Let’s start today’s Peak Hour Outtake at the very start of one of my days. Instead of driving to the train, as I usually do, on this day I chose to take the bus to work. Having just woken up at 6:30am, I was still groggy as I walked to the bus stop around 20 minutes later. I tend to see the same cars around my neighborhood and so I was surprised when, looking up from my phone, I saw this unfamiliar Plymouth Cranbrook cruising in my direction.
It was going a steady clip so I scarcely had time to get this photo. Obviously, the black and red isn’t how it came from the factory; this color scheme seems to be popular with resto-modders. Black and red often makes classic cars look meaner and more aggressive but it doesn’t have this effect on the very upright, conservative Cranbrook.
This may not seem especially exciting to North American Curbsiders but to those of us in Australia, a Cadillac CTS is a unicorn. It shouldn’t have been. This was the car that was to relaunch the Cadillac brand here but unfortunately its planned introduction coincided with the Global Financial Crisis. CTS sedans had already been loaded onto boats but they were instead redirected to Singapore for sale, and only a tiny handful ever actually reached Australian shores as gray imports.
I was already fond of Cadillacs with the 1998-2004 Seville, became fascinated by the first Art & Science Cadillacs and then these 2008 CTSs really cemented my love of the brand. These are stunning cars inside and out, in my opinion, and managed to project a perfect harmony of aggressive American style and decadence with upscale quality and elegance. You will note the clear taillights: this is a hallmark of export Cadillacs as most Caddys do not contain amber rear turn signals that the rest of the world requires. This appears to be a highly-specified CTS, likely with the more powerful, direct-injected version of the 3.6 V6.
These aren’t as common a sighting in Australia as they are in North America, which may seem surprising given Australia’s enduring love of four-wheel-drives. Go into the Australian outback and (so I hear), you will see myriad Toyotas and little else. In fact, Jeep was completely absent from the Australian market from the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s; the Wagoneer, sold here as the Cherokee, was only offered from 1980 to 1984. The XJ Cherokee didn’t reach our shores until 1994!
After work one day, I was driving over to my Spanish class when I spied tail fins in the distance. I turned down a side street and captured this beautiful Studebaker Hawk. Studebakers are actually some of the more common American cars spotted in Australia; while the company was terminal, they made the decision to start local assembly from CKD kits in Australia. The Studebaker Car Club has a more detailed history of Stude’s Aussie operations here. Larks are more commonly spotted but at least a few hundred Hawks were sold here. I presume this Hawk owner – Hawker? – knew the owner of the Mopar it was following into a parking lot.
I decided not to follow the Hawk owner into the parking lot, sensing that would be perceived as a little stalker-ish. But what a stunning car! The basic ’53 Starlight shape was nicely adapted for the tail fin epoch.
Then, the 1960s came and Brooks Stevens was enlisted to modernize the Hawk. What an excellent job he did, giving it a very European radiator shell, a handsome Thunderbird-esque roofline and a markedly different rear end. My only issue with the redesign is the rear end: the trunk lid garnish is a bit gauche, while the rear bumper looks cheap. Still, Stevens didn’t exactly have General Motors money to spend and he did a fantastic job. What a shame that, by this point, Studebaker wasn’t long for this world.
The working week is drawing to a close. Tomorrow, we’ll look at two cars from the Commonwealth.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: 1962 Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk
Curbside Classic: 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk
Future Curbside Classic: 2010-14 Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon
CC Capsule: 1983-85 Jeep Grand Wagoneer
“Black and red often makes classic cars look meaner and more aggressive but it doesn’t have this effect on the very upright, conservative Cranbrook.”
Nice photo and nice understatement. I can’t imagine ANY way to make a ’52 Plymouth look mean or aggressive, short of a completely new body.
How about all black, tinted windows, dead of night, chrome polished? If not menacing than at least very very “businesslike”.
Just not legal in OZ, blacked windows were banned some time ago.
Some customizers apparently like visors. Windshield visors (obviously useful in pre-A/C cars) remind me of what sleazy bookies supposedly wear, such as in “The Sting.” And headlight visors remind me of WW2 blackout rules. Is this the effect they intend?
Windshield visors were extremely common here in postwar days through to the mid-seventies -they didn’t really seem to suit the style of cars by then. Air conditioning was a real luxury extra, and only available from the Big Three here since about the late sixties. Take-up rate wasn’t great due to the huge added cost. My first experience of A/C was in my fiancee’s ’84 Corona; nobody else I knew had an air-conditioned car.
All Dad’s cars had visors, as did most of the wider family’s cars. The one on the Plymouth looks like a recent addition, as they usually paralleled the roofline rather than mounting at an angle and didn’t have that central moulding.
Great shots! Every time I look at the 51-52 Plymouth, it makes me remember that thing that so many mothers have said to their little children: “If you don’t stop frowning, your face will freeze that way.” The 49-50 had such a friendly face, but this one was just a downer.
