I saw one back in '63 and immediately thought it was new Italian-made sports car (Avanti) being purchased by rich people , it was just flat out beautiful !!! and I liked the front end the best.
A balmy summer night, LA, 1964. You and your perfect date roll up in this Avanti to the valet station of the Musso and Frank Grill. Reservations for two at eight o’clock. This is clearly the most exotic car Eddie, the car valet, has seen in months. An expertly made gin martini awaits. A perfect date indeed.
You sir are a "national treasure"! Thanks for showing! I especially love the switches and heater controls that were obviously stolen from the aircraft industry. Aircraft style controls make ANY vintage car WAY COOLER!
I've been a car guy my whole life, but never gave a second thought to Studebaker, until I saw a 63 Avanti on an episode of Gotham. I'm in love! What a cool car. I have to start looking for one.
The most amazing thing about this car is the simple fact that it was produced in 1963!! Think about other designs from that year and how advanced the Avanti was becomes evident!
My dad bought a new 63 Avanti R1 automatic and towed a All State trailer loaded with gear for camping when we went to Canada 🇨🇦 in 1963. Boy the people where checking out the Stude when we stopped for gasoline. Fun times seeing those amphibian cars driving into the lake also. 😀
I always thought these were just ugly and strange UNTIL i saw this video- it just clicked. Maybe it was you pointing out the rear view mirrors. And the strangeness of the front, I now appreciate. Thanks CP!
What a great car, I, have owned 3 of them since I fell in love with them after seeing them being made in South Bend while going to college atNotre Dame, and swore then I had to buy one. A true American classic.
Thanks.. like them, & me too !super interesting! .. Interestingly, we all PURDUE ( To FOURTH GEN GRADUATE now)… Anyways, special stuff out of S BEND (;esp * AVANTI, Super Lark, Hawks, GT, Presidents, etc).. Though,pretty sure my Great Aunt ( SMBEND) trad3d a HAWK in for post Hole Thunderbird ( 1957,etc s?).. Admittedly, we stayed away from some of the Studebakers ( I am WOLF Lake HS 1965;GRAD) of 1950-56: esp the bullet nose 51s due to rust ,road salt:: interestingly, my Dad found a 1954 Ford V8/2 DR, MILD CUSTOM(57 V8:engine) way over in a Columbia city, Service Station…
Love the Studebaker avanti Latin for advance LOL Studebakers were uniquely style cars, when i see any Studebaker my ❤ melts,theirs a cheerful element about them.
10 years? [sound somewhere between a scoff and a snort] More like 60 years. It looks as good today as it did at introduction in 1962, and it will never be mistaken for anything else on the road.
Thanks for such a detailed look at the interior of the lovely Avanti. I watched with the sound off. Sometimes I can endure your spasms of shouting, but you started it particularly early on this one.
Such an amazing design for 1963. If you owned an Avanti back then you were a very interesting person...maybe one of the "Mad men". Great car, wonderful Joy Ride!
Or you might have been Ian Fleming, Dick Van Dyke (the Petersen Museum had it at one time but sold it), Ricky Nelson, Johnny Carson (a later owner wrecked it), Alice Cooper, and quite a few more famous names.
Love this Avanti. I recall seeing a little few of them on the road, in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Love your presentation. Missing seeing your patented hair curl, but I really don’t know why. 🤷🏼♂️
What a wonderful automobile...I was 7 the year they came out...my parents were driving a ‘61 Studebaker Lark VIII (beautiful black sedan with red interior)...I can remember my father showing us the 1964 Studebaker models brochure (I loved the Hawk GT!) and the Avanti was so modern-looking...thank you so much for this post, Mr. Charlie Car!
I believe the grille protecting the radiator and air conditioning condenser is a retrofit from a '64 or later model. It was one of the distinctions between the '63 and '64 models. Early '64 models had the carry-over circular headlight trim, but at about the fiftieth (or so) '64 model, Studebaker altered the headlight housing to use roughly rectangular nacelles around the circular sealed beam units. Also, Studebaker did not install air conditioning in supercharged Avantis. Some owners had modified accessory brackets installed to allow for the A/C compressor. That steering wheel hub on early Avantis (production before about September 1962) were inscribed "STUDEBAKER PACKARD CORPORATION". This car was apparently assembled after management deleted Packard from the corporate name as being 'anachronistic'.
