It is well known hereabouts that I suffer from a fetish – I just cannot get enough of the 1964 Studebaker. In the company’s last burst of creativity it got an “A” for effort in trying to make a thoroughly obsolete platform relevant in the fast-moving market as the early 1960s morphed into the mid 1960’s. This car may have been the most competitive convertible the company had offered since the year it paced the Indianapolis 500 in 1952. But as we have all known from an early age, effort alone does not guarantee success.
Studebaker had a long and odd relationship with convertibles as the 1960’s dawned. Other than the 1938 convertible sedan, the company was a purveyor of closed cars only from 1936 until shortly after the war. After jumping back into the market with the long-lived 1947-52 body the convertible went away again as the new 1953 cars hit showrooms. The sexy Loewy coupes would have made for a knockout convertible, but never saw a soft top variant at any point during its long life.
Interestingly though, it would be the “regular” Studebaker that would provide the raw material for the company’s last open car.
The Starlight hardtop of 1958 was a curious single-year car that was a teeny bright spot in a terribly dismal year. Although there were many awkward design features on the ’58 Stude (and Packard) the basic proportions of the hardtop body’s central section came off quite well.
All of the engineering that went into that hardtop body was not, as commonly believed, wasted effort. With some revisions to the C pillar and rear window area the 1958 Starlight hardtop became the 1959 Lark hardtop.
And as the company had cobbled a hardtop out a convertible in 1952, they would do the opposite in 1960 when the Lark convertible joined the lineup.
As the Lark body was updated by Brooks Stevens in 1962 the convertible remained in the line. A 62 Lark ragtop would be the final Studebaker Pace Car at Indy.
The windshield and A pillars were finally modernized for 1963 and much of the lower sheetmetal was changed again for ’64. We have covered the ’64 Stude in some detail but in the context of the low-end Challenger. This Daytona was the creme’ de la lineup for someone who wanted an open car.
“Everybody knows” that Studebaker ended production at the mother ship in South Bend in December of 1963 and that for the rest of its life the company offered only sedans and wagons built in Canada, which came equipped with engines sourced from GM. This is not completely true, as the entire rest of the 1964 model year was “business as usual” for all models not named Hawk or Avanti.
Studebaker engines continued to come from the South Bend foundry and all body styles of the Lark line continued to be built in Hamilton, Ontario. Including the Daytona hardtops and convertibles.
I love coming across really rare cars and I believe that this one qualifies. In fact I have been chasing this one for a few years now. Perhaps five or six years ago a friend shared a couple of low-res shots of a metallic blue ’64 convertible that was parked outside of a sporting goods store in an area I frequent. Since that day I have looked in that parking lot every time I passed it, but I never saw the car for myself. Until last summer at a local show. The wheelcovers from a white 1963 Stude confirm that it’s the same car.
How rare is this car? There is a registry for 1964 convertiBakers, which can account for 166 out of the 702 originally built. Which makes for a nearly 25% survival rate, a rate that is fairly impressive. Of that 702 car total, 286 of them originated from the Hamilton, Ontario plant that year between September, 1963 and July of 1964 when 1964 model year production concluded. With sales numbers like these is it any wonder that the company elected to drop the droptop from the 1965 model lineup?
Incidentally, only seventeen of those 166 cars accounted for were coated in this Strato Blue paint when built. And if I had to take a guess from this car’s current location, I would call this one a 259 V8/automatic car built November 8, 1963 in South Bend. I love registries.
If I am right, this would mean this car has the very mildest of the V8 powertrains. A rip-snorting R3 or R4 “Avanti-Powered” engine coupled to the Borg-Warner 4 speed would have made this a real unicorn, but let’s not get greedy. Let’s just say that for the buyer so inclined, Studebaker would build a formidable car even in the final weeks of South Bend production. Or a car for the buyer who cared more about “show” than “go” as would have been the case here.
