I recently met Ken Rubin at the regular Friday nite car show in Boonton, New Jersey. He had driven his very rare 1957 Studebaker all the way down from Warwick, New York. I haven’t seen a ’57 Stude in over 20 years, so I was naturally drawn to his copper-and-black beauty! Of course, “Every car has a story”, and his story is a rather interesting one.
Prequel to the main story:
Studebaker was in pretty good shape in the late ’40s following World War II. They had a very successful year in 1950 with their “bullet nose” models. (Odd, isn’t it–this prominent circular grille element was a hit for Studebaker, but when Edsel tried their own upright oval version, it was laughed at and scorned!) The public is so funny . . .
Studebaker had another hit in 1953 with the European-inspired Starliner Coupe. But problems were brewing under the surface. The standard 1953 “bread-and-butter” family sedans didn’t look as good, and sales were poor. Competition from the Big Three was fierce. Studebaker needed to sell A LOT of cars to break even.
The entire line was restyled in ’56 (in a way I didn’t find particularly attractive). The old inner body shell was retained. But for ’57 I felt the stylists worked some magic cleaning up the front end, smoothing out the overall lines, and designing new delta-wing taillight pods to help give this rather dull car some pizzazz.
Consumer Reports found the 1957 Studebakers to be rather mediocre–an interesting mixture of good and bad features. Sales continued to fall. For ’58, quad headlights and gigantic fins were added. Despite this, sales dropped to crisis levels in that recession year. So next year Studebaker discontinued its full-size line and placed all its bets on the compact Lark and a smattering of sporty Hawk models. Sales immediately rebounded, but then gradually fell, and Studebaker production ended in 1966.
After Studebaker died, the cars became orphans. A 1957 model was now virtually worthless on the used car market. They trickled down to the most impoverished and desperate of owners, or were held on to by elderly Studebaker diehards who resisted change and didn’t want to buy another car. Either way, once major damage occurred or costly repairs were needed, off to the junkyard she goes!
By the time I came along in the 1970s, Studebakers had vanished from the roads. I only knew they existed because I had a copy of Tad Burness’ American Car Spotter’s Guide.
Studebaker, like Edsel, became a kind of automotive joke–sort of like the “ultimate clunker” of the ’50s. I find this to be unfair, but if you go through life expecting everything to be fair, well . . . Louie the garbageman on the TV show Chico and The Man had a nicely patina’d ’57 Stude that he would bring in for service. The joke was only Louie had the magic touch–no one could start the car but him. Did you ever have a car like that?
In 2001 I saw and photographed a 1957 Studebaker for the first time. This was at the LEAD EAST car show in Parsippany NJ. As I said before, seeing a car in person is quite different from looking at a picture.
This is a top-of-the-line President Classic model, which formed the basis of the 1957 Packard Clipper Town Sedan.
Packard-style grille, interior features, distinctive Packard taillights, and a supercharged engine (as well as a lot of sound-deadening insulation) were added to create an “all-new” Packard for 1957–a luxury “step-UP” from Studebaker. It also sold poorly and the Packard line was dropped after 1958.
Side note: I always wonder how many of these restored or well-preserved old cars that I saw two or three decades ago are still around. I’d like to think that if they survived that long, they would still be loved and cherished to this day. But I’ve seen too many examples where that is not the case.
Main story:
So I was at the Boonton show, and I saw a car with this familiar smiling face–yup, a ’57 Studebaker!
I walked around the car–from certain angles it looks crisp, elegant. Classic ’50s!
Yes, it has fender skirts, which I (and a lot of you CC purists) are not fans of. But Ken later explained that the skirts are rare and make the car look a little more special. He actually needed a mechanic to get the skirts on, and he hopes he doesn’t need to change a rear tire anytime soon!
Those bold, new-for-’57 taillights. STUDEBAKER across the trunk in big, proud letters!
Hood ornament: Pure Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon. A true work of art.
Rather plain yet avant-garde instrument panel topped by the colorful “Cyclops Eye” speedometer which rotates like an old bathroom scale.
