Boldly advancing…
Sometimes you miss a photo opportunity, and sometimes you get a second chance. The first time this gorgeous, first-year 1963 Studebaker Avanti passed me in my neighborhood on my daily morning walk to the Red Line train into the Chicago Loop, I was so shocked by what was passing me that I fumbled my camera and missed getting a clear shot. Sheer frustration. Three days later, I heard a low, baritone V8 rumble increasing steadily from behind me, slowly turned around, and there it was.
Fall was in full swing, and I imagined the owner / driver as enjoying the last couple months of clear roads and crisp, fall air before putting the Avanti in storage for the winter. These inaugural-year ’63 models do the most for me, with their round headlights. (Every subsequent model year, while still very attractive, has the appearance of “wearing glasses”, with their rectangular headlamp housings–to me, anyway.)
Rakish…
I find these cars irresistible. The original Avanti is still such a beautiful, almost-timeless piece of automotive sculpture–over half a century after making its debut. Look at that graceful profile and delicate greenhouse. The flipped-out rear quarter windows and wire wheels are just icing on the cake. The health club I belong to, two blocks south of this intersection, had once been a Studebaker dealership (the “Studebaker” crest above the second floor was an architectural element which was retained after the building’s renovation), and I wondered if this car could have sat proudly in the former showroom where I do cardio.
This gentleman was clearly on his way somewhere on this Friday morning, and this coupe moved smartly out from the stop sign at the intersection – making sweet, Studebaker 289 V8-powered music as it went. And before you know it, this Avanti was going…
Going…
Gone.
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Friday, October 10, 2014.
More:
CC: 1963 Studebaker Avanti – Flawed Brilliance by Paul Niedermeyer
I’ve always liked the Studebaker Avanti. It’s one of the best looking cars Studebaker produced. It’s too bad it didn’t save Studebaker from extinction.
+1,when I first saw one in a magazine I thought it was some exotic hand built European car.The rear window is very Jensen Interceptor.While it didn’t save Studebaker it probably bought them more time and put off the final closure.
Love, love, love. Although my favorite color on these is the metallic red of the one owned by my childhood best friend’s dad, this turquoise is a close second.
I spy the teeny little emblem on the front fender that marks this as one of the supercharged R2 models. And did you notice the unusual exhaust note of the Stude V8? It is a music that remains in my memory banks. Thanks for capturing this!
This car seems to lack the “forward rake” that distinguished the Stude version from the Avanti II. It looks like someone might have boosted the front up a bit, or maybe the rear springs have taken on a sag after all these years. Here’s hoping that nobody has swapped in a Chevy V8, necessitating the same front end lift that all of the Avanti IIs got, in order to get the couple of extra inches of clearance.
Yes, the original Avanti, with the Studebaker V8, was more attractive than the Avanti II. The difference in rake is noticeable when the two versions are parked side-by-side. The fact that the one in the photo seems a bit jacked-up in the front may simply be due to weight transfer while the car was accelerating when the photos were taken. I imagine there is no anti-dive / anti-squat designed into the suspension of these cars, which have plain semi-elliptic leaf springs in the rear.
Yes, I noticed the lack of rake too. The Studebaker suspension and frame were basically from 1953. And likely to actually date to 1947 or whenever he postwar Studebakers came out.
Ah, yes! The R2! JPC, this car definitely had a beautiful, brutish, baritone burble under acceleration. It was sweet music indeed – a total sensory experience of sight and sound.
I do think the forward rake isn’t as prominent in my pix because of the car accelerating.
I looove Avantis! That was a great find!
One of my favorite cars of all time. I’ll take one in that color, please!
A timeless design that’s held up remarkably well. Raymond Lowey at his finest. Unfortunately by this time Studebaker was on the ropes and couldn’t follow through on production. I think fewer than 5,000 of these were ever built due to production snafus, supplier problems and other logistical issues. The public was wary, quite correctly as it turned out, that Studebaker could continue as a viable auto company for much longer. Under these circumstances they wouldn’t touch a car, no matter how attractive, with questionable dealer support, availability of repair parts and resale values.
Pretty amazing for a car that was “cobbled up” and designed in a very short period of time.This, along with the `53 Starlight Coupe and the `62 Hawk Turismo have to be the best looking Studes ever designed. Timeless designs,they should be milestone cars if they aren`t.I like the Avantis in gold, but I got to admit it looks great in this shade of blue. Like an image from a dream, glad you caught it the second time you saw it.
In the wild. Wow. One of the most beautiful cars every produced. Is is blasphemy to say that the Gremiln’s c-pillar looks very similar.
Well, it is certainly one of the few compliments the Gremlin will ever get. 🙂
Unlike the Gremlin, I’ll bet the Avanti wasn’t sketched on an air sickness bag.
Beautiful car, and nice catch Joseph. I’m telling you, our part of the world is car crazy (I’m just north of the state line, and get into the City fairly often).
Thanks, 1964bler, and I agree – in this corner of the US, we love our cars. I just wish there was an AMC Museum in Kenosha, because I’d be on the Amtrak there in a heartbeat. I read that there’s talk of one.
Very Gremlin-esque C-pillar! The rest of the car, well… I do like the early Gremlins. Would like a 1973 Levi’s Gremlin X, with no trace of irony.
