(Update: it turns out this was mis-labeled, as it actually is a 1966. So some of the text and brochure info don’t quite jive. Sorry) Curtis Perry uploaded a number of terrific Studebaker finds a while back, and I’m trying to finally get to them. Here’s a 1965, a year that we’ve certainly talked about in the past, but never really shot and featured. This was of course the year that all Studebakers now originated in Canada, at their Hamilton, Ontario factory, after South bend was shut down after the end of the 1964 model year. Which means this Commander is Chevy-powered, either the 194 CID six (120 hp) or the 283 V8, with 195 hp.
Studebaker’s headline on its 1965 brochure was desperate spin, as there was really nothing positive for them to say. Everyone knew that they were on their last legs, and sales utterly collapsed to less than 20,000. But your car will look new year after year!
I love the shot of this one sitting in front of that old house; too bad about the wire wheel covers. At least they can’t be seen from this angle.
Here’s Jim Cavanaugh’s detailed look at Studebaker’s styling over its last decade.
Still, they’re good looking cars who’s design has aged well.
Very nice, the 1965 is my favorite year for Studes because you get the 4 headlight styling and the Chevy motor.
On my short list to own someday?
See your dealer! Now! Please!
I was thinking”… Dammit! We’re on life support here!”
I used to have one of these – albeit a very small one, in wagon form. It was the best vehicle in the entire fleet at one point.
I had that one too–that’s how I knew the Envoy with the sliding roof wasn’t anything new. I don’t know what happened to it but I remember the little dog.
Yep, that was just about my favourite Matchbox car. I remember asking dad about the sliding roof. He didn’t think they’d keep the water out of the rear, and from what I’ve read since, he was right. Still cool, and I’ve always likes that era Stude.
Funny thing, I don’t hate the wire wheel covers on this particular car.
I know, I know, but really, they kind of work here, along with the whitewalls. Somehow I just find the juxtaposition between the modest styling and the little touch of pseudo-retro bling almost appealing.
Don’t get me wrong, back in the heyday of the aftermarket wire wheel cover I flew into a rage every time I saw them stuck onto something they never should have come within ten feet of (and truly, was there ever really any vehicle that was enhanced by a set of these abominations?), but every once in blue moon I come across them on some odd car and am shocked to find that I’m not immediately homicidal.
This is just one of those rare moments.
What a novel marketing slogan! Unfortunately nobody bought it, either the marketing slogan or the car. Sad end for Stude.
It is ashamed that Studebaker’s Ontario operation could not make a go of it. People perhaps just wanted their high quality, boxy cars from farther away than Ontario.
Studebaker made a profit every year in Canada. tho it would be considered chicken feed in todays millions. Studebaker was the only car producer to stop building cars while still makeng a profit. Burls Burmingham, an old Packard man, and the rest of the Studebaker Board cared nothing for history, tradition, only profit. They were making about 250M a year on all the other divisions, so they wanted to unload the car division, even tho wheels were the face of the company for over 114 years. Plans were to import the Isuzu Bellett and rebadge it as an entry level Studebaker. Also, CMI – Canadian Motor Industries was to buy Studebaker car production from the Corporation for 1M. However, as we know it all fell thru and the Board got threir death wish.
Remember when we were recently discussing the modern dearth of automotive color? Well, this is one that I do not miss.
In a break from DougD, I am a 1964 Stude guy, but I certainly see the attraction for a guy from Hamilton who wants to be able to buy tune-up parts at his nearest parts store. I have always been surprised that the car did not sell any better than it did in 1965. I think that the GM-sourced powerplants simply screamed that “death is near”. Stude homers felt that the car wasn’t a real Studebaker, while non-Studebaker buyers were not interested. There were, what, maybe 9 sales to folks who traded in a car from the Big 3?
The longer I look at these, I see some angles (and shown more in certain colors) where the many compromises show up. The way the belt line climbs from the hood to the cowl and then begins a long descent as it moves back from the cowl – it gives the car an awkward look, not made any better by the high rear roof (that for the first time since 1953 did not lose altitude towards the rear window.) Stevens really did a lot with a little when he did this car.
