This is the third and final part in a series. Check out the prewar Studebakers in Part 1, and the postwar Studes in Part 2.
The Studebaker National Museum contains its share of unusual vehicles, too. This 1951 Commander is one of two used in The Muppet Movie.
It’s changed quite a bit since 1979 when the movie debuted. Actually, I doubted that it was the same car until I looked at the open trunk and found driving controls. Did you really think Fozzie Bear drove the car himself?
The museum is also home to the 1956 Packard Predictor show car. Designed by Dick Teague and built by Ghia, it’s definitely a 1950s vision of a begadgeted future. I don’t think the styling has endured. The Predictor was built to run, and packed a 300-hp V8.
It had to be clear by 1962 to everyone in Studebaker leadership that the company was on the shakiest of ground. The Avanti was a hail Mary pass, a halo car around which the rest of the Studebaker line would rally. Studebaker hoped to build a whole line of everyday cars that used Avanti’s styling cues. Two prototypes were built – a fastback sedan and a notchback sedan. This is the fastback.
This is the notchback. Both cars were built in France by Pichon-Parat atop stock Studebaker running gear. Could cars like these have saved Studebaker? Probably not, but it’s surely fun to imagine seeing them on the road.
The Studebaker National Museum is home to a few non-Studebakers. The Bendix Corporation had a major presence in South Bend; my grandfather was an engineer there for much of his career. In the early 1930s, the company began building this car to showcase its automotive products. It is entirely hand built; off-duty Studebaker employees participated. It cost a whopping $84,000 to build, and was completed in 1934.
I’m not quite old enough to remember when the U.S. Mail was shuttled about in these little Zip Vans; my earliest mail-truck memories are of right-hand-drive Jeeps. Studebaker supplied the chassis and drive train while Met-Pro Products of Landsdale, Pennsylvania, built the bodies. This 1963 Zip Van is a ground-up restoration of a rusted-out hulk found in a junk yard.
The Zip Van’s interior is a mighty Spartan place to be.
South Bend was also home to the Wheel Horse Company, which manufactured lawn and garden tractors. When I was young, the company made promotional stickers that read, “Get a horse! Wheel Horse, of course.” It was considered tres cool among the South Bend schoolyard set to have these stickers plastered all over your notebooks.
The museum also shows cars that travel the museum circuit. When I visited, this VW Beetle with a unique body was on display.
This Beetle appears to be drivable, with an engine in the back and a key in the ignition.
This 1950 Champion Starlight is also part of the traveling show. It is tricked out to resemble a World-War-II-era Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane. My favorite detail is the Mitsubishi and VW logos on the side as if to indicate the number of enemy planes shot down.
I spent a good couple hours wandering around the Studebaker National Museum, as it may be my last visit for a good long while. My parents have both retired now and plan to leave South Bend for Indianapolis, since all of their children and grandchildren live here. Even though my last physical tie to my hometown is about to be broken, I’ll always be from South Bend and feel proud of my town’s automotive heritage.
An excellent series of articles. I’ve never thought much about bucket lists, but since participating in a friend’s bucket list trip back in July (a trip to Pennsylvania to see Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob – both houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) it’s time to put one together myself. Among them is a trip to Indiana to tour the Studebaker National Museum in South Bend, and then to Auburn to visit the Auburn/Cord/Duesenberg Museum.
That Bendix is a beautiful design – I’m half expecting Bob Hoskins and Jessica Rabbit to step out of it.
And the Predictor – a steel and chrome prediction of a sleek and powerful future – alas, but it was not to be for Packard.
Great photos, Jim – thanks for posting!
Very nice series, thank you.
Great conclusion. The Zip Vans fascinate me for some odd reason. They were all replaced quite a few years earlier than planned. The ohv six had a tendency to crack heads, and once Studebaker ceased production of the engines at the end of the 64 model year, the Postal Service decided to replace the trucks rather than deal with parts supply issues.
Postman Pat & his black and white cat should drive the Zip van.
Met-Pro, the body builder for the ZIP van, was best known as the builder of the corner post boxes. One wonders if there might have been a bit of government “insurance” in bidding that work to them, as there was when Studebaker got government contracts when Curtiss-Wright was tasked with keeping South Bend working c. 1957-58.
Still, there is something just so endearing about the ZIP van. (Co-incidentally, Raymond Loewy Associates, long used as a contract designer for Studebaker, came up with Mr. ZIP, the mascot for the postal service’s introduction of the Zone Improvement Plan [ZIP].)
The fabulous Packard Predictor belongs to another future. The one where JFK served two full terms, there was no Vietnam war, and Heywood Floyd regularly calls on our moon base via PanAm. The future isn’t what it used to be.