Thanks, (I am old Noble/ Kosciusko County (resident for 69:years)) for mentioning, !, special & Great Design stuff….oddly,never got MY OWN special AVANTI, HAWK GT, SUPER Lark, etc…
From a physical standpoint, there wasn't exactly a real dividing line between "63" and "64" They had running changes throughout the production period although a number of them happened more or less in the area of the traditional U.S. "model year" changeover, which seemed to be August 1963. So, August 1963 to December 1963 (end of production) seem to be the 1964 models, although there seems to have been overlap. Also, even after the square bezels were introduced, I think you could still order with round if you wanted that. I remember reading that in a couple of places. I have a very late model, No. R5586 which was one of the last hundred made and has all the running changes.
Raymond Loewy supervised the design, and took full credit for it, but the real work was done by Bob Andrews, John Ebstein, and Tom Kellogg at a rented house in Palm Springs. Ebstein and Andrews were long-time Studebaker employees, and Kellogg had experience working with fiberglass related to speedboat hulls.
@@5610winston Exactly. Loewy hired a very young Tom Kellogg and Andres and Ebstein were already on the Studebaker staff. He moved the work to Palm Springs to keep anyone from Studebaker from meddling. Also, Loewy had one of his homes in Palm Springs which worked out well when he occasionally visited the design team. Kellogg would later do a fresh redesign of the Avanti that was produced 2000 to 2007. I took my Avanti to Kellogg's memorial service as his family wanted some Avantis there as Kellogg considered it as a key step in his career. Kellogg himself called the design "cosmic."
The Avanti was so far out of the traditional bounds of design, most people didn't know what to think of it! Studebaker customers were shocked by it and Corvette shoppers turned their noses up at it... until they drove one.
It was priced securely in Cadillac territory, trying to draw the Riviera-Thunderbird crowd, but with nothing bigger than the Studebaker 289 to offer, even the supercharged models were considered with some scorn at the time. Bigger was considered better at the time and the Bonneville records and the engines bored out to 304.5 cubes (still considered paltry by the standards of the day) were basically too late to gather much interest before the Studebaker board pulled the plug on the South Bend where all the tooling for the Avanti was. A side note, the fiberglass bodies for the early Avantis were built by the same company that built Corvette bodies, but somehow many of the Avanti bodies were so poorly built that almost every panel had to be reworked by the assembly crew in South bend' no such problems arose with the Corvette bodies, and when Studebaker began building their own fiberglass bodies, the problems went away. Industrial sabotage?
And the instrument cluster background is painted like a '63 but the console background is fake wood like a '64. Supercharged ones came with AC because they both were belt driven by the engine. Someone along the line must have figured out a way to have both belt drives and the compressor and supercharger under the hood and retrofitted the console plate from an air conditioned '64. (I would put wood on the instrument cluster background to match). It would be nice to see how it was done under the hood. Also, a round headlight '63 ('64's were rectangular) with a '64 grille (the original '63 had he opening but no grille). Easy retrofit, but also the switchover from '63-'64 wasn't necessarily all at once.
That 'S' on the leading edge of the speed ramp always reminds me of something either organic or more like a meteorological phenomenon: a tornado roping out at the end of its run.
To see just how Avant Guard the 63 Studebaker Avanti was, debuting in mid 62, just compare it to its squarish competition, the Ford Thunderbird, or Buick Riviera...which was also a brand new design. The Riviera design more or less lasted until 1970, the Avanti design was still being built into the 90's.
Considering you mentioned the Thunderbird and Riviera, you might enjoy a Ford movie for their salesman on how to sell the Thunderbird against the Riviera and Avanti. It is in two parts on UA-cam. Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/jD38XldkYbk/v-deo.html Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/fqEw2LvTMYE/v-deo.html
@@trainliker100 Yes, I've seen that. The film really emphasizes the stark difference between the very advanced Avanti and the other two squarish chrome laden cars.