Great job capturing a classic on the go. You redeemed yourself! I’ll be the contrarian, though, and say that I’ve never been a fan of the Avanti’s. It certainly does look elegant in these shots, especially among the old urban buildings with few modern cars in view. Something about the shape has always seemed a little too odd for me. I think it is the rearward slant of the fenders is too unconventional for my hide bound eyes.
The Avanti was a testimony to the abilities of Sherwood Egbert, who tried his best to save the automotive operations at Studebaker, which was by then a very diversified company. It was cobbled together from their parts bin, as they had no money to develop a completely new vehicle. It is a shame that Studebaker didn’t survive, but odds are that they would be gone by now if they hadn’t shut down in 1963. Their pockets were not deep enough and the board wanted to concentrate on the businesses that were profitable, not cars.
Egbert surely knew that Studebaker’s days were numbered. I get the feeling that the Avanti was one of those “If we’re going out, we might as well go out with a bang” things. Thankfully, that’s precisely what happened and the fact that the Avanti managed to stay in private production by Nate Altman for a couple more decades is testament to that.
OTOH, one can only wonder what might have been if the efforts to get the Avanti into production had, instead, been put into getting the Sceptre concept built. It wouldn’t have cost as much to develop, priced less, and sold more. In fact, the potential was there for the Sceptre to ‘out-Mustang’ the Mustang before Ford was able to get their ponycar to market.
Of course, given Studebaker’s ability to shoot themselves in the foot when they had a winner, even if there was a Mustang-level demand for a production Sceptre, they probably would have botched it in the end, regardless.
I drove on of the ’63 R2s in LA for about six months back in the early ’80s, champagne with tan interior. It was more fun to look at than drive, four speed, very low gearing (I was always looking to shift two more times when in fourth). I remember it needed a mix of unleaded premium and leaded regular to avoid pinging, I guess the lead raised the octane level. I is and was a beautiful car, but definitely a 50s-60s ride. Nevertheless, it was a great experience, every drive was an event, you always felt “elevated” when you were near it.
Loewy had some great designs– I have owned a 1962 Studebaker GT Hawk, a 1941 Farmall H and a 1983 Avanti II. Most of these designs were made with very limited budgets with short time demands– and were successful given those limitations. The Farmall was likely the most successful, IMHO.
The GT Hawk is one design for which Loewy cannot be credited. It was Brooks Stevens who did the update on the Golden Hawk which was, in turn, an update of the immortal Starliner Coupé by Bob Bourke. It was Bourke who actually did the Starliner design while he was employed as chief stylist in Loewy’s studio as well. Credit Special Interest Autos for this article….
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Close up….
P.S. Love the Avanti.
I have to differ with JPC – this is the perfect Avanti color. One just like it was the centerpiece at a recent museum show of California postwar design. The wife wanted to steal it.
I align it in my memory with the Cord 810. Another totally unique design that was almost too special for the dying company that built it.
Great shots Joseph!
Superb catch! Although hardly perfect, (the windshield should have gotten the additional rake it was originally supposed to), its originality and uniqueness makes it a car I never get tired of seeing, as long as it’s one of the genuine Studebaker versions.
I lusted for Avanti’s as a kid and I still do… such a beautiful car. Nice pics too.
I always sort of thought of them as a two seater corvette. That is a compliment. Would take either.
I’ve seen this one a couple times – I live in Andersonville. It’s in really nice shape, and I’ve always loved these cars ever since I was little.
Absolutely beautiful car, and the perfect color in my opinion. The shape is indeed another Loewy masterpiece, and these first-year models with the simpler round lamps are the ideal.
I’ve been a fan ever since I was a kid. Someone who attended our church had one of the four-door Avanti IIs, and blasphemy that those might be, I still thought it a cool car as a kid. It also led me to the real Avanti, which immediately attained iconic status in my impressionable mind!
I actually also liked the latter-day, 4-door Avantis, and was in awe of them when I first saw one in the mid-90’s. Like you, the first 4-door I spotted was in the parking lot of a church (in Gainesville, FL) I was attending. It was painted a fetching red (a better color on a coupe than on a sedan, IMO), but I remember being awed at how well the 4-door wore the loose theme of the original lines.
Love the car and the color; great photos! The Avanti and the split-window ’63 Corvette were the hot ones that year!
The Avanti has always been a favorite of mine, and still looks fresh more than 50 years on. Back in 1999 I saw one of the identical color at a car show north of Toronto. Sadly, I was shooting film at the time and I was only able to get off a few shots of the Avanti before I ran out.
Wonderful design. Commercial failure. $3.5M of styling brilliance, plunked on a frame that dated back 10 years. Yes, Studebaker botched the introduction, but in over a year of production, they only moved 4,600 of them.
Count me as one of the seeming minority that prefers the Avanti II look: sitting on an even keel. The one in the pix looks to be dragging it’s tail. Broken leaves, or just plain tired? It could have an SBC in it. The lighter engine on original Studebaker springs could produce a nose high attitude.
I stopped in at the Avanti plant in South Bend in 75. Pretty depressing driving through the dilapidated Studebaker plant complex. The Avanti plant didn’t look much better. They allowed me to look over several cars they had ready for customer pickup. Some new and a few renovated Studebaker produced ones.
Caught this documentary on TV maybe 20 years ago, and added it to my library.
The Avanti is still my favorite car, I love its styling it has a timeless quality about it. Most
cars from the ’60’s simply look quaint now but the Avanti has held up remarkably well.