This car was always an interesting size. Beginning in 1962 the Lark sedans jumped from a wheelbase of 108.5 to 113. In fact, I would argue that this was the platform that invented the American mid-sized car. The The two-door bodies, however, were on a shorter 109 inch span beginning in 1962, which was more compact than mid sized.
From 1953-58 the shorter Champion series (both two doors and four) used a 116.5 inch wheelbase which was only barely longer than many American mid-sizers of the following two decades. Even these shorter two doors would be a reasonable size matchup with GM’s 112 inch wheelbase A body coupes of 1968-72. It is a shame that Studebaker could not see that all along it was selling the “Goldilocks car”, one that was neither too big nor too small, but just right. Oh well.
The interior of this convertible takes me back to my childhood. Every neighborhood had that one house where kids tended to congregate, and in my neighborhood that house belonged to my best friend Tim. Whose family drove nothing but Studebakers. The whole clan must have taken advantage of a “Going Out Of Business Sale” because 1964 models outrepresented every other year. The model relevant to today’s story was the Daytona hardtop owned by Tim’s grandma.
That Daytona was the lighter “Laguna Blue” outside, but its matching silver-blue vinyl interior was a dead ringer for the one in this convertible. Looking at this car now, I think I can be forgiven for wondering as an 8 or 9 year old kid just why Studebaker had gone out of business. It was true that the proportions were a bit different from those of our ’64 Cutlass hardtop, but the Daytona was finished off inside every bit as nicely as our Oldsmobile. OK, except for the blue and white steering wheel that seemed a touch old fashioned.
In a less guarded moment I will admit that this car could never have captured the public imagination as the Mustang or GTO convertibles did. Or, for that matter, the Falcon or Tempest convertibles. Studebaker surely knew as much as they barely acknowledged the droptops in their advertising – Avantis and Hawks had more charisma and the sedans or hardtops offered more opportunities for desperately needed volume. Fortunately, there was the exception here or there. And for what it’s worth, the disc brakes really were quite good in their time.
The Canadian operation offered some nicely trimmed sedans and wagons in 1965 and 66 but by then the Daytona hardtop and convertible was as dead as the South Bend factory in the quest to keep the Hamilton plant’s break even point as low as possible. But this is too bad, because the ’64 Daytona convertible (along with its hardtop companion) was a nicely turned out car that should have hung around for another couple of years. And I suspect that Miss Dominion Of Canada from 1964 would agree.
Further reading:
1964 Studebaker Challenger – This Challenger Never Had A Chance (J P Cavanaugh)
Last of the breed, reasonably sized, disc brakes… Yes, but that colour is the real kicker! Bluetiful inside and out. That car is just droptop gorgeous. Wouldn’t change a thing to it.
One question: what’s that grey box sitting on the floor hump? A/C?
“One question: what’s that grey box sitting on the floor hump? A/C?”
Definitely not a/c. My guess would be a genuine Studebaker tissue dispenser – one of those accessories that almost nobody ever actually put in a car.
Yes, a tissue dispenser that doubles as a litter box, no less! I have never noticed seeing one of those before.
Is that for when you take your cat with you on a road trip?
Unfortunately, it proved nearly impossible to keep defecating felines properly lined up over that slot on all but the smoothest of roads. But for this design flaw, Studebaker would undoubtedly still be in business. 🙂
Got to have one…….;-)
I had that tissue dispenser in my 1966 Daytona.
I have one in my 64 commander
“The whole clan must have taken advantage of a “Going Out Of Business Sale” because 1964 models…”
They must have been dedicated Studebaker fans, as I would imagine not too many people would get on board with an orphan car. I can remember the buzz back in the late 1970’s when Chrysler was in trouble, folks we knew back then stayed away in droves because they were afraid of having an orphan car. When my oldest brother was looking for a new car in 1978, he bought a Ford product over a Chrysler product as we thought there would be better long term prospects for keeping it on the road.
In the post about the long lived American cars, there was talk about cars that were near or at the end of their production run and being thoroughly sorted out. I have to imagine that if you were one of the last of the Studebaker loyalists, that a Grundy assembled, Chevy powered Lark or Daytona would have been thoroughly sorted out and also a great choice. Especially compared to some of the contemporary compact or mid-sized cars.
