(first posted 3/29/2018) Does the bed on this Studebaker Champ pickup look like it not exactly lining up with the cab? Well, that’s because it was designed for a Dodge cab.
Given Studebaker’s desperation in its last days, I’m at least glad they took off the Dodge script from the tailgate.
Here’s that bed in its original intended location. Looks like they had to actually stamp a new flat panel on that tailgate, as the DODGE appears to be raised lettering.
Here’s how the Champ originally looked in 1960, with its bed borrowed from the previous generation Studebaker pickup. But it was the 60s, and flat-side pickup beds were in vogue. What to do, when you can’t afford to tool up a bed? Call someone else; in this case Dodge, whose new pickup was out in 1961.
Desperation is the mother of improvisation.
This Champ, shot and posted by cjcz92, is in very fine shape, including its interior. Love that padded dash.
From the plates, we know this is a 1963. There were apparently some still built for the ’64 model year, but I suspect the number is quite low. The end of the road for Studebaker trucks.
More details: CC 1960 Studebaker Champ
At least it had a nice interior.
Didn’t know the last Champs were part Dodge.
I use to see a then 30 y/o 1961 Dodge Pickup in my Seattle neighborhood and remember thinking that it was the ugliest front ends I’ve ever seen on a vechile. Chrysler probably welcomed the Studebaker business during the “hit by an ugly stick” early 1960’s.
Looks like a (very well done) Frankenstein someone made in their shop at home.
The width of the thing is the most visually jarring aspect, it’s like putting a F150 bed on a Ranger. Still, I’ll always like the Champ, the Lark body looks surprisingly good as a truck, and in general I prefer stepside beds anyway, so the 60 is near perfection to me.
Although, I have to wonder if Ford used the Champ rationalize their 63 wrongbeds
When Ford restyled their truck for 1960 they did away with the separate bed. Buyers, however, rejected the Unibody Ford pickup so they had to scramble to engineer a new bed for a new truck. In the meantime they used older/late 50s beds.
The newly styled 1961 Ford Styleside trucks were Wrongbeds from the beginning exc the unibody. Ford made a new styled separate box for 1964. The 9 foot Styleside box still was a Wrongbed through the end of this generation in 1966.
” I have to wonder if Ford used the Champ rationalize their 63 wrongbeds”
And I have to wonder if any Studebaker salesmen used these for comparisons. 🙂
I remember seeing both Studebaker and Ford trucks like these as a kid in the 80’s and thought they were formerly wrecked trucks that someone threw a junkyard bed onto to keep on the road. Even as a kid I knew something didn’t jive. Wasn’t until years later that I learned otherwise.
I was rewatching Tim Burton’s Batman last weekend and noticed there was a ’60s C-30 that seemed a little odd. A trip to the Internet Movie Car Database confirmed my suspicions–see if you can spot the strangeness:
Nice catch. A one-ton 9′ step-side pickup. Not uncommon in the 40s and 50s, less so as the 60s unfolded.
Also note the Ford stepside fenders attached….
That was what struck me as odd–not the 9′, but that the entire bed is a Ford Flareside.
1972 was the last hurrah of the 9′ bed. Ford and Chevy/GMC dropped their 9′ Flareside and Stepside/Fenderside, respectively. Dodge continued with their 9′ Utiline on a 135″ WB for at least the first year of the new D300. There was at one time an actual picture of a ’72 D300 with a 9′ Utiline floating around teh Interwebz, but the best I could find now is a scan of the 1973 D-Series brochure that confirms its existence on paper, if not in the metal:
One of the most notable things about the Champ is it pioneered an idea that is in use to this day: the sliding rear cab window. However, unlike today’s three-pane glass setups, the Champ just used two panes; you can clearly see the divider in the middle of one of the pics. I don’t know if both panes were movable but, if they were, it would certainly be unique as you could get an open air pass-through directly behind both the driver and passenger, unlike the modern open window pane which is strictly in the middle.
But the rest of the execution seems quite ill-conceived. Yeah, the new smooth-side pickup beds were all the rage at the time but doing it in such an obvious Frankenstein manner had to be off-putting to the few remaining consumers considering a Studebaker. It just seems to virtually shout, “we’re so desperate, we can’t even afford to make a proper fitting pickup bed!”. I guess Studebaker management must have been thought that, back then, pickups were truly farm implements that farmers could care less about how they looked and much more about how they worked, not to mention the idea that it would be much easier to source a Dodge pickup bed for when the original Champ bed wore out.
I used to own a 94 Ranger. Ford built the same basic truck for several years. During that time there were 3 different rear window “treatments” used, which one a Ranger had mostly depended on which trim level the truck was and which year it was built in.
