(first posted 4/30/2014) Automakers have always been happy to borrow ideas from their competitors and proudly claim them as their own.  It’s a trick even the proudest of parents have pulled when conceiving a new model, and one which has given birth to a Deadly Sin on more than one occasion.  AMC, whose struggle has been well documented on Curbside Classic, found itself an unenviable position after the departure of its inimitable chairman, George Romney, who made hay by poking fun at the “dinosaurs in the driveway” produced by the Big Three, and exhorting the industry to make smaller cars.

Read the rest of this entry »

(first posted 10/16/2018)          Life is full of unexpected twists and turns. I’ve had my fun with the Champ, suggesting one of the stepside versions be turned into a horse-drawn wagon, and calling another one out for “The Most Ill-Fitting Bed Ever”.  But that second one was from the Cohort, and it had the short 6.5′ bed. Then this summer I found myself walking around a neighborhood in Portland one evening, and I stumbled into this Champ with the 8′ bed. And a light went on! This is a Studebaker I could really use, and even want. I have a thing about big, wide 8′ beds but short, compact front ends, even if the combination ends up looking a bit unbalanced. But so am I.

So is this the most compact 8′ bed wideside bed pickup ever? Read the rest of this entry »