They were dedicated indeed. My friend’s father was quite skilled mechanically and I have no doubt that he sort of implicitly guaranteed that the cars would be able to get parts and service. I recall that he was a member of the Studebaker Drivers Club even back in the 1960s. My friend’s house was 100% Stude until 1972 when the 60 Lark VIII got replaced with a 72 Javelin AMX. Grandma’s 64 Daytona was replaced by a 74 Javelin AMX, so she clearly looked to her son-in-law for guidance on cars. The 64 Avanti stayed with my friend’s dad until near the end of his life when his son let it go to a neighbor who knew what it was.
When I was a teen and lived down the street I have no doubt that he could have helped me find a good one, but my tastes were more mainstream then. I should have gone for it.
Your explanation makes sense. I have to imagine that parts and service wouldn’t have been too much of a headache until about the 1970’s, though.
Something I forgot to mention in my earlier statement about Chrysler’s troubles in the late 1970’s, was that they used Studebaker as their exemplar of an orphan car.
As it turned out, Stude parts and service were readily available for years, even decades later. The company was still in business even if they no longer made cars, and the large number of carryover parts year to year, many of them outsourced, helped availability. Certainly the GM engines the last two years were super common.
Even better, Newman & Altman (their big South Bend dealer/distributor) bought the company’s parts inventory and maintained an active parts business for a long time – one that has remained under successive owners. Many NOS parts are still available for these cars, even nearly 60 years later.
Say what you will about Studebaker management bungling, but at least they supported owners by taking steps to ensure parts availablity to this day.
Compare this with Iacocca when he took over Chrysler and unceremoniously ‘threw away’ all of Chrysler’s NOS parts inventory. It’s something of an irony that it’s easier to find parts for a Studebaker than it is for an old Chrysler product.
I don’t think Studebaker management was behind the parts supply, other than agreeing to sell it all in a batch. It was Newman & Altman (or maybe just Nate Altman) who took on the spare parts business. I understand that the company had built up a lot of spares (due to not as many cars being built as anticipated for quite a few years) and that Altman saw a good business in keeping the cars out on the road supplied with parts. So far as I am aware, it has proved to be a pretty unique arrangement that worked out pretty well for everyone.
Studebaker Corporation didn’t do much to support owners after 1966. Most support was by operators salvaging the South Bend factory.
The combination of Newman & Altman buying up the parts inventory for pennies on the dollar. keeping it readily available to former dealers, many of whom continued as service garages, kept lots of Studebakers on the road. This applied increasingly to the more popular collectible models as the 1970’s wore on. initially N & A figured the demand for Studebaker truck replacement parts would help carry their Avanti II operations. It may well have, their trucks stayed in service long after the cars had been traded away for other makes.
The parts inventory was immense, as might be expected. Iirc, later it was acquired by Standard Surplus, operated as a largely one-man show into the mew century before Studebaker International bought the core of what’s left. A good deal of culling out the unsalable items took place with each move,
What a beautiful Studebaker. I’m not sure there’s much of anything I can say about it other than it puts me in mind of being a convertible version of the splendid ’66 sedan that was at one time on display at the Studebaker Museum in South Bend. That was an amazing car as is this convertible.
This blue is perhaps the definitive color for this era Stude.
It’s a beautiful hue. Quite mesmerizing.
I’m sorry, though, Jay Peecy, the car that that paint covers isn’t.
The doors are too short. The leaning forward face, with heavy brow and shovel-nosed slant of the inner lamp surround, gives the dour effect of a narrowed Imperial staring out over its glasses. The rear has something unique in motoring, the only wrap-around top wheelarch moulding ever made (and it does answer the question of why wheelarch mouldings conjoined above the central rear fuel filler remains uncopied). Even from the side, the mouldings (or pressings) look like old skinny Edwardian mudguards flying straight backwards, which strangeness is not helped by front ChitttyChitty ones pointing exactly the other way.