Bottom trim (XL) trucks had 1 piece rear windows. My 94 regular cab XLT had a rear window made of 4 pieces of glass, the 2 middle pieces slide apart (independently). Later XLT regular cabs had 3 piece rear windows, the middle piece being the only part that was moveable.
Sometimes “extracab” trucks had the 1 piece window, sometimes they had opening rear windows.
A lot of the higher end pickups now have an electric sliding rear cab window. What’s puzzling is how they’ve continued to have a rather small, squarish opening. Perhaps there’s an engineering reason they can’t go to something a bit larger.
With that in mind, the best opening rear windows are on Toyota Tundra Crew Cab and the now defunct Ford Explorer Sport Trac. The Toyota operated the same as any other electric side window, with an infinite amount of adjustment all the way to a completely open rear window.
The Sport Trac, OTOH, only had three positions: closed, partially open (about three inches from the top), and fully open. Again, I don’t know what the rationale might have been for only having three positions but, frankly, those three ‘would’ seem to be enough to cover all contingencies.
Honestly, though, I still like the old Chevy Avalanche ‘midgate’ version best. It was more difficult because the rear window flipped down manually to be stored in the midgate. But the trade-off was you could also completely lower the midgate, too, to have a completely flat, open cargo bay from the bed all the way forward to the backs of the front seats. I really miss the Avalanche and wish someone would bring back the feature on a much more fuel-efficient vehicle.
The three positions on the Sport Trac were the only ones you’d really need any electric window to have: open, closed, and vent. But you bring up a good point about rear window openings: they’ve gotten smaller, both vertically and horizontally.
My theory is that this is due to a change in the window’s intended use: when they were introduced, sliding rear windows were explicitly for access to the rear topper/camper without going outside, but as the camper craze died down and extended and crew cabs became popular, its use shifted more towards a rear vent not unlike the Mercury Breezeway window. Newer, smaller rear windows also offer a more seamless design from the outside. That’s not to say they can’t be used to access the topper (Dad’s ’15 F-150 has a dinky window, but you can still reach the cooler through it), but you’re definitely not getting a body through there. Sound and moisture concerns may be another reason for the smaller opening, although I can’t be sure on those.
The first-gen Nissan Titan had a rear window that opened like the Toyota, except only 2/3 the width, but for the second gen, it adopted a more traditional “porthole” like the Big 3.
Wonder why they didn’t ask Edwards Iron Works to make the widebed? Edwards had been doing body conversions and custom truckbeds for Studie since the ’30s, and they were still around in the ’60s. Edwards could have made a simple widebed, and they would have known all the dimensions and fastening points of a Studie chassis.
I guess the company was just flat broke and had to beg for surplus leftovers.
Also: Note the ’98ish Ford and ’58ish Chevy pickups on the other side of the street. The Champ looks more like the ’98 than the ’58.
A stepside bed from a 50’s Ford or Chevy would look better on the Studebaker pickup.
The second hand bed wasn’t the only cost cutting thing about the Champ. The Lark front end has a space stamped in it for the bumper. The Champ wears it’s bumper lower, but the space for the Lark bumper remains in the Champ’s front end.
When the 2R was new in the late 40s, Studebaker had a larger share of the truck market than they had of the car market, but, like a lot of Studebaker operations, the trucks were starved of investment after that.
Keep in mind, the idea of a truck possessing style was not a priority at the time of build for these, or the 63 Ford, or any of them earlier. Trucks then were strictly utilitarian: they were for work. Function overrode form, and if it didn’t look great, no worries. We look at old things with new eyes, and forget that in their day, these served a radically different purpose than we give them today. It was a function of the Chevy Cameos and Dodge Sweptsides that suddenly added fashion to pickup trucks, and those came in the late 50s. They also failed spectacularly, as far as sales new. Truck owners and drivers wanted a truck for trucking purposes, not to pose in and with. Today, that has drastically changed, and form overrides function. But then, use of today’s trucks, by and large, does not call for so much utility. Style, comfort, and convenience are the driving forces for them now.
And yet, despite this, newer trucks offer more utility on the whole than the older ones.
I would strongly disagree, just on the basis of the insanely-high pickup bed and bed rail heights alone.
If I had Microsoft Founder money, I’d start a company that builds a FWD pickup/van platform with optional RWD electric wheel motors, with a bed height of 18″ or less. It wouldn’t look cool, but darn would it be easier to load and unload from.
By 1963, the only people buying Studebaker trucks were the Studebaker faithful. This let them keep the faith just a little longer.
