Look who’s moved into the neighborhood! And a most welcome addition at that; I’m not aware of another. So is it a 6 or an 8?
Aha; an VIII! And with quite the outside rear-view mirror too.
Needless to say, the availability of a V8 version in a “compact” was quite a big deal in 1959. But then the Lark were Studebaker’s only sedans with the transformation of their front and rear end chops, so it only made sense to offer a V8 version. And the Lark VIII wasn’t just a Lark VI with the 259 CID V8 stuffed under its stubby hood; it had substantially different underpinnings too. The suspension was beefier, as were the brakes, axles, and just about everything else. it even had a totally different steering box than the VI, with less friction.
That might have helped to offset the extra weight some, but it didn’t fully ameliorate the Lark V8’s front-heavy understeer. That’s just the reality with all of these smaller American cars with V8s; there’s a price for the extra performance. And the V8 Lark could scoot: 0-60 in just under 10 seconds, as compared to 16 or so seconds for the six.
I didn’t get a look inside due to the ice coating, so I don’t know whether this is a a manual or automatic transmission car. I’ll have to come back and get a proper introduction some time.
A 1959 model. [Edit – I think this is actually a 60 with a 59 grille.] Wow, that is incredibly rust-free, even lacking the normal Studebaker-Rust that would eat up the entire trailing side of the front fenders, in even the most mild climates. This car (a V8) with a 3 speed/OD transmission is one that I would ditch the Miata for. Although I am not completely down with that light green paint.
Paint this one white and put some Avanti wheelcovers on it and this would be the twin to the car my best friend’s mother drove when I was in grade school.
Why did I think you might like this? 🙂
I see what you mean about a different front end. What is different about the rest of it to indicate a ’60?
Grille: 59 has badge on lower left corner, 60 in the middle.
Side spear: 59 has a sharp corner at the kickup on the rear quarter, 60 has a more gentle curve at the kickup.
Front fender badge: 59 says Studebaker, 60 says Lark VI or VIII
Everything about this says 60 but that front panel/grille. Do I know way too much about these or what? 🙂
Maybe an early sixty model where word hadn’t yet gotten down to production to relocate the badges to the lower center of the grille and/or they were just using up what remained of the ’59 grilles.
Well considering that the front panel is a different color from the rest of the car it isn’t a leap that it was replaced and they took what they could get even if it wasn’t exactly right. Highly unlikely that there wee a lot of choices in the wrecking yard when they needed the part even if it was still quite young at the time.
Everything about this says 60 but that front panel/grille.
Considering the paint mismatch between the front panel and the rest of the car, it’s apparent that the front panel of a 60 was replaced with whatever was closest to hand.
Although I am not completely down with that light green paint.
My dad’s 59 Lark was green, as was the 51 Champion that preceded it. Not a happy car, as it’s 170 decided to blow it’s headgasket at a very inopportune time.
The 60 Lark proved much more robust, and attractive in red with a black and red interior. I spent many trips through downtown West Dearborn, watching the reflection of that Lark in the windows of the storefronts we passed.
…even lacking the normal Studebaker-Rust that would eat up the entire trailing side of the front fenders,
Living in Motown, the “typical Studebaker rust” started to make it’s appearance on the 60 Lark by the end of 64.
This car (a V8) with a 3 speed/OD transmission is one that I would ditch the Miata for.
You wouldn’t hold out for a convert? Actually, unless you really are in it for speed, everything I read says the 170 was a more pleasant driving car due to the 259’s near 700 lbs of weight exceeding the engineer’s attempts to hide it.
…but….if you really want what you want…here is an apparently original 60 ragtop, 259, 3 on the tree, in a nice cheery yellow with red interior, in Kansas.
I do not know if this is the same car I photographed in Portland, but I will look through my photos and double check. Or I might forget.
A welcome addition to any neighborhood.
It looks like a great project for someone.
Hopefully it will avoid the indignity that your poor local graffiti Rambler has suffered.