The whole effect is to provide a somewhat heavyset Soviet box, perhaps not incidentally, since the grand old company was about to be buried for good. It’s not ugly, the Stude, and I know they were desperately reshuffling panels like Titanic deckchairs, but the result is a wee bit dull.
But since I don’t wish to rain on your fetish – which sounds vaguely obscene anyway – I’ll repeat that it really IS a beautiful color.
I am glad to have gotten used to the way these looked way back when because some (though not all) of your observations are apparent to me now. If only there had been a way to bring the cowl down so the car would have looked more like the brochure drawing. Still, my fetish remains.
This comment has some good points and clever phrasing, but has design and execution flaws, with some unwarranted unkindness sticking out around those points.
An improved comment design would have remediated those flaws before publishing aiming toward a more harmonious whole. And therefore wouldn’t be so ironic.
Hehe!
Very nice, very nice although as you know I’d prefer a Hamilton built 65 with a 283. A fetching shade of exterior blue for sure.
And congrats on your dogged pursuit of this car.
The 1967 Studebaker concept improved the rear appearance of the 1964 design substantially by raising and inverting the rear bumper. Not sure if the gas filler would have been behind the license plate or moved.
Hmm, not so sure that was a good idea. It kind of looks like a 1966 Studebaker that took it’s dentures out..
I agree with that, but also that it’s an improvement over the blankish space on the 64. More Brooks-ian and sleek.
The raised rear bumper idea occurred after one of the designers at Marks-Hazelquist-Powers, the design consultants for the 1966 saw a Studebaker and a ’65 Mustang park next to one another, how much lighter the rear looked with the bumper mounted higher.
The wheels look smaller and the covers look familiar. 14″ Pontiac? The standard Lark wheels were 15″. The ’58 hardtop above was, I think, the only year Studebaker came with 14″ wheels yet, that one seems to have covers correct for 1964 and they would be for 15″ wheels. I like the ’58 better with the larger wheels and the 1967 proposal with the smaller ones.
I believe these wheelcovers were the optional versions on the 1963 Cruiser. I thought they were color keyed, but looking at pictures makes me think that they all used the white paint.
I have liked the 1964 Studebaker for its attractiveness and for Studebaker’s plucky stick-to-itness. But I never drove one. My uncle who bought one did so for the station wagon’s unique sliding roof but after it arrived, he was sorely disappointed by its clumsy handling, and traded it, same year, for a 1964 Ford. I’d guess the 1953 chassis wasn’t up to 1964 snuff.
I like these for pretty much all the same reasons I like similar-year Darts.
Fantastic!
A 25% survival rate at 55 years of age is good for something that is not called Mustang, Camaro, Charger, etc. Gives an indication that owners/buyers knew this model was a bit special.
What a sweet car. It’s just so…..quirky! Love the color.
Nice car though being a convertible not something I’d drive, somebody posted a list of flying 1/8 trap times for the 68 Bathurst race on FB a few days ago the 2nd or 3rd fastest car clocked on Conrod straight was a Studebaker the last ones assembled went pretty well.
“Take a look at the floors. Flat. No sills to trip over, no wells to collect puddles.”
LOL. I guess that sounded better than “We couldn’t afford to replace the 1953 frame”….
Studebakers had very small center humps….they were significantly better for the center passenger than other cars.
From a strictly styling standpoint I always liked the ’64 Larks, Brock Stevens did a great job restyling it on a very limited budget. It’s too bad Studebaker couldn’t have done something with the engineering-frame, suspension, etc. besides simply facelifting the old body.
JPC-
Something is funky with that silver ’58 Coupe-
Where did you find one with Right Hand Drive?
Why is the fuel fill door on the curb side?
Why is there mirrored script on the tail fin?
Oh- I see what you did there. 😉 D/S
One of my favorite backhanded compliments is “wow, you look good in this picture!” Whenever I hear that from someone looking at a photo of me, I have to ask why they’re so surprised. Am i kinda ugly in real life?