In fairness that bed had been done in a rush and on the cheap for Dodge too. After the 1957-59 Sweptside design that looked like the tail of the 57 Dodge sedans the Sweptline bed was built only during 1959-60. And it didn’t really look like it mated up all that well to the Dodge pickup either. That line in the side matches no line in the cab, except on high trim models Dodge fastened a trim strip there.
I believe (though I cannot lay my hands on it at the moment) that the Dodge bed was built by an outside supplier and not by Chrysler itself. According to a history of Studebaker Trucks on the SDC website (http://www.studebakerdriversclub.com/studebakertruckhistory.asp) Studebaker bought the dies and tooling but designed a new front panel and tailgate to go along with them. Studebaker may have sold 12-15K from 1960-64, including exports, so it is hard to argue that money on a new bed would have been well spent.
A neighbor had one of these when I was an adolescent. A red 61 “Spaceside” (Dodgeside if we are going to be funny) and had a paint finish that looked like the metal swingsets and monkey bars that had stayed in our backyards for about the same length of time that this truck had been around. I assumed that someone had replaced the bed with something from another truck, but then it said “Studebaker” in the tailgate. An OHV 6 with a 3 speed converted to a floor shift, Bill used it to drive to and from work so as to save his Avanti from some wear and tear.
BTW this Champ is the fancy one with the padded dash and the chrome grille/bumper. The one I knew was one of the cheap ones with the white painted grille and the basic interior made of industrial grade vinyl in some kind of pink and gray color combo (which I cannot find a picture of online).
The sides of the Sweptside beds were actually Dodge station wagon quarter panels. At least, that is what I have read.
I believe that was true of Dodge’s first attempt at a “flat-sided” pickup in the late ’50s. By the time the subject bed was built, I’m pretty sure that was no longer the case.
There’s a good set of interviews in Turning Wheels with the engineer-in-charge who worked out the Lark conversion and actually sweet-talked Dodge into giving them the bed. It’s a laughable addition now, but if you’re were trying to keep alive a truck program in a sinking company, it was apparently worth the effort. Studebaker had a small but on-going truck business, important to many rural dealers, that was basically ignored by management for the entirety of the post-war years.
Just one more of their many screw-ups. In trucks they were one of 5 (or 6 with GMC counted). None of the other independents offered trucks and their dealer network was probably better than International’s for lighter duty stuff. Everything I ever read was that their trucks were very good. Some investment during the 50s would have gone a long way towards keeping them relevant. They were in a much stronger position to compete in trucks than they were in cars if only because trucks were so much simpler and utilitarian.
I wouldn’t mind having one of these Champ pickups now, Dodge bed or no Dodge bed.
As a fan of all of the so-called independent makes, I’m amazed at what some of them went through to remain afloat.
And at the vehicles they managed to build as part of that process (the Avanti and Hawk come to mind re Studebaker, 2 other vehicles I wouldn’t mind owning now).
Oh, this is for real??
When I read the caption under the first photo this morning, I had stopped, but I’m glad I read the entire thing. Good, old, never-say-die Studebaker!
Here’s a custom-built International pickup with hand-fabricated aluminum bedsides and Chevrolet rear fenders and tailgate, in John Deere paint colors:
Front end:
I have one of these and when it comes out, everybody comments on the bed. For the most part they made a good truck, my ’62 has the last of the old brakes, ’63 went to servo action and swing pedals for clutch and brake instead of through the floor. Frames and suspensions were great as one could easily double the load rating and still not have it on the stops. A five speed gearbox was available in these too. Their V8 engines were rugged and performed well, driven nicely good fuel economy too. What they accomplished with so little is truly a testament to the engineers.
In the iCar article here a while back, Paul (I think) equated the 55 Chevy to the iPod as the mass-produced technical marvel of its generation. If so, I like to think of the Big 3 buyers as PC people (just want an easy mainstream product), the foreign buyers as Mac users (pay more for a “purer” product, if not better in actual horsepower but better engineered), and Studebaker and other independent marque owners as Linux users (correct in a lot of ways but ornery and with a contrary streak.)
Well there are Cahmps with tight fitting beds but you’ll need to go to Argentina to find one…
Use of the Dodge box was the second compromise for the Champ, the first was use of the Lark sheet metal for an updated cab. Imagine any other truck builder using a compact car sheet metal for the cab. The fact the Lark cab fit so well shows how much smaller the half-ton Studebaker truck was, their larger tonnages still used the old 1948 2R cab. Desperation was the mother of invention.
Well the one I saw, and photographed, still has it’s factory bed.
The one I found still has it’s factory bed and it’s not in Argentina.
That design language looks even better on the truck than the car.