There's no way that I'd have the patience to wait for the next BO to start his project, and/or won't have the funds to collect the parts to finish it this summer, so it goes here all by it's lonesome.
So. While I may bleed Ford blue (I build Cammer's as my day job), in my heart I'm a Studebaker guy. I remember distinctly that fall day in 1981 or so when Hot Rod did it's review of the new Trans Am and described it as having 'the lowest coefficient of drag of any American car since the 1953 Studebaker' (or some close approximation, it was 30 years ago). I was laying on the carpet in front of the TV, looked over my shoulder and asked my dad how this could be? Fifties cars were big and bulky and square, or worse, with a bunch of crap fins and chome hanging off them. He gave me one of those 'no my son, if you only knew' looks and disappeared into the back room and returned with a stack of Hot Rod Pictorials from the 60's. We spent that evening flipping through the pages of Studes at Bonneville and I was forever hooked. Ten-years-old, and I was the only kid in town whose 'grail car' was not a Countach, but a Studebaker. I eventually would own a couple, a 62 Hawk which donated it's best bits for the '55 Commander Hardtop I eventually had to part with, but my lust for the Lowey coupes and Avanti's hasn't abated all these decades later. Financial realities mean I'm a Schwinn guy now, so here we go.
If you're not familiar with Raymond Lowey, he and his firm were brought in as designers for some of the most iconic American cars of the post-war period (he also invented that twisty thing in the bottom of your Chap-Stik,) including the famous 'Bullet Nose' cars:
The Avanti
So. While I may bleed Ford blue (I build Cammer's as my day job), in my heart I'm a Studebaker guy. I remember distinctly that fall day in 1981 or so when Hot Rod did it's review of the new Trans Am and described it as having 'the lowest coefficient of drag of any American car since the 1953 Studebaker' (or some close approximation, it was 30 years ago). I was laying on the carpet in front of the TV, looked over my shoulder and asked my dad how this could be? Fifties cars were big and bulky and square, or worse, with a bunch of crap fins and chome hanging off them. He gave me one of those 'no my son, if you only knew' looks and disappeared into the back room and returned with a stack of Hot Rod Pictorials from the 60's. We spent that evening flipping through the pages of Studes at Bonneville and I was forever hooked. Ten-years-old, and I was the only kid in town whose 'grail car' was not a Countach, but a Studebaker. I eventually would own a couple, a 62 Hawk which donated it's best bits for the '55 Commander Hardtop I eventually had to part with, but my lust for the Lowey coupes and Avanti's hasn't abated all these decades later. Financial realities mean I'm a Schwinn guy now, so here we go.
If you're not familiar with Raymond Lowey, he and his firm were brought in as designers for some of the most iconic American cars of the post-war period (he also invented that twisty thing in the bottom of your Chap-Stik,) including the famous 'Bullet Nose' cars:
The Avanti
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