That ’58 Stude hardtop…. wow, it looks good in that picture! Squint some, and it could almost pass for something that sprang from GM in 1957. That they were able to come up with something vaguely resembling a ’57 Bel Air by facelifting a five year old design is testament to the forward-thinking shape these started out with in 1953. No amount of facelifting could have made a 1953 Chevy look even remotely up to date in 1958.
Yeeeaaaahhhhh . . . trying to find a straight-on side view of each car pointing the same direction proved to be too big of a job for me, so . . . .
If only Studebaker had survived…
We could have been treated to Brooks Stevens’s fresh, new styling ideas.
A Hawk replacement was sleek, with full-width headlights and tail lights, though the Feds would not have permitted the former.
A four-door sedan appeared to be inspired by the 1961 Lincoln Continental but without the suicide doors, and with a contoured Mercedes-style grill.
A subcompact four-door could have had symmetrical doors, allowing diagonal interchange of the structure and door skins. It also had a transverse engine and transaxle, in front wheel drive; as such it could have been the first American in that format, and far predated the 1978 Dodge/Plymouth Omni/Horizon.
But Studebaker had no money to carry through with his ideas. Those concept cars that he had built still survive at the museum in South Bend.
In retrospect, Brooks Stevens may not have been the right person to update Studebaker’s styling. He was the guy that coined the term “planned obsolescence” – and it showed in how he restyled the 1964 models.
Stevens seemed to want a dramatic makeover. Not only did he maximize visual differences with the previous year’s models, but Stevens also convinced the automaker to dump the Lark name.
The problem was that Studebaker didn’t have enough money to do a makeover which was competitive with, say, General Motors’ new mid-sized cars.
A more interesting – and plausibly even successful — direction might have been to follow in the footsteps of Mercedes-Benz, which Studebaker distributed at the time. The Germans tended to ignore short-term design fads that obsessed American automakers. Instead, Mercedes emphasized styling continuity and functional improvements.
As a case in point, Stevens gave the 1964 Studebaker a new front end that ditched its traditional free-standing radiator grille in favor of a generic trapezoid look. The front badly needed an updating, but why throw away what had been Studebaker’s most prominent design feature?
Meanwhile, Stevens redesigned the roofline after only one year to copy the Thunderbird’s squared-off C-pillars. That money might have been better spent improving the car’s rear end, such as by moving the gas cap to the side in order to lower the lift height of the trunk opening. Sounds boring but such functional details can matter, particularly in the cab market.
The 1964 Studebakers didn’t sell well because they didn’t offer enough reasons to risk buying a potential orphan.
“The 1964 Studebakers didn’t sell well because they didn’t offer enough reasons to risk buying a potential orphan.”
Also there were lots of leftover 63s to move out at the start of the model year, and then Kennedy was shot which slammed sales to a halt for everyone. At the end of November the hoped-for increase had not happened. Plug pulled.
So true. It also didn’t help that Sherwood Egbert got sick. At that point he may have been the strongest high-level advocate for keeping alive Studebaker’s automotive operations.
If Studebaker hadn’t experienced those headwinds, do you think the 1964 redesign was strong enough to increase the automaker’s sales back to its breakeven point, which may have been needed to appease an increasingly antsy board of directors?
I’m skeptical that would have been possible, partly because sales had already fallen so badly in 1963. Studebaker needed more than an incremental boost. It certainly wasn’t going to come from either the Avanti or Hawk.
I don’t think Studebaker’s family cars had as clearly defined of a niche as Rambler’s. The latter were surprisingly successful in the early-60s despite their dowdy styling because a lot of people viewed them as offering valuable features such as unit-body construction.
What did Studebaker have? Promotional materials pointed to flat floors and tall, easy-to-enter doors. Those were good features for a family car or cab. Alas, the trunk was small and poorly arranged. Even the under-powered six didn’t get terribly great gas mileage. Handling was mediocre, and the body had a reputation for rust and squeaks. Consumer Reports was not a fan — which is a problem for a small automaker that needs as much free advertising as it can get.
