North Country Motors, Studebaker, Imports, Great Neck, NY.
Manor Motors Inc., Great Neck, NY.
Warren Proctor Co. Studebaker, Louisville, KY.
Barney’s Studebaker Service, Escondido, CA.
Auto Mart, Studebaker-Packard-English Ford, Santa Rosa, CA.
Frank Stilwell Studebaker, Anaheim, CA.
Adam Motor, Studebaker, Mercedes-Benz, DKW, Pennsauken, NJ.
Lovely look into yesterday .
No Frost & French, the Studebaker dealer in Los Angeles that lasted well into the 1970’s…
-Nate
There’s a rare Simca hardtop coupe at Warren Proctor’s used car lots.
The Adam Motor Co. Studebaker-Mercedes dealer reminds me of one of our neighbors in Iowa City. They were from Germany (recruited after WW2), he was the head of the university hydraulics institute. He drove a M-B 220SE and she drove a ’64 Studebaker Daytona coupe. Studebaker (and Chrysler) were seen in a good light by engineering-types, and not as incompatible in the same showroom as might be imagined. Of course that depended on the location; not so much so in a small town in Nebraska or such.
What was the appeal of Studebakers for the engineering crowd? That they were dull? 🙂
“Dull” is good. A car that just functions as a car! I’d love one.
First to offer disc brakes in 1964. Superchargers. And very clean dashboards with complete instrumentation.
Engineers can fixate on things the rest of us might not. FWIW, her Daytona coupe was pretty sweet. I was hardly a Studebaker lover back then but I had to admit it had a certain appeal.
Studebakers lacked a certain sanitized mass-market quality that tended to appeal to outsiders, who were convinced of a certain superiority, real or imagined.
First American car to offer disc brakes? Triumph TR3 had them in 55 IIRC.
1957, but yes. If you want to be technical, Crosley offered caliper discs for a while before that (see the recent rerun of the Crosley history), and in the early ’50s the Chrysler Imperial offered peculiar clutch-style disc brakes, but Studebaker was the first U.S. automaker to offer disc brakes as a regular option, beginning in 1963.
(The Studebaker discs were made by Bendix, but licensed from a Dunlop design, so they were similar to the discs offered by Triumph, Jaguar, and some other British and European makes.)
Some years ago, possibly with info from CC, I found the location of a former Studebaker dealer in Henderson NV, a suburb of Vegas. It’s now a body shop, but every time I drive by there I can’t unsee the Studebaker sign.
What’s the little red car at the far left end of the Auto Mart lot ?
English Ford.
I keep forgetting about that short tie-up with DKW. If ever there would have been a hard sell to people willing to come to a Stude dealer, the DKW would have been it.
DKW was probably a hard sell anywhere. I remember seeing a couple of them at the Studie dealer in Manhattan, but never saw them on the street. Manhattan was a college town with lots of engineer types, so it had lots of offbeat Euro cars, but even the engineers didn’t want a DKW.
I’m assuming the DKW connection was from when Mercedes-Benz owned Auto Union?
Did any Studebaker dealers hang onto DKW long enough for it to transmute into Audi? (which was after M-B sold Auto Union to Volkswagen)
A few trade-ins to probably save on fuel & maintenance costs. Notably Caddy, Buick, and Chrysler.
Barney’s Studebaker Service, Escondido, CA:
Note the price of gas at 30.9 cents regular. The sign on the dealer showroom glass wall indicates the year as 1957.
Using the CPI calculator, that would translate to $3.60 a gallon. In my area (NOLA), the average is just under $3.00. In California, I would image its way north of $4 per gallon.
Maybe Studebaker truly understood the importance of fuel economy which was overlooked by the Big Three at the time.
Gas wars, in 1970, had regular for 28.9 in San Diego at the times. They also had great giveaways such as San Diego Charger drinking glasses which I still have. I am now old enough to put alcohol in them.
“Great Neck NY” had two “Stude”, dealers?
After investigating “Great Neck” a bit; covers a wide swatch of real estate, a goodly # of villages/hamlets.
Guess it could have had the two from the description of the area..
((live and learn))
Escondido in the 50s! I’d love to see that. My father actually looked at houses there in May 1968 after getting a new job in San Diego. Downtown under the new bridge. So why commute that far is beyond me. However, the house he looked at had two acres of avocado trees on it. He ended up buying in San Diego proper. Now I do remember being in Poway, just below Escondido in 1970, and it was a one gas station town with hitching posts in front of a few stores for horses. Still very rural then but not today.
North Country has a nice red 356 Speedster in the front row and a late 50s Corvette behind it.
Exactly where is that
Two Studebaker dealers in Great Neck, NY? That’s a bit surprising.
I said the same thing. Quite curious.
The photo of Manor Motors seems to reveal a ’48 – 52 Studebaker in the showroom, whereas the North Country postcard is from the ’59 -63 period, judging by the Larks on the lot. Bothe postcard photos appear to have the usual amount of airbrushing afflicting many postcards back then, but the buildings appear to be the same, although North Country apparently added a few new signs. Perhaps North Country bought or acquired Manor Motors?
I believe that’s what happened – the location was 790 Northern Blvd. in Great Neck. North Country Motors took over the business in 1957 – they remained in business until 1974, selling a variety of foreign makes.
My Daddy had a 51 Studebaker Champion 2 door coupe. Best car ever.
That Great Neck dealer is the same building in both postcards.