- This car was about style and performance
- "Avanti," the Italian name for "forward"
- The new creation had to be a "knockout"
A time for a new fresh attitude
Sherwood Egbert came to Studebaker Corporation from the McCulloch Chain Saw Corporation, starting in early 1961 as the new president of the company. Even though he really wasn't a "car guy" at the time, however, he soon became one to help the automotive division and its product line, with flamboyance, enthusiasm, and a drive to get things going.
The whole concept was to create a new, exciting, different, and progressive "halo car", as a last-ditch attempt to save the Studebaker Corporation.
Once he arrived, he put in a call to famous designer Raymond Loewy and he wanted a new sports car, or one that looked like a sports car at the very least, and that it had to be done, completely finished in clay, in six weeks time.
In March of 1961, Loewy made sketches of a futuristic sports car that could bear the Studebaker name and boost the image of the ailing Studebaker Corporation. To prevent any interference from headquarters in South Bend, Loewy found a furnished bungalow in Palm Springs, California.
Within two weeks of intense 16-hour workdays, they had finished the initial design. A fabulous air-brushed painting of the new four-wheeled creation was presented to the Board of Directors, and it was a 1:8-scale model that went to headquarters in Indiana and received an enthusiastic "yes" !
In just 40 days the design for the car was completed with an added gunsight line down the hood directly in front of the driver.
The shape was getting close to the final design for production, there was very little chrome and trim and while there was a trend taking place in the industry for "quad" headlamps, the decision was made to keep the Avanti as simple and clean as possible, standard 7-inch diameter hi-low beam headlamps were used albeit with clear covers when the car appeared for the 1963 model year.
a "radical new concept of a personal and performance car"
Once the final design was completed, renderings were made of the new creation and the obvious styling cues were the unusual "re-entry" wheel openings, streamlined door handles and the general lack of any straight lines in the front, rear and side profiles.
The wedgy silhouette of the Avanti was unlike anything ever produced in America and besides the curvy Coke-bottle-shaped side body profile, the shape of the fuselage was very pure in design, not tarted up with trim and ornamentations. If there was anything close to a "gimmick" it would be that off-center gunsight panel added to the driver's side of the hood. The body they created was described as not having any straight lines in its design, as even the side glass was curved.
Using the Lark convertible frame with a 109-inch wheelbase, shortened up in the rear. There was no budget for a purpose-built chassis, and at the beginning a goal of using independent rear suspension, unfortunately, that never happened. The large "X" member from the drop-top Lark chassis did add strength and rigidity and was the best they could deliver with the limited funds.
Power came from the trusty Studebaker 289-cid V8 with 3.562-inch bore, 3.625-inch stroke and compression was bumped to 10.25:1, and a 260-degree camshaft was used. The induction came from a Carter 4-bbl carburetor and a dual-point distributor was part of the package. A 40-amp alternator was fitted rather than a generator, plus a five-blade viscous fan drive was installed for cooling which automatically disengaged at 2500 rpm for reduced drag on engine output. Studebaker estimated approximately 225-hp, called the R1. A Twin-Traction rear axle was standard equipment.
As optional equipment a Paxton supercharged 289-cid engine was available, known as the R2, which was said to deliver some 275 horsepower from the double-belt driven centrifugal blower. Required was a drop in compression ratio down to 9.75:1 to allow for the 4.5 psi of boost the supercharger delivered. Engine size was slightly enlarged to 304.5-cubic inches for a handful of R3 engines built and assembled by hand, said to produce 305-hp from the factory but actually cranked out in the range of 400 horsepower using six pounds of boost. When ordering an Avanti, a buyer could get one equipped with a supercharger or with air conditioning, one or the other, but not both as not enough room on the front of the engine for double fitment of the supercharger and the A/C compressor.
The look of an aircraft flight deck
The interior was given an aircraft appearance with numerous toggle switches, providing the look of an aircraft flight deck. Highlights included a concave instrument panel filled with round gauges, six overhead toggle controls, a padded dash, a safety built-in roll bar, front buckers with fully-contoured seat backs plus a center console filled with a small package compartment and control switches.
A unique sybaritic touch of the dash area was the clever pull-out vanity case fitted to the top side of the glove box when opened, complete with a pop-up mirror.
The rear seat was a semi-contoured bench that was mounted three-inches higher than the fronts. The trunk opened via a remote control cable, located in the interior, providing access to the 15-cubic-feet of cargo space. An access "trap door" was added to the rear shelf situated behind the rear seat to allow access to the trunk.
The car fits a fancy and trendy lifestyle
The Avanti was introduced to the public on April 26, 1962, and had a base price of $4,445.00, and by the end of the model year, 3,834 of them were built. Had the release of the car gone smoother, in terms of cars being available to enthusiastic buyers, a lot more could have been sold!
The rear view shows the massive rear window glass, which was the largest piece of glass on any domestic automobile at the time, and the rear bumper features twin lower vertical uprights, fitted along with a valance panel that was shaped with protrusions in the same spots, all done to cover the area of the leaf spring shackles that were extending into the area. There was no budget to equip the car with independent rear suspension or switch to coil rear springs, so they improvised with the cover-up.
The minor changes done to the 1964 editions of the Avanti included the square bezels around the headlights a protective thin-barred grille for the radiator opening, restyled parking lights and chromed drip railings about the windows, and quieter mufflers.
On December 31, 1963, the very last Avanti was built by Studebaker and with the production being cut so early, there were just 809 Avantis built as 1964 models.
The Avanti did add some bright sparks to the Studebaker name, however, it had too many insurmountable challenges and it just wasn't enough to save the company. Critics said the money spent, could have been better on a proper redesign of the regular line of Studebakers, even though there was publicity on the sporty machine.
The "continuation" of Avanti
The Avanti rose from the ashes when it went back into production by two ambitious Studebaker dealers, here's a shot of one of the first to be built, and now placed between the frame rails was a potent Corvette 327-cid 300-hp engine. These "continuation" cars were built on the former Studebaker assembly line in South Bend, Indiana. Interiors could be any color, any combination of leather, cloth, suede, or carpet. The exterior color choices were anything the customer wanted.
Another "continuation" Avanti, with the front end sitting up much higher than anything from the first generation plus the fuel door was moved from the C-Pillar area to the driver's side upper quarter-panel. The color of this car up against the white surroundings highlights the asymmetric bulge that ran down the driver's side of the hood.
The front-end shot here highlights modern lighting and the addition of driving lights as accessory items, and coupled with the two-tone paint treatment, it clearly no longer has that simple flavor of the Studebaker and early Avanti II models.