There you go splashing the cold water of reality in my face. 🙂
Rambler had a great niche (that it was right on the cusp of frittering away in 1964) of quality compacts. And the 64 Classic’s style update was much more modern due to the more modern structure that came from 1963 and not 1953.
I agree that all hope was pretty well lost by the time these were out. The 1964 GM A body intermediates took the one market that Studebaker had a prayer of competing in and nailed it shut. The only place left was for something like a smaller Checker, a market that had no volume at all then.
The only other thing they had was some serious performance that they were wringing out of those engines. Road tests of the day said that these were fast, good handling cars with great brakes. If there had been some way to merge AMC’s bodies with Studebaker’s running gear and interiors, there might have been a salable car there somewhere. But those GM A body cars probably would have killed them even then. And once Chrysler and Ford were there with new mid-sizers in 1966 it would have been game, set, match.
Egbert came on to the scene too late to do much good – particularly since the board of directors was determined to find a way to wind down the automotive operations.
Since the late 1950s, the board had been trying to diversify the corporation so that the closure of the automotive division would leave something for the stockholders.
Egbert needed more than one year of slightly increased sales – which he got in 1962, if I recall correctly – to convince the board to change its long-term course.
Studebaker was really finished by 1954. The failure of the 1953 line, combined with the failure to invest war-time profits in plant upgrades, had painted the company into a corner by early 1954.
It wouldn’t have made any difference how much Stude changed its products for 54. The GM/Ford sales war severely damaged Chrysler and crushed the smaller independent companies. No matter how good the Studebaker, a ‘better Studebaker’ would be roadkill. Chevy and Ford dealers cut their prices so much that Studebaker dealers didn’t bother getting competitive–they just sold to their repeat customers without aggressive discounting. The Buick Special dominated the market above basic cars, and was priced neck and neck with comparable V8 Commanders. Based on resale value alone, it was foolish to buy a Studebaker when the same money would buy a comparable Buick.
Even when Chevrolet had a V8 Bel Air in 55, the Special was priced within spitting distance and outsold the V8 Bel Air. There’s no way *any* V8 Commander would be competitive in that market.
The early fifties Ford/GM price war seems criminal in the damage it did to the other automakers (particularly Studebaker), and I wonder if it would have been possible in today’s more regulated business world.
In fact, I wonder what kind of impact it later had on Japanese ‘dumping’ of low-priced products which effectively eliminates all competition. It’s exactly what Ford and GM did, only they seemed to have done it first.
The price war probably wasn’t and isn’t directly actionable. However, GM skirted antitrust actions from about 1950 to 1975.
NOT to mention that disastrous merger with Packard.
While I am not one of the Packard fans out there who hates James Nance for his management of PMCC, that merger was disastrous for both companies. A VERY dumb move on the part of Nance and the Packard board of directors.
How desperate does one have to BE to do a corporate merger and not even look at the other company’s books?!?
The Packard merger kept Studebaker alive.
A nicely restored 64 Daytona convert showed up at the Motor Muster at Greenfield Village about a dozen years ago. iirc, that one was in the lighter blue. The owner had a photo montage of the restoration process. He said that the entire front clip of the car was NOS parts from South Bend. Andrew Beckman used to drive his 64 Daytona hardtop up for the MM, but he hasn’t the last few years. Andrew and the Henry Ford’s transportation curator, Matt Anderson, work segments of the pass in review.
If the CC crew makes it to Motown again some day, you should try to schedule it for the Motor Muster weekend, which is Father’s Day weekend.
They did a nice job restyling the 64 models. The big issue was fashion demanded they lower the roof, a lot. The result was that the front seats were nearly on the floor, while the back seats were very cramped, because the ancient frame did not allow footwells. This is one of the cases that has made me question the entire case for halo cars. If they had not sunk money into the Avanti, would they have been able to create a new perimeter frame and a new floorpan with footwells, to make their bread and butter line more appealing?