I think Dick Van Dyke still owns his beautiful white Avanti? It was displayed at LACMA. There was even an episode of his show, fictionally referencing it, the "Tarantula." The "Mr.Ed" (the talking horse) show was sponsored by Studebaker. "Wilbur Post" had various Studebakers, his rich neighbor had an Avanti.
For a long time, Van Dyke's Avanti was in the possession of the Petersen Automotive Museum. Not sure if it had been donated, or just on a long-term loan.
The 'starfish' wheel covers were quite similar to the '53 Stude wheel covers, another design where Loewy claimed the credit and cashed the check, but the designer (for the '53s it was Bob Bourke) is often overlooked.
The last gasp of poor Studebaker trying to survive. For better or worse, the Avanti survived as a stand-alone brand long after the demise of Studebaker itself. Sadly, the later iterations with Chevrolet underpinnings circa 1980s just never looked quite right. Sort of like seeing pictures of 1970s Las Vegas jumpsuit-wearing Elvis, in contrast to the early 1960s slender version of him wearing a sharkskin suit and skinny tie. Would love to know the story on the original purchaser of this car, as noted on the console plate.
Dave is right about the 1980s Avanti II. They didn't have the same forward rake as the 60s. They looked like just 2-door sedans. At least the 80s had air conditioning, something almost impossible on the 60s with the super charger.
The unspoken hero of this story was Sherwood Egbert, who was appointed president of Studebaker-Packard in early 1961. He brought in designer Brooks Stevens to freshen up the Lark and Hawk lines, and Raymond Loewy to lead the team for the Avanti which he saw as the star to draw in the prospective customers. Any and every combination of powertrain, suspension, seating, and accessories available in an Avanti could be had in any Hawk, as well as any Lark-type except for the Standard. And I seem to remember that Elvis owned one at some point.
The "Avanti II" needed a little more hood height to clear the General Motors engines (Studebaker engines no longer being available). So, the front isn't quite as low. You can really see this in the distance between the top of the front wheel well and the top of the fender blade there. It's a couple inches more on the Avanti II. In later years, the "II" would be dropped from the logo. And some arguably ugly changes made such as the plastic bumper changes (to meet federal crash requirements) and some other things.
Just came to my mind, that the Studebaker Avanti was just Raymond Loewies personal answer to his former assistant, Virgil Exner, and Chryslers "Forward Look" from 1957, which was in Loewies eyes just horrible design. So the harmonic shape of the "Avanti" was his answer.
I saw a '76 Avanti II a few days ago. Aside from a few distinctive design elements that make an Avanti an Avanti, the style of the front and back bumpers were very different to comply with the newer regs. Still didn't hold a candle to the early '60s-era Studebaker Avantis, even with the GM 350 under the hood.
How fast was the 1963 Studebaker Avanti? Image result for 1963 avanti specs Powered by a supercharged 4.7-liter V8 engine rated at 289 horsepower, the Avanti could reach a top speed of 178 mph (286 kph), a figure that made it the world's fastest production car upon its introduction.
Studebaker never advertised horsepower ratings for the Avanti engines. All the numbers currently reported are understated. The R3 (304.5 CID supercharged) was said to produce 335 horsepower, but the story is that Andy Granatelli wouldn't sip one to Studebaker until it had cranked out 415 on the dyno.
@@5610winston They did advertise one. The special factory made "R5" engine with twin superchargers that Granatelli drove himself to a 196 mph Bonneville 2-way average was written up in a paper Studebaker submitted to the Society of Automotive Engineers. Studebaker wrote that it tested at 638 horsepower. Like the R3 and R4 engines, it was bored out to 304.5 cu. in. (No Avanti was sold with an R4 which was like an R3 but not supercharged and having two 4 bbl carburetors. But one Lark was sold with one.)
@@5610winston Yes. There was a pull handle down low at the left side of the rear seat. It was connected to a cable. If the cable broke, there was no way to open the trunk. Except there was. The access panel in the deck below the rear window was to let you reach the latch with a long screwdriver to get it open. Studebaker, of course, marketed that as a convenient way to get things in and out of the trunk and showed a photo of a woman doing just that. But that's not the real purpose.