Ken was great to talk to, and he later emailed me a description of how he managed to acquire this unusual and fascinating car:
“I wanted to share a story of how I acquired my Studebaker which I find kind of amusing, but at the same token turned out to be one of the best automotive purchases I’ve made on multiple levels.
I had my mind set on looking to purchase an iconic Checker Marathon, that had to be a retired NYC Taxi. Yes. the iconic yellow Checker!
Looking for one of these types of cars comes with great difficulty. Taxicabs were not meant to be a collector’s item. They were built to be utilitarian. They never stopped running.
The ones that were left for sale were basket cases. One day in the summer of 2023, I was doing some house work and my wife walked outside and handed me the phone. “HERE!! TALK TO THIS GUY!!!” Wha? Who!? “He has a Studebaker for sale!!”
“I have no interest in Studebakers!!” (I hoped the poor guy was on mute.) I struck up a conversation with the gentleman. It actually turned out to be a very nice conversation, and all the while my wife was scrolling through pictures. My whole facial expressions kind of relaxed a bit. The pictures I was looking at were just gorgeous.
It was a freshly painted 1957 Studebaker in two tone paint–Coppertone Mist/Black, and the interior was matching Coppertone Mist and black with fresh seats and headliner in vanilla and light brown.
The gentleman explained to me that there is nothing wrong with the car, he just spent a lot of money doing a cosmetic restoration. He realized that he wasn’t going to see a return on his money, and that he had to get it out of his garage because he had an upscale model Studebaker, the Studebaker “President”.
As requested, he sent plenty of “still” pictures, video of the car starting, running and driving, and switching gears. He was more than happy to oblige to all my requests.
Moving forward now, one year later, and I’m often driving this car by myself on long trips. About 500 miles later to date, and this old girl has become one of my most reliable cars. It has never broken down–it starts, runs, and drives every time.”
“Driving the Studebaker makes me realize why it was a very well loved car. The 185 cubic inch inline Flathead 6 is a buttery smooth engine with adequate power. The manual 3 speed on the column shifts smoothly. It is not a heavy car, with a curb weight of only 2785 lbs. Even though it has four wheel drum brakes, it does not take much effort to stop this car. I love the fact that this car does have an overdrive feature.
It works nothing like any modern car. Once I get the car up to speed to shift into 2nd gear, the manual/electric overdrive will kick in once the car reaches 35 MPH. The accelerator pedal is then released, and you feel a definite “kick”. This is the tranny kicking into overdrive. This will get the car to about 40 MPH. You can now shift into 3rd gear–but the cool factor is: it’s actually 4th gear. The old girl can cruise quite comfortably at 65 MPH which can be monitored by the cyclops barrel speedometer rotation.
The suspension with 67 year old technology does well. It feels a bit bouncy but controlled, while absorbing road irregularities quite well. I’m sure with the addition of modern steel belted radials, the ride quality would be even more smooth and quiet. I can talk to my passengers at conversational levels without yelling.
Two very important points I must make: This is just a terrific car. I actually don’t see a reason as to why this can’t be a daily driver. And the second point I must make here is . . . yes . . . I did end up with the iconic yellow Checker Marathon!”
Godspeed, Ken! Follow your highest passion and the universe will conform to your wishes.
So I’m very glad I got to meet Ken and see his little gem of a car. It always warms my heart to see something like this preserved. About 99% of its compatriots have gone to the big crusher in the sky, but somehow this Studebaker remains and can still be seen tooling down the streets and highways of New York and New Jersey. Beating the odds is such a wonderful feeling!
Great story! I always like to see a well loved Studebaker, and the copper/black is a great color combination on the car.
I even like the fender skirts, hopefully finding a mechanic when changing tires isn’t too problematic.
The ’57 is one of the best looking Stude sedans of the annually-restyled ’53-66 series, and this one looks especially sweet. Seems its would be a fun car to own – easy to maintain for its era. Regarding the four-wheel drum brakes, I wonder if the front disks offered in 1963-64 could be retrofit in older models, given how little the brakes had changed over that time period.