No problem, I won’t begrudge you taking the 1964s for yourself. 🙂
The 64s look nice at first glance. I suspect the sales problem was a combination of doubt about the company’s endurance in the market (even my dad gave up on Studie by 65 and bought a Ford) and the problems inherent in putting a modern looking 1964 shell on a 1953 platform. I used to have a couple pix that illustrated the problem: to maintain front seat headroom with the lower roofline that fashion dictated required lowering the seat. The 1953 platform did not permit footwells, so you were sitting nearly on the floor with your legs stretched out in front of you. which require the front seat be moved back to maintain legroom.
The front seat position resulted in little rear seat legroom so the back seat stayed high so passengers were not folded up like a jackknife. The high seat resulted in zero headroom for adult sized people.
The bottom line was a midsized car, as the 4 doors and wagons rode on a 113″ wheelbase, with a cramped, awkward interior.
The interior of a 64 Studebaker looks nice to my eyes today. Light years ahead of a 64 Rambler, yet AMC sold nearly 400,000 cars that year, while Studebaker sold a tenth as many.
It would look even better if it were an early ’64 from South Bend – those got color-keyed steering wheels. The late ’64s built in Hamilton (and I assume all ’64s sold to Canadians) for some reason all got white steering wheels.
I saw a ’55 Speedster awhile back and peered into it, and thought my eyes were deceiving me when I looked at the rear-seat footwells. The floor dropped halfway across the normal footwell area such that if sitting behind the driver your right foot would have plenty of room but your left foot would be higher, probably too high to slide your toes under the seat. It was reversed if your were sitting behind the front passenger – only your left foot had any room. I assume Studebaker decided at some point that keeping the floor high the whole width at the cost of legroom looked better than giving only one foot a low floor. I don’t know which years had that funky floorpan, but I’m fairly sure it was gone by the time the last Hawks rolled down the line. Not sure if the sedans/Larks ever used the two-tier floor.
Studebaker frame. Only the Avanti and convertibles had the X member. The frame rails are inboard of the rocker panels, with outriggers supporting the body. The inboard rails and exhaust pipes interfered with footwells.
Early 60s GT Hawk. Same crazy footwells.
63 wagon, showing how much they dropped the front seat to maintain headroom. I have seen pix of a 60 or 61 where the front seat was the same height as the back seat.
After the 60 Lark, my dad had a 64 Ford Galaxie. The Galaxie had a flat floor in front, and very low seats, but it had footwells in back. This shot shows how Ford bowed the frame out and ran the exhaust pipes next to the driveshaft, to make room for the rear footwells. On a road trip one time I was playing in the back seat and happened to touch the bolt holding the seat belt anchor on the driveshaft tunnel. The bolt was blazing hot. Always wondered why, until I saw a pic like this and realized that bolt was maybe an inch from the exhaust pipe.
If Studebaker had spent the money for a frame like the Ford’s, they would have had a much more comfortable car, but the BoD wanted to spend all their money on diversification instead.
The sporty two door models starting in 1953 all had the one-foot foot wells in the back seat, because the frame was in the way of a full foot well. Since all Studebakers were based on the 1953 until the final end, they kept the same deal in the successors. Apparently the Avanti had the X frame in the way so flat floors front and back. I’m sure the X was just from the convertible frame. It’s not like they spent any money on a new one.
Studebaker’s problems, many discussed here, were obviously all about lack of investment to come up with a really new design while everyone else did every few years. I don’t think they ever got a ball joint front suspension even, just king pins. Ford had ball joints from 1949, Chevy from 1955.
The body was never actually all new, not to mention the frame and suspension. Fords for example had a new frame and body in 1949, completely new body in 1952, another completely new body in 1955, new body and (cow belly) frame in 1957, mostly new body in 1959, new body in 1960, completely new frame (rectangular perimeter) and coil spring rear suspension and body in 1965. Studebaker: just remodeling and remodeling and remodeling. And I bet the 1953 frame and suspension was pretty much the same as the new postwar 1947.