Seeing the actual car, I would call say the color is turquoise, as was the first Avanti that I laid eyes on back in '63. It was stunning sight for a 13 year old boy, and still is 60 years later.
One of the colors offered for the 1963/64 Avanti was "Avanti Turquoise." The others were Avanti Black, Avanti White, Avanti Gold, Avanti Red, and Avanti Gray. Late in production they added Avanti Maroon.
To me the Avanti looks like the result of a drunken night of passion between automotive designers from Studebaker and American Motors with a splash of alien DNA thrown into the mix.
Every angle of the Avanti is beautiful. It can sit beside any new cars of today and still look absolutely stunning. There's a certain mystique about Studebakers Avanti and if you lived it back in 63 you would know it.
As you may know, these were a fiberglass body on a Lark chassis, which dated from 1953 and was pretty outdated by then without even ball joints in the front suspension, and didn't allow for full rear seat foot wells.
I too was 10,.....I think I thought this was cool,....but not really. It reminded me of the stylings of the 1963 Dodge Dart, for some reason. This was not nearly as cool looking as The Chrysler Turbine car that never made it to production, or if it did, it was a limited run car. I know when I was 12, I built this as a plastic model. Back then I hadn't yet begun customizing my models. For Studebaker, this was a radical departure. All that gushing that Charles likes to do, is not working for this car, imo. Though I have to say I am smitten, by the body color, and the interior color and details.
Can't listen anymore, sorry nothing personal about it, only because of knowing these cars so well during the times when they were a common sight and the designs were considered normal
I saw one back in '63 and immediately thought it was new Italian-made sports car (Avanti) being purchased by
rich people , it was just flat out beautiful !!! and I liked the front end the best.
A balmy summer night, LA, 1964. You and your perfect date roll up in this Avanti to the valet station of the Musso and Frank Grill. Reservations for two at eight o’clock. This is clearly the most exotic car Eddie, the car valet, has seen in months. An expertly made gin martini awaits. A perfect date indeed.
I was 10. I thought it was so cool back then. I couldn’t understand how dad wouldn’t have one for us. Meet George Jetson …
You sir are a "national treasure"! Thanks for showing! I especially love the switches and heater controls that were obviously stolen from the aircraft industry. Aircraft style controls make ANY vintage car WAY COOLER!
Thank you!
This color Avanti and same colored Jensen Interceptor are the 2 greatest cars ever designed!!!
These have been one of my dream cars of all time. When I was a kid, my best friend's uncle took us for a ride in his. Such a great memory.
THE BUMPERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the color. And the creamy ivory interior accents. OY! Supreme!!!!!!!!!
I've been a car guy my whole life, but never gave a second thought to Studebaker, until I saw a 63 Avanti on an episode of Gotham. I'm in love! What a cool car. I have to start looking for one.
The most amazing thing about this car is the simple fact that it was produced in 1963!! Think about other designs from that year and how advanced the Avanti was becomes evident!
So true! I always thought that the Avanti design looked ten-years ahead of its time.
One of the many things i like about these videos is seeing the cars in motion.
My dad bought a new 63 Avanti R1 automatic and towed a All State trailer loaded with gear for camping when we went to Canada 🇨🇦 in 1963. Boy the people where checking out the Stude when we stopped for gasoline. Fun times seeing those amphibian cars driving into the lake also. 😀
I always thought these were just ugly and strange UNTIL i saw this video- it just clicked. Maybe it was you pointing out the rear view mirrors. And the strangeness of the front, I now appreciate. Thanks CP!
What a great car, I, have owned 3 of them since I fell in love with them after seeing them being made in South Bend while going to college atNotre Dame, and swore then I had to buy one. A true American classic.
Thanks.. like them, & me too !super interesting! .. Interestingly, we all PURDUE ( To FOURTH GEN GRADUATE now)… Anyways, special stuff out of S BEND (;esp * AVANTI, Super Lark, Hawks, GT, Presidents, etc).. Though,pretty sure my Great Aunt ( SMBEND) trad3d a HAWK in for post Hole Thunderbird ( 1957,etc s?).. Admittedly, we stayed away from some of the Studebakers ( I am WOLF Lake HS 1965;GRAD) of 1950-56: esp the bullet nose 51s due to rust ,road salt:: interestingly, my Dad found a 1954 Ford V8/2 DR, MILD CUSTOM(57 V8:engine) way over in a Columbia city, Service Station…
Love the Studebaker avanti Latin for advance LOL Studebakers were uniquely style cars, when i see any Studebaker my ❤ melts,theirs a cheerful element about them.