Seeing that bullet nose Starlight coupe reminded me of something I noticed recently. South Bend’s minor league baseball team was until a few years ago the South Bend Silver Hawks, named for a famed Studebaker coupe of course. I found it curious they chose to honor the second-from-top-trimmed model (out of four) rather than the top-of-the-line Golden Hawk; maybe retribution for its not using a South Bend-built engine in its debut year? A decade ago the club became the minor league affiliate of the Chicago Cubs, prompting the team to be renamed the South Bend Cubs. I was a bit bummed at first that South Bend’s baseball team was no longer named for a Studebaker, but then I saw their logo. Remind you of anything? Oh, and the team’s mascot is named “Stu”. 60 years after the last car rolled off the assembly line, Studebaker still looms large in South Bend.
My dad had a 58 Buick and the styling looks a lot like this one. Not a bad looking car.
My Dad also had a ’58 Buick, a Super Riviera hardtop sedan, and I thought the same thing. In retrospect, these ’57 Studebakers more than hold their own, stylistically, with their Big-Three contemporaries. Great car, story and owner!
This is great; I love stories like this. And what a sweet Stude. the ’57 is the best of these late pre-Lark versions; the front end is really quite nice. It’s at least as good as the new front end on the ’57 Chevy, if not better.
The six and O/D combo is perfect for these; the V8 seems to make these rather light cars too front heavy. No wonder the steering is fairly light.
Enjoy your Stude, Ken! And thanks for sharing it with us.
This was a good year for Studebaker styling of the sedan variants, one of the few years that can be said.
What is often lost in the Studebaker story is that the company really only managed one new chassis post-WWII (as I understand it), which came out in 1947. The 1953’s had some fresh styling on the same chassis, and that same chassis continued all the way to the end in 1966. All the handling faults which were identified in the Consumer Reports article were the result of having a 10-year old chassis design in an era where progress was rapid. Even with their initial post-war success, Studebaker never really invested in product after the initial late 1940’s splurge. The Loewy coupe debacle killed them. A very pretty deadly sin.
That’s not quite strictly true. The 1950 had a new front suspension, with coil springs instead of the transverse leaf spring. And there were several changes along the way in the steering as well as other refinements in the suspension and brakes and such.
Its actually comparable to the basic frame and chassis used by Ford and GM starting in 1965, when they both went to perimeter frames. The same basic design was used for decades, including suspension parts in some cases.
Admittedly, frame design went through a key evolutionary step with the Big 3 in the late ’50s and early ’60s, when they abandoned the ladder frame because it was not compatible to the much lower cars. Chrysler went to a unibody and GM went first with X Frames and then they and Ford went with perimeter frames.
Studebaker could not afford that key step, so yes, they were stuck with a 1930s style ladder frame under the floor boards, which made the floors high. But with their taller bodies that wasn’t a severe issue dynamically, just visually. They did keep improving the chassis tuning, and their later cars were considered some of the best handling ones of the their times.
Thanks. I guess over the years they did better, esp. in the 1960’s when they were chasing the sport market. I probably got them confused with Rambler in that respect. But never ball-joints, right?
What a wonderful article! And what a wonderful Studebaker. “The Big Studebaker” if my memory serves me correctly as the television commercials went.
Greetings Studebaker fans, I am Ken, the owner of this wonderful gem of a car.
I would like to thank the author of this gem of an article. And certainly was a terrific experience telling him about my Stude, and my wife for finding this beauty. Oh, and I’m sorry honey for being such a crank!
A car, to me is much more than steel, glass rubber and cloth. It is an object that takes us back to a better ( hopefully) time and place in our lives. And object that helps us brings us back to any point in time. Books can’t quite accomplish this as well. It evokes stories, and best of all brings me on a journey to meet wonderful folks such as our author, and all of you, I thank each and every one of you. And as you can imagine the stories that comes with the iconic NYC Checker Marathon.