Good points. The 1947 was the last pretty-much clean-sheet design. The 1953 regular line was all new like many cars were all-new back then, with a lot of frame and suspension carryover. The 53 Lowey coupes were even more all-new, including the 120 inch wb frame with the unfortunate flex designed into it.
The sad thing about the 1953 lineup was that they had the money to do them the way they wanted to. The drivetrains were modern, including an OHV V8 and a proprietary automatic transmission. How many Divisions of the Big 3 lacked either or both of these things, let alone the independents. But the 53 regular models were such a sales disaster that the company never really recovered. The period from 1954-64 saw a lot of change in what made for an appealing car, and Studebaker was never able to afford to run with the rest of the pack from 1954 on out.
I hate to differ with you but I believe the exact opposite about the interior, I have owned 3 ’63 Rambler Classics over the years and have driven everyone from ’59 to ’66. Due to the overwhelming availability of parts for Studebaker as opposed to very limited parts supply for Rambler there are today more Studebakers than Ramblers. Rambler died in ’66, from then on it was all AMC which I have no love for beyond ’66
I hate to differ with you but I believe the exact opposite about the interior,
Styling preference is always individual. Our 56 Studebaker Commander yielded it’s place to a 64 Rambler Classic, which was around until 72. I know that Rambler instrument cluster well.
In it’s favor, the Classic’s unibody construction allowed footwells and a decent seat height. My mom rejected the Olds F85 with a thundering “I’m not sitting on the floor!”
As to the parts availability difference between the two, when Studebaker pulled out of South Bend, people with foresight bought the parts inventory, so NOS parts are still readily available. Maybe 10 years ago, I was talking with the owner of an immaculate 64 Daytona convertible, and he noted the entire front clip, fenders, hood, grill, were all NOS parts.
When Chrysler bought AMC, the AMC parts stock was either sold for scrap or dumped in a landfill. AMC parts that I see at the local meet, from the 60s and 70s are almost exclusively rusted and battered items pulled from junkyards. I have heard rumors that a few people went to their local AMC dealer immediately after the buyout and bought every part the dealership had, and squirreled them away somewhere.
Steve, I also like Studebakers which I also like for different reasons. But IMO the ’63-64 Classic\Ambassador drivers controls\instrumentation was one of the most intuitive layouts ever made, one that you could control blindfolded. You have a almost square layout with the speedometer and instruments in the center. At the 4 corners you have the ignition switch at right bottom, windshield wiper switch at top right, fan switch at left top and headlight switch at left bottom. Directly to the left and right outboard of these four you have two sliding controls, left one controls temperature and the right one controls heat and defrost positions. All these controls are no more than 2″ right or left of the steering wheel. Within a couple of minutes you could operate all these controls without taking your eyes off the road and without having your hand moving more than a few inches off the steering wheel. In all the years I have been driving since 1966 and the 50+ cars & trucks I have owned I have yet to encounter IMO a better layout. Of course I have not driven every car in the world and there may be cars with a better layout that I have not seen or driven but in my experience it was the best. Then again everyone is entitled to their opinion which I will defend as your right even though I may not agree with it.
But IMO the ’63-64 Classic\Ambassador drivers controls\instrumentation was one of the most intuitive layouts ever made, one that you could control blindfolded.
I’m not contesting the ergonomics of the Classic panel, though the Studebaker panel I posted is pretty close, with slider controls on the right and left of the instruments that you could operate without looking. It’s just, to my eye, the Classic panel looks like something Virgil Exner would have done in one of his more fevered moments.
This one is even the same color as my mom’s 64
Haha Steve, you mean like this one from 1959? 🙂
Haha Steve, you mean like this one from 1959?
Yup. Probably doesn’t surprise you that my grandfather had a 59 Plymouth.