Behold the glory. I have seen a avanti around town every now and then. I have always liked them Beautiful car...I know.
I love this Avante, it's 1963 & we stopped in to visit Mr Ed & saw one of these in the neighbors driveway! Of course of course!!!
I would argue that the 65 Chevrolet Corvair Corsa or the 1966 Olds Toronado are the most Unusual American cars of all time!
Another shape 10 years ahead of its time.
10 years? [sound somewhere between a scoff and a snort] More like 60 years. It looks as good today as it did at introduction in 1962, and it will never be mistaken for anything else on the road.
I owned one until 8yrs ago still missing it...
I think Charles was having another CARGASM 😮
Thanks for such a detailed look at the interior of the lovely Avanti. I watched with the sound off. Sometimes I can endure your spasms of shouting, but you started it particularly early on this one.
Phabulous!!! Thanks Charles! What a treat! We know. Love ya.
Such an amazing design for 1963. If you owned an Avanti back then you were a very interesting person...maybe one of the "Mad men". Great car, wonderful Joy Ride!
Or you might have been Ian Fleming, Dick Van Dyke (the Petersen Museum had it at one time but sold it), Ricky Nelson, Johnny Carson (a later owner wrecked it), Alice Cooper, and quite a few more famous names.
Love this Avanti.
I recall seeing a little few of them on the road, in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Love your presentation. Missing seeing your patented hair curl, but I really don’t know why. 🤷🏼♂️
If you look closely you can catch a glimpse of the curl reflected in the shiny steering wheel hub~
There were a number of cars of the era that were avant-guard, but the Avanti was also beautiful. And, from Studebaker. Who knew?
Oh my Heart ❤️ 💙 💜 💖 💗 💘
Could this be the Saab of America? Supercharged and everything... A Quirky, unconventional yet well engineered car for non-mainstream people.
Our dentist had one of these and brought it out for special occasions. He loved it and enjoyed it until he croaked.
What a wonderful automobile...I was 7 the year they came out...my parents were driving a ‘61 Studebaker Lark VIII (beautiful black sedan with red interior)...I can remember my father showing us the 1964 Studebaker models brochure (I loved the Hawk GT!) and the Avanti was so modern-looking...thank you so much for this post, Mr. Charlie Car!
Glad it brought back some memories. Thanks for watching!
I thought the Hawk GT was one of the most beautiful cars ever, and still do. This Avanti is right up there as well.
Here you go again with an amazing car!
Charles' descriptive dissertations are the most awesome on the internet. I want him to do my eulogy someday.
I believe the grille protecting the radiator and air conditioning condenser is a retrofit from a '64 or later model. It was one of the distinctions between the '63 and '64 models. Early '64 models had the carry-over circular headlight trim, but at about the fiftieth (or so) '64 model, Studebaker altered the headlight housing to use roughly rectangular nacelles around the circular sealed beam units. Also, Studebaker did not install air conditioning in supercharged Avantis. Some owners had modified accessory brackets installed to allow for the A/C compressor.
That steering wheel hub on early Avantis (production before about September 1962) were inscribed "STUDEBAKER PACKARD CORPORATION". This car was apparently assembled after management deleted Packard from the corporate name as being 'anachronistic'.
Thanks, (I am old Noble/ Kosciusko County (resident for 69:years)) for mentioning, !, special & Great Design stuff….oddly,never got MY OWN special AVANTI, HAWK GT, SUPER Lark, etc…
From a physical standpoint, there wasn't exactly a real dividing line between "63" and "64" They had running changes throughout the production period although a number of them happened more or less in the area of the traditional U.S. "model year" changeover, which seemed to be August 1963. So, August 1963 to December 1963 (end of production) seem to be the 1964 models, although there seems to have been overlap. Also, even after the square bezels were introduced, I think you could still order with round if you wanted that. I remember reading that in a couple of places. I have a very late model, No. R5586 which was one of the last hundred made and has all the running changes.