Why in holy hades would Studebaker make so many changes between the six and the eight? Sure doesn’t speak to economies of scale.
To properly accommodate the extra weight and performance. It’s mostly no different than what Ford did with the original Mustang six and V8. And the Falcon V8. And others.
It’s not like these were new parts or processes; it’s what Studebaker (and others) had been doing for a long time. Which is why they were distinct models, not just “Lark” with either the six or eight. I’m sure they same thing was already the case with the pre-Lark Studes.
Ah-HAH, distinct models. I didn’t know!
Amc did the same with their Ramblers. Two different manufacturers and sizes for the brakes, heavier suspension for the 8, different wiring harnesses, V8 had had auto trans cooler, 6 did not, front sway bar V8 only the list goes on and on. In fact they were listed as two different series for the same body. 10 series was the 6, 80 series was V8. I have owned both a 6 and a V8 1963 Classic. Body and interior were the same, underneath almost two totally different cars.
Studebaker had an easier time with doing this with their BOF construction as opposed to AMC with was unit construction
Studebaker didn’t have to develop those six and eight-specific components as the majority were carried over from the prior Commanders and Champions on which the Lark VI and VIII were based.
Lark development took place during the last months of 1957 through the first half of 1958, the total budget was $5.8M, a pittance even then. Harold Churchill had been installed as company president in late 1956, took the cue for an economy-compacted car from the modest success of Scotsman sales. Being the practical engineer he was, the Lark came out the embodiment of his outlook.
I rather think the Lark was brilliant. But I’m biased, I’m from South Bend.
They would have been buying those parts from suppliers and the supplier probably only looked the total order size when pricing. There must have been enough savings on the lower capacity parts to make it worth their while instead of putting the heavier components on all of the cars.
No, I think Paul explained it quite well. It’s what manufacturers did at the time.
“Because that is the way they did it” is not a explanation.
Welcome to the first Lark of Christmas! Santa will shell out big time in those parts…
Last Sunday afternoon we followed a perfect RHD Lark VIII sedan from the oceanside town of Torquay VIC, back onto the freeway. They are not a slow car…they may roll a bit at roundabouts but the driver was obviously having fun.
Our learner driver sticking to the speed limit had to let it go. Nothing of note sighted for the rest of the trip.
A friend who knows about these things guessed we were looking at an ex police pursuit car.
My first acquaintance with one of these was in high school in the early 70’s. A classmate had a ’59 4-door with a 6 in his back yard (he was too young to drive it).
I had no idea what it was (I barely knew what a STUDEBAKER was back then, other than the ’53 coupes and the Avanti).
As I recall, it had every rust issue known to plague a Stude. But it did start and run!
I see the V8 version weighs about 320 more lbs. than the Six. Can someone suggest how much of that is under the hood, and how much is running gear, beefier frame, etc.?
The sources I have found put the Studebaker V8 at between 650 and 690 pounds. The heavier figure may have been for supercharged versions, but this is unclear. The six was around 400 pounds, so the engine accounted for somewhere between 250-290 pounds. BTW, the much larger Packard 352 V8 weighed 710.
Not too bad a Austin A90 six engine comes in at 7cwt.
The number from Jack Vines on Packardinfo.com is 695lbs for the 289, without supercharger, with manifolds, starter, generator, carb, clutch, flywheel and bellhousing, vs 705 for the Packard V8 with the same accessories.
As originally designed in 39, the Champion six, with manual transmission, weighed 455 lbs, so I suspect the engine without trans would weigh quite a bit under 400.
Bottom line, I would expect nearly the entire 320 pounds to be accounted for by the engine. Somewhere, I read that V8 Studebakers used Dana 44 axles while the sixes had Dana 27s, so there may be a few pounds difference there.
If Studebaker had the money for some modern lighter weight components
this eight would have been quite the car compare this to the Valiant
These Studes were quite contemporary IN 1940!