It’s true that the last few years Studebaker dashboard was pretty nice looking. Rambler dashboards were always worse than anyone’s. The instrument cluster on that Classic is too small, and the numbers always lean in parallel to the needle in that weird way. The same basic idea on the Plymouth of course looks good. AMC got better later.
Even as a kid at the time, I noticed how high the floor was in relation to the seats, and how poorly packaged this body fundamentally was.
Yes, one essentially sat on a cushion on the floor, with feet well head. The results of trying to fit a lower “modern” body in 1953 on a 1933-tech frame. Not a happy marriage.
It worked fine on the tall 1947-1952s, but not after that.
That’s how I remember the Fords of the early-mid 70s that I knew — sit low, feet out in front of you.
We could wonder what if Studebaker continued to fight? There was some designs attempt to imagine a 1967 model by Bob Marcks. http://www.deansgarage.com/2009/bob-marcks-designer-at-studebaker-ford-and-chrysler/ http://www.studebaker-info.org/Archive/Cars/1967/67design/67design.html
along with Brooks Stevens’ Spectre http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1962-1964-studebaker-gran-turismo-hawk6.htm
In my view, there was a window of opportunity for Kaiser Ilyn of Israel, who assembled Studebakers in Haifa, to pic up the pieces very cheaply and continue production but Mr. Ilyn was not connected to the powers-that-be in the Israeli administration of the time (he was Likud and they were Labour, like cats and dogs), something which would have helped as government finance could have made it possible. Kaiser Ilyn had their own 67 prototype, looking like a cross between the Sceptre and a BMW 2000 CS (which I uploaded before – see below) but by then Ilyn had enough of politicians and cried enough.
The only reason that they continued producing cars in Canada was to keep all of the dealers from suing them. They probably had to give a long notice if they were to discontinue production, and this was a relatively cheap way to do it.
They couldn’t give notice at all. They had to out wait each dealer or pay them off when they stopped auto production.
“… you get the 4 headlight styling and the Chevy motor.”
Then, why not just get a Chevy? 😉
The rear ends look like first gen Saturn SL’s, btw.
Too easy 🙂 . Besides, like the Stude I was manufactured in Hamilton, and like the Chevy motor Mrs DougD was manufactured in St. Catharines.
The Hamilton plant back in the day.
Some of the Studebaker signage could still be seen years after auto production ended.
Why is there a row of ’64 Mercuries in front of the Studebaker plant?
Isn’t the Stude in the lead photo a ’66? The tip-offs are the low-mounted backup lights and the vents above the taillights.
Sure is. The 1965 looked almost identical to the 1964 models.
I’ll change the title, but I won’t have to change the automobile body style 🙂
I’m pretty sure were looking at a ’66 here, with the vents in the taillight assembly, the back-up lights moved down, and the revived “hawk” emblem on the front fender.
It is, looking back on it, almost comical to see GM, Ford, and even Chrysler just rolling along, business as usual, while some of these company’s could not afford to engineer a new door hinge. I still wonder who Ford slept with to come up with the scratch for the Ranger and Taurus. Two brilliant moves for sure, but at the time must have seemed like Russian Roulette.
In the case of the Taurus, it WAS like Russian Roulette. Ford was putting its last resources into their new family sedans. If the “potato cars” had “bombed,” as Lee Iacocca said they would, Ford would have been finished. As it happened, the Taurus and Sable saved the company, so nobody is asking where the money came from. Ford learned…and when GM was going bankrupt, Ford had secured lines of credit to keep it going through the bad times that they, too, shared.
Studebaker in the mid 1960s, however, didn’t know ANYBODY who would offer them a line of credit; because there wasn’t anybody.
When your Board of Directors decides the automotive division isn’t worth saving, why WOULD anyone lend them money? Talking about corporate cynicism, this should be the leading example. What a sad end to a formerly great company.
It was dumb luck that Ford had credit lined up in 2008. Ford nearly bankrupted in 2004. As part of that recovery plan, Ford still had banking resources in place in 2008.