Very special cars. Especially considering it came from Studebaker. They made some special cars. Like the Daytona.
I still get a kick out of seeing a Lark R2 smoking just about anything from the era! 😉
3:02 The instrument binnacle over the cluster was designed to follow the hood bulge. They line up perfectly.
O totally ... the whole car is divine perfection !!!
@@_charlesphoenix It's so dreamy, and delicious 😂
Raymond Loewy supervised the design, and took full credit for it, but the real work was done by Bob Andrews, John Ebstein, and Tom Kellogg at a rented house in Palm Springs. Ebstein and Andrews were long-time Studebaker employees, and Kellogg had experience working with fiberglass related to speedboat hulls.
@@5610winston Exactly. Loewy hired a very young Tom Kellogg and Andres and Ebstein were already on the Studebaker staff. He moved the work to Palm Springs to keep anyone from Studebaker from meddling. Also, Loewy had one of his homes in Palm Springs which worked out well when he occasionally visited the design team. Kellogg would later do a fresh redesign of the Avanti that was produced 2000 to 2007. I took my Avanti to Kellogg's memorial service as his family wanted some Avantis there as Kellogg considered it as a key step in his career. Kellogg himself called the design "cosmic."
The Avanti was so far out of the traditional bounds of design, most people didn't know what to think of it! Studebaker customers were shocked by it and Corvette shoppers turned their noses up at it... until they drove one.
It was priced securely in Cadillac territory, trying to draw the Riviera-Thunderbird crowd, but with nothing bigger than the Studebaker 289 to offer, even the supercharged models were considered with some scorn at the time. Bigger was considered better at the time and the Bonneville records and the engines bored out to 304.5 cubes (still considered paltry by the standards of the day) were basically too late to gather much interest before the Studebaker board pulled the plug on the South Bend where all the tooling for the Avanti was.
A side note, the fiberglass bodies for the early Avantis were built by the same company that built Corvette bodies, but somehow many of the Avanti bodies were so poorly built that almost every panel had to be reworked by the assembly crew in South bend' no such problems arose with the Corvette bodies, and when Studebaker began building their own fiberglass bodies, the problems went away. Industrial sabotage?
Turquoise on turquoise. Very, very rare. An R2 with AC? There’s a story there. Avanti is styling with a capital S!!
And the instrument cluster background is painted like a '63 but the console background is fake wood like a '64. Supercharged ones came with AC because they both were belt driven by the engine. Someone along the line must have figured out a way to have both belt drives and the compressor and supercharger under the hood and retrofitted the console plate from an air conditioned '64. (I would put wood on the instrument cluster background to match). It would be nice to see how it was done under the hood. Also, a round headlight '63 ('64's were rectangular) with a '64 grille (the original '63 had he opening but no grille). Easy retrofit, but also the switchover from '63-'64 wasn't necessarily all at once.
That 'S' on the leading edge of the speed ramp always reminds me of something either organic or more like a meteorological phenomenon: a tornado roping out at the end of its run.
@@emjayay Yes. Although Studebaker never sold an R2 (or R3) with A/C, you can squeeze in am aftermarket Vintage Air brand system.
So many Studes in need of C.P.'s attention, can hardly wait, I know !!!
To see just how Avant Guard the 63 Studebaker Avanti was, debuting in mid 62, just compare it to its squarish competition, the Ford Thunderbird, or Buick Riviera...which was also a brand new design. The Riviera design more or less lasted until 1970, the Avanti design was still being built into the 90's.
Considering you mentioned the Thunderbird and Riviera, you might enjoy a Ford movie for their salesman on how to sell the Thunderbird against the Riviera and Avanti. It is in two parts on UA-cam. Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/jD38XldkYbk/v-deo.html Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/fqEw2LvTMYE/v-deo.html
@@trainliker100 Yes, I've seen that. The film really emphasizes the stark difference between the very advanced Avanti and the other two squarish chrome laden cars.
You can see the Loewy Commander coupe in the profile of the car. I have a neighbor who has a restomodded one with mostly GM parts underneath.