You remind me again about how badly Jeep failed to capitalize on foreign markets in the way that Toyota did.
And of course, I love the Studes. I used to find those 59-61 Hawk pillared coupes sort of sad, but they have become some of my favorites. I am even getting to where I prefer them to the 62-64 GT models. I think that finned Hawk might be a 60, and I find myself really liking that green.
“…how badly Jeep failed to capitalize on foreign markets in the way that Toyota did.”
Especially since Jeep had a huge head-start in international name-recognition because of WW2. And didn’t the US bring more than a few Willys MBs to Oz during the War?
Australia and NZ governments placed restrictions and tariffs on US sourced cars post WW2, having already been raped by the US during the war preference was placed on UK imports to help England recover its economy.
Can anyone explain how this CKD business worked? As I know from long & bitter experience (well, my Mother was bitter about it) a vehicle takes up far more space when disassembled.
Given the increased shipping cost wouldn’t it be far cheaper to just ship cars? Or was the tax incentive that good?
While the parts for one vehicle might take up close to the amount of space of the one vehicle, I don’t think this holds for 100 or 200 or 1000. If you can stack 100 fenders together and 100 windshields together and so forth, I think it works.
Many areas that assembled cars from CKD kits had import restrictions or very high tariffs on imported cars. But a company could ship the parts to a local assembler, and voila. Studebaker took great advantage of this, selling quite a number of cars in foreign markets this way, being significant players in places like Australia and Israel.
Glass rubbers tyres interiors exhausts etc were sourced locally here and in OZ so local content saved lots on tax and shipping
Nice group of finds! Love the shade of green that Hawk is wearing. and the 2nd-gen CTS really is a beautiful car (in my opinion) and I’d love to have one in my garage someday. Preferably a CTS-V Sportwagon if we’re really dreaming, but… Shame you didn’t get many in Australia so it is quite a wonder that you spotted one!
Wrong William all those Cadillac CTS sedans went to New Zealand, they were sent here bought by a dealer and sold under the proviso none were re-exported since then that same dealer brought in a ship load of UK bound cars and at about 48k new with a warranty these V6 engined Caddies proved rather popular. Australia didnt get any CTS Cadillacs from GM so it would be a rare find.
Yes, Ebbett Motors in Hamilton bought all those CTSs, there are a lot around in the Waikato. Ebbett just picked up the Waikato Peugeot franchise, so the 307 visited them last week for some (horrendously expensive) parts.
Your selection continues to impress. A couple miles from my house there sets a derelict stude. Most of them I see are like that. Love seeing some that still run.
Nice finds and shots. Were the two Studes shot nearby, a sin going to a show or something?
Nope. Different days. I’ve actually seen at least two other Gran Turismo Hawks in Brisbane, which bizarrely makes the car probably the third most common 60s American car in Brisbane in my experience (after Impalas and Mustangs).
There used to be quite a flock of Stude Hawks around McGraths hill NSW why I dont know but there were half a dozen at several sites in that tiny suburb I saw on a regular basis. Impalas were Aussie assembled during the 60s same in NZ my Dad sold em new.
Interesting finds. My uncle had a 1983 Cherokee (aka Wagoneer) for years and took it all around Australia, across the Simpson Desert etc. It was very capable offroad, and the automatic trans helped in the dunes where a manual vehicle would bog down if (or often when!) a downshift was needed. He later owned one of the last Grand Wagoneers that was his pride and joy.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a CTS in Australia. Any recent (ie under 30 years old) Cadillac is very unusual.
+1 on the scarcity of recent Cadillacs. I wonder whether that CTS was one imported by Holden for evaluation. Living near Fordtown (Geelong) I’ve seen some interesting cars that never went on sale.
What was the rear seat of the CTS like? From the photo it looks rather awkward to access.
In the outback you do see mostly Toyota Land Cruisers, with some Nissan Patrols and Mitsubishi Pajeros. Anything else usually turns out to be owned by a tourist.
There would have been some evaluation cars for sure even just for retuning the suspension for local use but all the RHD release cars ended up in NZ at Ebbet Motors and one of the conditions they got them under was NO re-export to Aussie, they sold them at approx 48K new when the projected price through GM had been 90K + retail new, quite a few about over here I dont even bother getting the camera out, but American cars are very very common in New Zealand I really did notice the lack of them when I lived in OZ. Not as common as late Mustangs though, those are here in plague numbers right and left drive.
I’ll have to keep an eye out for my Skylark in your pics, William.
You’re Brisbane based, I’m outer northside. I don’t suppose you’re going to the All American Day at Lakeside this Sunday?
I didn’t even know it was on, Chris! I have a family event on so I don’t think I’d be able to make it. What time is it running?
Also, what year is your Skylark?
A ’69 2 dr hardtop,Signal Red, white roof. Gates at open at 7.30.close at 4.30.
I’ll take it, please.