This is Andy’s Daytona, from 2015.
I met Andy at the Studebaker National Museum a few years ago and you now remind me that I have several shots of this car. It is a sharp one.
Too bad that blue convertible has ’63 Studebaker wheelcovers, as the ’64’s were especially handsome IMHO and were later used by International-Harvester on their pickups and Travelalls.
The convertible used the same X-reinforced frame as the Avanti. Disc brakes, an optional automatic that could be shifted through three forward gears, and horsepower available that was not available in similar-sized domestic iron were things that differentiated Studebaker. No one in my family had one, yet I love the sixties Studebakers. I currently own a 27K mile ’66 Cruiser, and I have previously owned a ’66 Daytona Sports Sedan, ’64 Daytona Hardtop in the same color as the convertible above and sold new in my hometown, and a white ’63 Lark Daytona Skytop with factory Avanti R1 power, factory air, Twin Traction, and reclining bench seats. I owned the last car 23 years and do miss it. It is now in Australia with my other three Studebakers sold.
Did the 1964 lark daytona have the same motor as the 1957 silver hawk 289 sweepstakes.some say yes it was a packard motor.whould you know ?
The 259 and 289 V8s were basically the same engines that went back to 1956-57, although there had been some minor tweaks in the intervening years. The R series performance engines shared the same block as the supercharged 289 of 1957-58, but there was a whole bunch of change in those. The R engines of 1963-64 (whether with or without superchargers) were far, far better performance engines than the 57-58 supercharged versions – in performance and especially in durability.
The Packard engine was a 352 V8 that was found only in the 1956 Golden Hawk and in no other Studebaker model. I always kind of wondered why they never put it in the President Classic sedans – that would have been a sweet combo.
Perhaps there were concerns about overlap with the Packard Clippers? When companies merged in 1954, there was a big effort to “dual” Studebaker and Packard dealers.
In 1955-56, Packard had no equivalent to the Hawks, so the Golden Hawk could get the Packard V-8. But a Studebaker sedan that could easily “whip” a Packard Clipper wasn’t necessarily good news for Packard.
The ’64 Studebaker had finally evolved into a nice, appealing package. It was what it should have been for 1962. All for naught though, most of the potential car buyers had written Studebaker off as a viable choice. Bankers had started refusing floor planning money for dealer inventories fearing the remaining cars wouldn’t have enough residual value to cover the loans should Studebaker quit completely.
This particular blue ’64 convertible is a dead ringer for one I saw in 1975 on the lot of Pikes Peak Motors in Colorado Springs. I knew it was rare then, because it was the only one I ever ran across since they were new. Hope that car survives too.
Getting the ’64 styling two years earlier for 1962 definitely would have helped. Imagine how a ’64 Studebaker would have looked next to a 1962 Falcon, Valiant, or Corvair.
But, yeah, it’s unlikely that a sales uptick in 1962 would have been significant enough to change much for Studebaker. At best, it might have kept the South Bend factory open, but the end result would have been the same, just delayed a couple years. For Studebaker to have truly remained competitive, they needed to have a complete overhaul and update of their ancient assembly line, and the massive amount of money that would taken meant it just wasn’t going to happen.
Also, 1966 was the last year that auto manufacturers could sell cars by paying only minimal attention to Federal Government requirements. The combination of safety and emission rules that really got going around 1968 were tough on the small companies – AMC deserves some respect for soldiering through that era. Studebaker had trouble making money before any of that stuff took hold.
Absolutely, 1964 styling in 1962 might only have forestalled the inevitable by a few years. A myriad of things had to be updated and modernized, not just the cars themselves for Studebaker to have any chance to survive much longer. The BoD had long since decided diversification held better promise of preserving something for and delivering value to shareholders, and that didn’t include auto-making any more. This route had already been taken by other former auto companies such as Peerless, Hupmobile and Graham-Paige before the war.