I think Dick Van Dyke still owns his beautiful white Avanti? It was displayed at LACMA. There was even an episode of his show, fictionally referencing it, the "Tarantula." The "Mr.Ed" (the talking horse) show was sponsored by Studebaker. "Wilbur Post" had various Studebakers, his rich neighbor had an Avanti.
For a long time, Van Dyke's Avanti was in the possession of the Petersen Automotive Museum. Not sure if it had been donated, or just on a long-term loan.
Ian Fleming and Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin....
You missed the best part..The engine compartment with the Paxton supercharger!
1:18 The wheel wells were designed to mimic a rocket ship trajectory.
SO BRILLIANT !!! ...
The 'starfish' wheel covers were quite similar to the '53 Stude wheel covers, another design where Loewy claimed the credit and cashed the check, but the designer (for the '53s it was Bob Bourke) is often overlooked.
inspired by the "re-entry" curve.
Thank you, a special Vehicle:: interestingly, some of AVANTI cachet did get to HAWK GT, SUPER LARK, older President…
The last gasp of poor Studebaker trying to survive. For better or worse, the Avanti survived as a stand-alone brand long after the demise of Studebaker itself. Sadly, the later iterations with Chevrolet underpinnings circa 1980s just never looked quite right. Sort of like seeing pictures of 1970s Las Vegas jumpsuit-wearing Elvis, in contrast to the early 1960s slender version of him wearing a sharkskin suit and skinny tie. Would love to know the story on the original purchaser of this car, as noted on the console plate.
Dave is right about the 1980s Avanti II. They didn't have the same forward rake as the 60s. They looked like just 2-door sedans. At least the 80s had air conditioning, something almost impossible on the 60s with the super charger.
The unspoken hero of this story was Sherwood Egbert, who was appointed president of Studebaker-Packard in early 1961. He brought in designer Brooks Stevens to freshen up the Lark and Hawk lines, and Raymond Loewy to lead the team for the Avanti which he saw as the star to draw in the prospective customers.
Any and every combination of powertrain, suspension, seating, and accessories available in an Avanti could be had in any Hawk, as well as any Lark-type except for the Standard.
And I seem to remember that Elvis owned one at some point.
The "Avanti II" needed a little more hood height to clear the General Motors engines (Studebaker engines no longer being available). So, the front isn't quite as low. You can really see this in the distance between the top of the front wheel well and the top of the fender blade there. It's a couple inches more on the Avanti II. In later years, the "II" would be dropped from the logo. And some arguably ugly changes made such as the plastic bumper changes (to meet federal crash requirements) and some other things.
What about the retro vintage ladies glasses in the vanity. Now that just tops the whole car off.
My favorite car of all time. In my favorite color, my favorite interior. Please, somebody, give me $50K so I can die happy.
Just came to my mind, that the Studebaker Avanti was just Raymond Loewies personal answer to his former assistant, Virgil Exner, and Chryslers "Forward Look" from 1957, which was in Loewies eyes just horrible design. So the harmonic shape of the "Avanti" was his answer.
Loewy may gave cashed the check, but most of the work was done by John Ebstein, Bob Andrews, and Tom Kellogg.
I've seen a few at car shows
I saw a '76 Avanti II a few days ago. Aside from a few distinctive design elements that make an Avanti an Avanti, the style of the front and back bumpers were very different to comply with the newer regs. Still didn't hold a candle to the early '60s-era Studebaker Avantis, even with the GM 350 under the hood.
Thanks for sharing!
Wow I Know I Know I know.
I had a 83 Cougar it’s rear roofline near back window is very similar to this
Why are there 2 holes in the trunk above the Stude label?
Charles the shape of the wheel well was based in the orbit of Sputnik, the Russian satellite! 1:17
I don't think it had anything to do with the Sputnik. It was inspired by the re-entry curve of anything returning to Earth.from space.
The Studebaker company sponsored Mr. Ed and Wilbur and the cast drove them.
When I was a kid we had neighbors with one, off white.
How fast was the 1963 Studebaker Avanti?