Interesting time to post this, a week before the 50th anniversary of the March 4th 1966 announcement of the end of automaking altogether at Hamilton. St. Patrick’s Day would see the last Studebaker built after 114 years of vehicle manufacture.
BTW, this is a 1966 model.
So when you could stroll over to the Chevy dealer and buy that lovely Super Sport 2-door hardtop in Evening Orchid, why would you even give this a passing glance?
After South Bend production ended, it must have taken a special kind of courageous (or devil-may-care) customer, willing to buy a car that they knew would have next to no resale value. Would a bank even give you a loan to finance a new ’66 Studebaker?
I remember back in the 90’s finding a ’62 or ’63 Lark coupe in a salvage yard with paperwork still in the glove box indicating that it was last on the road in 1968. It had sustained very fixable minor collision damage to a front fender. I’ll bet it was totaled out by the insurance company for less than $200 in body work.
One of the situations by 1963 Studebaker dealers were encountering was their local banks wouldn’t grant loans to ‘floor plan’ an inventory of new cars. It was because they feared that should Studebaker cease car-making, the inventory value would go to less than the loan, leaving them with nearly worthless cars to sell to try to recoup their money. It ended many Studebaker franchises.
Buyers for their cars in the last three seasons were nearly all satisfied loyal, long-time Studebaker owners who bought as much out of loyalty to their dealer whom they’d also come to trust. Resale value long since ceased to be much of a factor to them as they were generally older people who kept their cars longer than the norm.
A fairly new Studebaker even with light body damage had only scrap value especially after production moved to Canada. Seeing those cars with swapped body panels, as indicated by mismatched color, driven by some frugal fellow wasn’t uncommon then. There next stop was the back forty to be picked for parts to keep others going…… Some guys had dozens of rusty junks littering the scrub lot, picking the carcasses determined to run Studebakers as long as they could and did, even into the 1980’s!
There was an elderly fellow like that in our neighborhood when I was a kid. He had a ’63 Daytona hardtop coupe that was black with a red interior. I remember first noticing the different-looking car when I was six or so (this would have been around 1977), and asking my dad what a Studebaker was. Over the years we saw the car around the neighborhood and it was always tagged and inspected. Something about it got to me right off the bat; I thought it was good looking and a tidy little package. It’s probably what got me interested in orphan cars in general, and Studes specifically.
By the time we moved away in 1984, the car was still on the road, albeit with two new-to-you front fenders painted with a rattle can and seriously rotten rear quarters. I still liked it though, and still have a ’63 Daytona on my bucket list.
The irony of the ’65 brochure touting the virtue of sameness is in the headline of the ’64 brochure cover – “Different, by Design.” (Kind of crammed in at the bottom, you may have to enlarge the image.)
I’ve always liked the styling of the 1964-66 Studebaker, probably more so than the 1962-63 model years. I’ve seen a couple here and there near where I live. I’ve never had a chance to ride in one. It’d be cool to find someone who lives in Tacoma, Washington who owns one.
I’m one of those who liked this styling too but the last time I rode in a ’65 Studebaker it was only three years old…..
The clutch blew when Don Blake ice raced it and it was summarily abandoned .
-Nate
Yep, that is a ’66. I spent a lot of time piloting a 66 Commander with the 194. A recurved HEI distributor woke the little 6 up in a big way. I had installed different front seats from a Chevy S-10 and had them reclined a bit. Very comfortable. 20 mpg with a 3.73 twin traction rear and more than enough power to well exceed the speed limit heading up the Baker grade toward Las Vegas. Overall it was a good solid reliable car, sold to fund the Studebaker Champ project.
I really quite like the front-end design on these last Studes. My interest fades after that though, and the whole rear-end treatment is just odd.
Nice find though!
The 63-66 Wagonaire had a raised back seat that folded flat to extend the storage area. To level the floor the box seen under the rear seat, which was also a handy covered storage area, was added.