Oh, THAT future – where the 57 Chrysler products were built just like the 47s and resulted in Chrysler catapulting back to second of the big 2. And the future where Frank Sinatra Jr. became a huge teen idol, setting the course for popular music for the next generation. Gee, I feel like a martini.
Now that you mention it, I. Introduced my son to Back To The Future on Friday night. Not only was it fun for me identifying all the cars in the background, but at the very end you get a hint of what’s to come in the second movie.
My wife and I chuckled about how the first movie took place in 1955 and 1985, and how BTTF2 is set in 2015. In real life, they have 2 years to introduce flying cars, Mr.Fusion and hoverboards. Think it will happen? 😉
+1
One thing you didn’t mention is that the two Avanti-based sedan concepts have different styling on the driver’s and passenger’s sides. More bang for the buck; two concepts in one.
Driving that VW probably feels a lot like driving a regular Beetle with rotted heat exchangers.
The Avanti-based concepts were styled by Loewy, et al. My thought is this sorta proves lightning doesn’t strike twice. At the same time, Brooks Stevens came up with the more familiar Sceptre and wagon concepts.
The Avanti concepts had long been thought lost, since they were shipped to Ohio with all the other assets when Newman and Altman sold off the Avanti II business.
The Avanti-based sedans reminded me of the earlier botch of 1953 Studebaker sedans. Studebaker had a line in the works but after the Loewy coupe was done, the standard Stude line was hastily restyled to include as many of the styling cues of the coupe as possible. The result was an unattractive hash and sales of the cars tanked. Studebakers of the 1947-52 series had sold quite well, but the 53 models (other than the Starlights and Starliners) were flops. These Avanti-based sedans seem to me to have been a second try of a strategy that didn’t work the first time either.
Having several relatives who reside in South Bend, one who keeps an original Avanti tucked away in his garage, I understand the town’s pride in their automotive heritage. Great story!
Very nice articles about one of my favorite museums. My grandad Davis Firth was a South Bend engineer too. He worked for Dodge Manufacturing and had a number of patents.
The grille of the Packard Predictor looks a lot like the Edsel,there’s a bit of 58 Lincoln in that roof and rear end.I’m sure I read Packard were going to use 56 Lincoln shells with a bit of styling changes but the money ran out
Packard’s proposed 1957 redesign used a lot of the Predictor’s look. I’ve read about the Lincoln angle but don’t know if the photos of prototypes I’ve seen used a Packard or a Lincoln chassis. I suspect the former.
Note that Packard head James Nance moved moved over to Ford and worked on the Edsel launch. I doubt that was the catalyst for the horse-collar grille, but it may have helped validate Ford’s direction. Another commonality: Ford made a major push to sign up former Packard dealers to sell the Edsel.
Note that Nance’s original proposal was for a brand-new 1957 body shared by Packard, Clipper and Studebaker. What I haven’t read was whether that meant all three would be built in the same plant.
If so, that presumably would have been at Packard’s Detroit plant given that Studebaker’s was supposedly too small to produce full-sized cars. At least that was the excuse for downsizing the Packard onto the Studebaker body when production was ultimately moved to South Bend in 1957.
Does anyone know?
Nice! Thanks so much for sharing these pics Jim. I plan on visiting the Studebaker Museum soon, but in the meantime your posts give me a taste of what to expect. I saw that P-51 Starliner at a show in Moline a couple of years ago; very cool: http://www.flickr.com/photos/73872863@N05/6751472379/
I’ll probably have to have plenty of cash on hand for the gift shop too 🙂
Very nice series, thanks! I’ll definitely have to visit this museum someday; I can remember when the bullet-nose Studebakers were still a relatively common sight.
The Bendix car is spectacular, like an early Fiat Topolino that grew up and got all shapely and glamorous.
I recall the mail trucks of my small childhood, and the Willys Fleet Van version was not it. This is what worked its way through our neighborhood back in the day. They probably called them “Zip Vans” to promote the all new Zip Code.
The Bendix has a LOT of the styling details of the ’34 Airflow, my personal favorite pre-war car. But, the Bendix really amps up the sides to make a mashup of some of the smaller European cars of the period (Jaguar XK?)
I’m going to have to make a pilgrimage to visit this museum. Thanks for sharing the photos and the stories.
Thanks for noting the South Bend – Wheel Horse garden tractors connection.
One of the toughest garden tractor lines ever built.
Nice series! It’s on my must-do list to visit South Bend.
No Packardbakers? I know they’re widely despised, but I actually kind of like those oddball coupes, trout-snout and all.