You got me curious. The registry shows two Strato Blue/blue interior cars in Colorado, one in Fort Collins and another in Denver, so it is possible. Now we will test the CC effect by seeing if Jim Klein spots one of those in the next few days. 🙂
I suspect the blue on blue ’64 convertible I saw years ago may be one of those two cars. After all, how many such ’64 convertibles could there have been in that state at all?
RE.: Studebaker supporting owners by providing parts–SASCO (Studebaker Automotive Sales Corp.) provided parts and had authorized parts and service dealers until 1972. Dealer contract cards in the Studebaker National Museum archives indicate that. After that, Newman and Altman got the parts.
Ahhhh, interesting to know. Thanks for this.
just purchased a 1960 lark viii , 4 door wagon for my wife’s birthday . The v8 still purrs , numbers match . . I haven’t seen another one around for years , and my research shows not alot produced in 1960 . Its had some restoration work dome and is is overall good shape . Any advice or history lesson on it would be appreciated .
I have heard many Studebaker people recommend that a new owner join the Studebaker Drivers Club. As I recall the 4 door wagon got added to the lineup for 1960 (only a 2 door wagon had been offered in 1959) – I find those to be cool cars. Check our index, there have been a few pieces written on the early Lark.
Several years ago, I saw an identical Daytona convertible here in Toronto across the street from my apartment building. It was traveling with a group of other ‘60’s classics (including a nice mid-‘60’s Olds 98 coupe). AWESOME rumble from the Daytona – maybe an Avanti engine under the hood?.
Jim, I like this, and thanks for the write up. I find the Studebaker/AMC building block school of car design endlessly fascinating.
And I love this example – it looks great and of a practical size, unlike some 64 convertibles.
The ’64 Stude convertible is a bucket list car for me because I also love the ’64-65 styling and, well, it’s a convertible. When I sell my ’63 GT Hawk next year, I’ll be on the lookout.
I think the ’64 Studebaker styling, especially in two-doors, has stood the test of time better than the same-year Chevy II, Falcon, and Valiant. No-nonsense instrument panels free from ‘googie’ shapes that even Rambler had; simple side trim; and thankfully, no ‘droopy’ rear wheel openings as was the fad then.
Also, in reference to the post about the Packard buyout saving Studebaker–it should be reminded that the corporation never had a bigger loss than in 1956. With no Detroit Packards in ’57 and a basically unchanged Studebaker line, the ’57 loss was 1/4 what the ’56 loss was. And in ’59, Studebaker made more profit than it had in 107 years. These are relevant statistics.
In reading some of the reader comments, the usual things about the outdated Studebaker chassis come up.
I can honestly say I’ve never read a comment about the ’62 Corvette having the same kingpin part no. as a ’49 Chevy. 🙂
For full disclosure, a ’62 Corvette is by-far my favorite model year ‘Vette.
I have a “64 Daytona convertible in Laguna Blue. 289 V8 4-speed manual. It was featured in the December 2013 issue of Turning Wheels. It was built in South Bend on December 13, 1963 – exactly one week before the factory closed. My car was originally sold/shipped to Andy Granatelli which gives the car some provenance. I agree that the car is spectacular. I get compliments all the time. I’ll take my ’64 Daytona over a dime-a-dozen Mustang any day (no offense Mustang owners). Other than Studebaker specific shows, I’ve never been to a show where there was another.
That sounds like a fabulous car, Dave! Yours is probably one of the few cars that really needs one of those old STP stickers on the back bumper. 🙂
It has one! Tried to post a pic but it didn’t seem to go through.
Pictures that are too large will not come through. Perhaps if you reduced it to something not larger than 1200 wide?
Like the side by side comparison of the ’58 & ’59 hardtop. The roofline for ’59 is just a refinement of the ’58. Thanks for pointing this out in a graphic way.
My ’64 convertible
Beautiful! That Laguna Blue paint really accentuates all of the sculpting that goes on at the front and rear ends of the design.
My 1964 Studebaker Daytona convertible.