All the best!! Ken
Thank you for touching base and giving us your thoughts.
Great story. I wish every CC could end up with owners like Ken and his predecessor.
Thanks so Much Paul!
With the exception of Stephen’s comment about not finding the ’56 particularly attractive (I have a ’56 President Classic) it was a good read. 🙂 Enjoy the smiles per mile Ken!
I am another who appreciates the 57 Studebaker. While my tastes run more towards a President Classic with a 4 bbl 289, I can appreciate the charms of this modest Champion.
That copper/black may be the best colors on these out of all the choices. One problem with these is that versions with original style interiors are rare. I have read that there was quite a bit of NOS soft interior pieces available at one time, but that much of the 50s stuff was destroyed some time in the 60s.
I too find this to be a better adaptation than others .
Nice to hear it drives well and yes, some properly sized radials would improve the driving even more .
-Nate
What a beautiful automobile Ken has! Stylistically it holds its own with the ’57s from the Big Three; I’ve always thought of Studebakers of this era as being stodgy but this one certainly isn’t. The color combination of black and copper really makes this Champion pop out. The ’57 is certainly better looking than the ’58 which had that ugly fairing attached to the front fenders to accomodate the extra headlight.
p.s.: I’m also happy to see Ken has finally got his Checker Marathon-happy motoring!
Thanks to Steve for bringing this article to us. Especial thanks to Ken for continuing the preservation of the ’57 Studebaker. Ken, you look like a very happy boy (grownup in body only). Boys and toys are important as a combination for a happy man. Am I correct that these Studebakers had center-point steering and, thus, require no front-end alignment? As for the other passion of Steve’s: “TAXI! How quickly can you get me to 83rd Street corner of Lexington? I gotta a hot date.”
“Stunnerbaker”! The “fender skirts” gotta go though. Look , imo, “awkward”.
Too bad Studebaker didn’t have the 2 door hardtop in the regular line in ’56-’57 that they offered as a one year only model in ’58. It would have worked well with the ’57 styling and probably would have had sales that didn’t take away from the Hawks.
I have seen the blue ’57 President Classic pictured within this article elsewhere on the net. It is equipped with the rather rare factory trunk mounted air conditioning option that was first available beginning with the mid-year 1955 “Ultra Vista” sedans. The system was manufactured for Studebaker by the aftermarket air conditioning company NOVI. The presence of air conditioning is evident by the plastic air discharge tubes mounted through the rear package shelf. Available factory or dealer installed, it could be retrofitted as far back to 1953 V8 sedans. A few managed to be installed in Hawks, but it was a tight fit!
My father owned a 1955 President four door sedan with this option many, many years ago. I remember it fondly even though I was a small child at the time.
Wrong maker, but “Ask The Man Who Owns One” indeed.
The colours really work here. I like the over all shape, but my eyes can’t get past the bizzare relationship between the door shut lines and the window openings.
A preserved car like this really exemplifies mid Fifties design. Bright eye catching color combos, combined with expressive styling and plenty of chrome! These cars are hits with show goers because even if they didn’t have experience with that particular marque, they
either remember, or wish that they were there to remember, that ’50’s zeitgeist. Congrats to Ken for buying and preserving this example of Americana. Now let’s see an article on the Checker taxi.
It wasn’t the product so much as the news that hurt Studebaker.
Word got out how tenuous Studebaker’s finances were, which prompted the merger with cash-rich but rapidly falling behind Packard. Studebaker dragged them both down. Some say it was because their union contracts were too rich but they also did not suffer from strikes like other manufacturers did.
People became afraid to buy Studebakers out of fear they would go out of business leaving thousands of orphaned cars on the road. While that did indeed happen, the scare made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. No matter what good stuff they’d come up with, it would be undermined by the fear of corporate failure.
Oh, hey, I’m all for it. Just about everyone loves and relates to the checker. Nearly three generations of people ride in the back of a checker when they were a major site in New York City