They just didn’t have any money
If Studebaker had the money for some modern lighter weight components
The Studebaker V8 stemmed from a false assumption that the very high octane gas developed during WWII would become available for road use. Reportedly, the V8 was designed to take compression up to 14:1. The Stude’s displacement to weight ratio was in the same league as the early Mopar hemis.
Outside of that, Studebakers had been designed for light weight since the original Champion of 39. One of the ways to design a light weight engine is to not leave any meat for the displacement to be increased. The Champion six started as a 164 and the largest they could ever make it was a 186. Same with the V8, starting as a 232 and ending as a 289, though they tried to stretch it to 304 by both stroking a small amount and boring a small amount. I have read that the scrap rate of 304 blocks due to core shift was ruinous.
The other Studebaker strategies for light weight were a narrow body and willowy frame, both of which met customer resistance by the mid 50s.
While the 53-55 Studebaker in this pic is the low roofed hardtop version, it shows how narrow Studebakers were for “full size” cars of their time when compared to what I believe is a 55 Plymouth next to it.
I’d choose the Dauphine ! =8-) .
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Cute little Lark, polish then wax that green paint and I bet it’d look nice .
.
-Nate
A buddy of mine’s Dad had one of these when we were just turning driving age. Same puke green color with the V8 and auto. Unfortunately, the master cylinder gave out (we couldn’t believe it was under the floor) and rust was taking its toll so it never got back on the road.
My daily driver for half of the ’90s was a beige 350$ ’60 Lark 8. It was a total stripper car with rubber floor mats, no dome light, on or off dash lights, no radio, no overdrive, heater delete even. 259 V8 with no oil filter and a three on the tree. Super ultra reliable and 20 mpg like clockwork before we got oxygenated gas. I was able to terrorize piles of imports headed north on the hwy 15 Cajon Pass. Hit the fast lane at the bottom and easily break the speed limit all the way up while blazing by piles of wheezing, overheating tin cans. The V8 Larks were really good cars.
Popular Mechanics, surveying owners of ’59s, concurred:
Wow, do those pictures bring back memories. In 1967 I bought a neighbors 1959 Lark. Flat six, 3 on the tree, bench seats and NOTHING else. Same color, same gaping maw of a grill. That the car survived two years at the hands of a high school junior who knew nothing about cars is a real testament to Studebaker durability.
Same color as the 50 Studebaker that brought me home.
I love these.
While the sixes were sold with promises of great gas mileage, in daily use the 259 V8 returned better mpg when driven moderately. Dealers were even supplied with a one gallon device for temporary hook up to the carburetor to test out or determine what mileage the six was being achieved. The V8 Lark was the more all-around satisfactory daily driver, the six a gutless wonder, suitable for old maid schoolteachers. As the old saw goes: “your mileage may vary dependent upon driving style”, definitely did in this case.
…the six a gutless wonder, suitable for old maid schoolteachers.
Which brings us to another “what were they thinking” moment. As originally designed for 39, the Champion was a scaled down car, smaller in every way than a Commander, and 600lbs lighter.
With the new platform in 47, all Studebaker models were on the same platform, but the Commander was on a stretched wheelbase, so the Champion still had a weight advantage of about 500lbs.
By the time the 53s came out, the Champion had grown to the same size as the Commander. The Champion had lost it’s weight advantage, but was still powered by the same little 6, which, as it was designed to be light, could not be bored or stroked to significantly increase displacement.
No surprise that the 6 did not deliver stellar fuel economy in real world driving as it was constantly being flogged to keep up with the big three sixes, which were 40-50 cuin larger.
Here is a table of 1956 model’s power to weight ratios. The only car more underpowered than the Champion was the Hudson Wasp, which was powered by the old Hudson 202 flattie that had been designed for the Jet. The Rambler 196, newly converted to OHV, is competitive with Ford and Chevy 6s, because the Rambler is a smaller, lighter car, while the Champion was trying to be “full size” without the power to back up the pretense.
