too many people remember one of the best vehicles ever built?:confused:

I think you have it right,we are getting old


I used to be asked "What year is it"? Now the question is "What is it"?
when I tell them "it's a Studebaker" the person gets a puzzled look on their face, Why is this? Could it be that me and my cars are getting so old not too many people remember one of the best vehicles ever built?:confused:

The Studebaker V8, which came out around 1952, was a fine small-block engine. Dean Moon of Mooneyes and Moon Disc fame, used one as the first OHV engine he installed in his famous '34 Ford. Paxton superchargers added to the fun from the '57 Golden Hawk to the '64 Avanti.

One of the few good things that came out of the Studebaker-Packard merger in 1955-56 was availability of the 370+ cubic inch Packard V8 in some Hawks. They were a terror on the dragstrips!

I have had a soft spot in my heart for Studebakers all my life. Parents brought me home in a 50 with the wrap around rear window. For my 50th birthday I bought a 1/18th scale model of one. It seemed appropriate.

I have had a soft spot in my heart for Studebakers all my life. Parents brought me home in a 50 with the wrap around rear window. For my 50th birthday I bought a 1/18th scale model of one. It seemed appropriate.

Hey any sort of memory is better than nothing . At some point you may be lucky enough to buy a running stude to keep in the driveway

I have owned 6 Studebakers in my life time I still have two, I have often wondered if the demise of Studebaker was the result of the big 3 paying off the Studebaker higher ups to cut funding so that the automotive end of Studebaker would become unprofitable, of course this is only one of the things that caused the demise.
Studebaker corporation owned many other small companies that went on for years after the car manufacture was stopped.

Those look like some muscle-mad cars!

It would have been in GM's interest to keep Studebaker alive, remember that they pulled out of racing in late '63 because even good publicity might hurt them in the investigation of their "monopoly" by government officials.

They did give Leo Newman and Nate Altman good deals on Chevy V8s and other components of the Avanti II for the same reason, "See, anybody can be in the car business!"

The problem was the Studebaker-Packard board, made up of accountants, not car people. When the recession of '58 cut everyone's car sales, they saw cars as a poor return on investment. Engineer/President Harold Churchill kept them at bay for a while with his ingenious adaptation of the full size Stude body with a shorter hood and trunk to create one of the first "new compacts", the Lark.

By 1962, sales were down again in the face of compacts from Chevy, Ford, Mercury, Buick, Olds, Pontiac, Dodge and Plymouth, to say nothing of the compact pioneer American Motors.

Studebaker's dynamic new president Sherwood Egbert made bold moves like the Avanti, the updated GT Hawk, availability of superchargers, disc brakes and a sliding roof station wagon. Andy Granatelli came aboard, setting records at Bonneville with stock and modified '64 Studes. The Studebaker prototypes for '66 and '67 were as ahead of their time as the Packard Predictor dream car was in the mid-'50s. I believe you can see them at the Brooks Stevens auto museum.

At a critical "success is just around the corner" point, Egbert was sidelined with lung cancer, unable to fight back against a board that wanted to stop making cars. Canada wanted a domestic automaker, and lightly-restyled Studebaker cars were made there through '66, once again with Chevy sixes and eights.

Studebaker Corporation continued on for many successful decades, making many products (including STP, I believe), but no more automobiles.

I am in desperate need of someone to help me understand stand how the instrument cluster is held in on a 1953 Studebaker Champion. I am trying to rewire and need to remove the instrument cluster to gain access to the gauges.