Image result for 1963 avanti specs
Powered by a supercharged 4.7-liter V8 engine rated at 289 horsepower, the Avanti could reach a top speed of 178 mph (286 kph), a figure that made it the world's fastest production car upon its introduction.
Studebaker never advertised horsepower ratings for the Avanti engines. All the numbers currently reported are understated.
The R3 (304.5 CID supercharged) was said to produce 335 horsepower, but the story is that Andy Granatelli wouldn't sip one to Studebaker until it had cranked out 415 on the dyno.
@@5610winston They did advertise one. The special factory made "R5" engine with twin superchargers that Granatelli drove himself to a 196 mph Bonneville 2-way average was written up in a paper Studebaker submitted to the Society of Automotive Engineers. Studebaker wrote that it tested at 638 horsepower. Like the R3 and R4 engines, it was bored out to 304.5 cu. in. (No Avanti was sold with an R4 which was like an R3 but not supercharged and having two 4 bbl carburetors. But one Lark was sold with one.)
What's with the two holes drilled near the trunk Avanti emblem?
Dunno. Studebaker script is where it should be. Maybe fiberglass termite holes 🤪
@@drakbar5957 The only release for the trunk lid was accessed from the back seat.
@@5610winston Yes. There was a pull handle down low at the left side of the rear seat. It was connected to a cable. If the cable broke, there was no way to open the trunk. Except there was. The access panel in the deck below the rear window was to let you reach the latch with a long screwdriver to get it open. Studebaker, of course, marketed that as a convenient way to get things in and out of the trunk and showed a photo of a woman doing just that. But that's not the real purpose.
Anyone know why there are two holes above the Studebaker name badge on the rear of the Avanti? (0:39)
Seems like Charles calls every shade of blue, turquoise. I'm binge watching and I haven't seen actual turquoise yet.
Seeing the actual car, I would call say the color is turquoise, as was the first Avanti that I laid eyes on back in '63. It was stunning sight for a 13 year old boy, and still is 60 years later.
One of the colors offered for the 1963/64 Avanti was "Avanti Turquoise." The others were Avanti Black, Avanti White, Avanti Gold, Avanti Red, and Avanti Gray. Late in production they added Avanti Maroon.
Beautiful car. But I still like the '56 Continental Mark II better.
To me the Avanti looks like the result of a drunken night of passion between automotive designers from Studebaker and American Motors with a splash of alien DNA thrown into the mix.
Every angle of the Avanti is beautiful. It can sit beside any new cars of today and still look absolutely stunning. There's a certain mystique about Studebakers Avanti and if you lived it back in 63 you would know it.
I love the Avanti, but I don't know about that carpeting in the grab hole in the armrest. It makes me feel so . . . dirty.
I don't that is how the car was delivered. Mine, and others I have seen, are just the smooth vinyl material.
As you may know, these were a fiberglass body on a Lark chassis, which dated from 1953 and was pretty outdated by then without even ball joints in the front suspension, and didn't allow for full rear seat foot wells.
Thank God it didn't have cheap ball joints. Studebakers front suspension was rugged and bullet proof.
If goregality isn't a word, It's gonna be a word TODAY! It is STILL a very XXXX ey! car.
Donald Garver; If these designs seemed normal ! You must have been working on Studebakers assembly line for years !!!!.
I too was 10,.....I think I thought this was cool,....but not really. It reminded me of the stylings of the 1963 Dodge Dart, for some reason. This was not nearly as cool looking as The Chrysler Turbine car that never made it to production, or if it did, it was a limited run car. I know when I was 12, I built this as a plastic model. Back then I hadn't yet begun customizing my models. For Studebaker, this was a radical departure. All that gushing that Charles likes to do, is not working for this car, imo. Though I have to say I am smitten, by the body color, and the interior color and details.
Is the engine missing?
no
That car looks like gravely lawn Care equipment
Honestly the front end is the part I like the least about this car but yet everyone seems to rave about it.
I'm glad I didn't see the motor it would have made me puke
It’s not a real avanti unless the seats are very uncomfortable
Can't listen anymore, sorry nothing personal about it, only because of knowing these cars so well during the times when they were a common sight and the designs were considered normal
They screwed up the front end
5 STARS