Steve, thanks for explaining so well why the original ethic of the Champion, light weight was lost while the six became increasingly overwhelmed as it remained essentially static. One wonders whether management ever noticed that insidious progression that was going to render the six ‘gutless’.
One wonders whether management ever noticed that insidious progression that was going to render the six ‘gutless’.
You would think that, at least Paul Hoffman, from his background as a dealership owner, must have realized they were producing a rather undesirable car. Can’t help but wonder how the Champion would have fared if they had taken a Sawzall to it in 53, the way they did in 59. By the numbers I have seen, the Champion, as underpowered as it was, accounted for over half of Studebaker sales until 56. As it was, the best they did was a 3/8″ increase in stroke, to tip the output over 100hp in 55. They didn’t answer AMC’s conversion of the 196 to OHV, until years later. Can’t believe Vance and the BoD were satisfied with the Champion being over 50% of sales, while total sales steadily declined.
Studebaker board of directors from 1957 on main directive was to kill the automotive division and concentrate on the other divisions they held. It is probably why they even allowed the supercharged V8 program, the Hawk revival as the Gran Turismo and the Avanti was to hasten the demise by draining off money and resources. The popularity of these backfired on the BOD at first but eventually they killed the automotive division. So anything that was a minus in selling your product was a plus in the killing off of Studebaker in upper management’s viewpoint ad directed by the BOD..
Studebaker board of directors from 1957 on main directive was to kill the automotive division and concentrate on the other divisions they held.
The problems went far back. Fred Fish married one of the Studebaker daughters. Fish had a lot of Wall Street contacts and Goldman and Lehman both got their hooks into the company. Wonder why Erskine kept paying out dividends in the early 30s, when the company was losing money? It was probably pressure from the bankers that dominated the BoD.
After the war, Studebaker was flush with war profits. Vance begged for a major capex program to update their 1920s facilities. The BoD decided to pay the bulk of the profits out in dividends instead.
The problem with the McCulloch supercharger was that it was failure prone. The Studebaker V8 could take the pressure, but the supe itself was a mess. The Granatelli brothers bought the supercharger from McCulloch and worked on it for years to improve reliability in a passenger car.
The Avanti was a failure. They only sold about 4500 of them before turning out the lights in South Bend.
At the end of the day though, it was the BoD draining resources out of the automotive division and spending it on unrelated businesses (diworsification in the words of Peter Lynch) that drove the final nail. The ground had already been laid by preceding generations of bankers that only cared about their short term profit, management that tried to take production shortcuts to save cost, that blew up in their faces, and a couple questionable product moves. Studebaker died from a thousand cuts.
One wonders whether management ever noticed that insidious progression that was going to render the six ‘gutless’.
Found this pic flipping through my archives last night, from a 1971 issue of SIA. Postwar, Studebaker apparently did consider keeping the Champion on it’s own, smaller, platform, before deciding to put everything from the barest Champion to the most extravagant Land Cruiser on the same platform.
Looks to me a lot like a Peugeot 403 of nearly 10 years later.
Never before coming to CC did I realize how much I really, really would love to own a Studebaker.
Come to Bellingham WA. Lots of Studes around here. I think there’s even a club for them.
The slightly darker green on the nose reminds me of so many Studebakers from childhood. Seen on the road, we never had one …
Lovely old Lark, and the dusting of Autumn leaves improves the photo. I normally like light green paint, but this seems somehow a very industrial shade, more akin to what I might see on a drill press, or in a school hallway–but if it’s original, I’d leave it to show the wear of the years. Great mirror, also!
Cool! The very first car I ever rode in was a ’60 Lark, an ex-NYC cab my dad bought (I’m guessing) for dirt cheap. Which is what he was, cheap 😀 !
Interesting to read about the difference from 6 to V8. Here in Australia the Lark was popular as a police car because it was the cheapest US V8 car, but when they were raced at Bathurst they were plagued by wheel failures (the wheel centre tearing out of the rim), so I wonder if the wheels were beefed up as well, or if was something that didn’t make the transition to local assembly here?