French-born Raymond Loewy is one of the key figures in 20th Century design, across all manner of areas of industrial life. He started his design career in his native country but after winning the Croix de Guerre during WW1, he moved to New York in 1919 where he started working on department store windows as well as working for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar magazines, before moving into industrial design. He created the logos for multinational companies like Shell, Exxon, BP and TWA. His was the hand behind a number of passenger locomotives for Pennsylvania Railroad and the Greyhound Scenicruiser bus, with its glassed roof area. He also re-designed Studebaker’s logo, and was responsible for the re-design of the Coca-Cola bottle – and this is just to mention a little of his work.
Most important, however – at least, for us – was his partnership with Studebaker, for whom – together with Virgil Exner, until the pair fell out, forcing Exner to leave Studebaker for Chrysler – he oversaw the creation of a number of their cars, among the most notable being the Commander Starliner and Starlight coupés with their wrap-around rear windows (although much of the actual design work was done by others), and their transformation into the Hawk saloon range. And most famously of all, after having left Studebaker in the late 1950’s, Loewy was recalled to design a car that looked like no other before it – certainly like no other American car.
Given just 40 days to come up with the finished design that was intended to save Studebaker from a terminal decline that had started following the company’s ill-fated merger with Packard, that car was the Studebaker Avanti, which created waves across the American motor industry for its modern, smooth, restrained lines that ran counter to the previous era’s extravagant fins and acres of chrome and it’s astonishing performance. Indeed, with the R3 engine (one of four available), the Avanti was capable of a top speed no less than c.275km/h – reached on the world-renowned Bonneville Salt Flats – and was the world’s fastest production car at the time. I should mention though that only nine Avanti’s were built with this 400bhp engine.
It’s also important to point out that the Avanti wasn’t designed by Loewy in the way Farina, Bertone or Michelotti designed their cars – the Avanti was the work of a team directed by Loewy, with much of the work done by members of the team rather than Loewy himself.
The Avanti was designed as a four-seater, two-door high-performance coupé and took its radical styling cues from supersonic aircraft rather than the space race. It featured a frontal section without a radiator grille – something usually seen only in rear-engined cars and more recently, in electric vehicles such as the Tesla – long bonnet, semi-fastback and smooth tail. It was built on adapted Studebaker Lark chassis, and took its standard 289 cu in engine from the Hawk. Indeed, the majority of Avanti’s came with what were known as either R1 or R2 engines – the former being a standard version that propelled the car to a maximum speed of around 120mph, with a turbocharged option available (the R2) that would take it to 135mph and 0-60 in 7.9 seconds – not bad at all.
Mix a pinch of Lark with a soupcon of Hawk, and you get an Avanti (well, nearly)
The body was made of fibreglass by the same company that manufactured body panels for the Chevrolet Corvette. It was, however, a complicated jigsaw puzzle of a body, with no fewer than 129 pieces, and this was a source of future problems for Studebaker and the Avanti, slowing down production and resulting in late deliveries to dealers and cancelled orders by customers.
Despite a high profile launch – an Avanti was chosen as the honorary pace car at the 1962 Indianopolis 500 and the winner of that year’s race, Rodger Ward, was given an Avanti as part of his prize – the car was not a sales success, and Studebaker built only 1,200 out of a first-year target of 20,000 before ceasing production just over a year later with a total of just 4,647 built by the end of December 1963, when the Studebaker factory closed its doors for the last time – the Avanti failed to save the company.
However, this was not the end of the Avanti’s story – indeed, it continued in fits and starts for quite a few more years, picking up initially in 1965 when a couple of Studebaker dealers called Altman and Newman acquired the moulds and tools to produce the car at a factory in South Bend, Indiana, in what was the first of five different ownerships over almost forty years, only ending in 2006, which speaks volumes for the car’s modern, almost futuristic styling, which was only slightly modified over most of that time, though towards the end the later cars lost the subtleties of the earlier ones, and the post-Studebaker years saw another 3,473 Avanti’s built.
The duo formed the Avanti Motor Corporation and branded their car the Avanti II. It was made available with a variety of V8’s from Chevrolet, and it’s from this era that our Prime Find comes. Indeed, except for the engine, “our” car is essentially unchanged from the 1962 model.
So what have we found? Well, it’s a January 1981 built car, finished in a fetching shade of dark metallic green that really suits the car, with a tidy looking interior in tan leather. It sits on what has become a controversial subject here on ViaRETRO – chrome wire wheels… Now, looking at other Avanti’s I’ve seen, these are not standard, and I must admit, I prefer it on steel wheels, and I’m sure they could easily be changed. I think I would probably also remove the boot rack, although for a longer trip, it might need to be re-fitted, as the luggage compartment isn’t huge.
The power comes from a 5-litre (305 cu in) Z28 Camaro unit that pushes out a very lazy 155bhp, a mere 31bhp per litre, making it probably the least powerful Avanti variant. I couldn’t find any actual performance figures for this model, but I have seen an estimate of 186km/h top speed and a 0-100km/h time of 12.6 seconds, so this Avanti is more cruiser than bruiser, and a fairly thirsty one at that, with an estimated average fuel consumption of c.17mpg. However, I find myself wondering if with a little judicious tinkering, this Avanti could have a little more muscle added to it…
The interior looks like a very nice place to spend some time. The fascia is surprisingly British in feel with a lot of wood, leather and an array of dials. A sign of the times when this car was built, the speedo actually tops out at a laughable 85mph, as required by a law that was meant to discourage faster driving in order to save fuel, though this was largely ineffectual. The speedo on original Studebaker Avanti’s went up to 140mph… back when speed wasn’t considered quite so unsafe.
It also has the row of rocker switches above the rear-view mirror to operate headlights, fan, heated rear-window and optional moon roof, a cool if purely stylistic touch, again alluding to aircraft design.
The car is supplied with registration document, original owner’s manual, sales folder and tool kit and is described by the auctioneers describe as “outstanding in every department”, something I hope to confirm personally at the sale, which takes place at Windsor Lakes on July 18th.
As is our usual practice, we have borrowed some photos from the auctioneer, and you can see the Avanti’s lot entry here.
While it might not be an actual Studebaker Avanti, it’s undoubtedly a uniquely styled and iconic car, and will cause a stir wherever the new owner takes it. Values of the earliest cars are now in the £35-55,000 range, whereas the auctioneer’s estimate for this later model is between just £12,000 to £18,000 – and few people will know the difference. In fact, I wouldn’t mind betting that few people other than well-informed ViaRETRO readers, of course, would actually know what it is…
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk