I have been wating a long time for my buddy to sell me this car. Back in the day when i was a young lad late 1960s this ran at are local track Fresno Drag Ways aka. Rasian City. There were always 5 or 6 gasser style cars there we called the the fast guys. Some injected some blowen some bouth. This was the time when gassers were winding down. But on with the story or car history as i know it. Anybody knows more please chime in. I dont know who originaly built the car when i frist seen it i beleve it had an old olds injected motor. I only seen the car run a few times with the olds motor. It seems there were some farmers that liked being the big fish in the little pond. The move was on to the big block chevy and the hemis. Poor little Stude with the olds faded away. Abought two years later new owner and a big block injected chevy it was back. Abought two years after that the track closed. When Fresno closed some of us made Bakersfeld are home track lol. It show up there a few times and the off to retirment again. A friend of mine that worked for me at my garage told me that a friend of his had just bough a 1957 hawk drag car. I had question him at the time if this was the car the had run at (Rasin City) Fresno Dragways out of Selma CA. small town near us. He said it was. His friend Vall a mopar freak put a 440 & torqflyte and dana 60 but never race it. Ten years later my friend Danny bought the car and turned it in to a bracket car. It has been rotting in his dads field for 10 -12 years. Lucky for me hidden from public view. Some of the things Danny did i would not have but hay it was his car. Here is what i have to work with. Built 440 single 4, msd ingnition, & dist. 727 built and B&M converter 5500 stall dana 60 486 & spool with strange axles. Front end is econoline with brakes it is adjustable i just looked at it a little seem as the shakles are stright out if i adjust these cant a leaver things i dont think it will help. I am thinking shorter springs. Ok Looking for Old owners these guys owned the car a diffrent times but lived and raced out of Selma CA. (Mcarthy) and (Ono owned a radiadior shop) in Selma CA. thanks jim
cool love studes especailly 53-54 the only thing id change would be the hood never cared for the large hawk grille but thats just me scoop is out of year for the car
I know the hood scoop has to go. But i havent been able to find any thing out there that would look good. Anybody got any ideals. Lets see what you got. thanks jim
Thanks guys but what the hell is a grumpys lump. Any pictures. Just put some air in the tires loaded on the trailer and got it home. Havent done anything but take the pictures and post them. Ive got the rear wheels an slicks in the deal. But think i am going with early tourk thrust. What do you think pie crust or wrinkle wall. thanks jim
-------------------------------- How about a hood scoop from a late-50's through mid-to-late-60's Ford "Super-Duty" series truck? A lot of guys used these scoops 'back in the day' - including Dave Koffel on his Studebaker Lark "Flintstone Flyer" gasser, to name just one. I'm not sure how much height you need for the scoop, but Studes have low hoodlines and if the approximately 3-inch tall Ford Super-Duty scoop is not tall enough in stock form to clear whatever you're running underneath it, you could raise it up as much as necessary by mounting it on a raised base. To show what I mean, here's a few pics taken during construction, of the homemade steel base I helped a buddy build to raise the '63 Ford SD truck scoop he used on his OT turbo-Pinto. He made his own air cleaner assembly that attached to the mouth of the turbo via a 90-degree curved rubber elbow. Due to the height of the turbo, the 5 inch tall K&N filter element he used, ended up going through the hood and sitting almost entirely above the stock hood line. That necessitated building a base - both to raise the scoop and to enclose the filter element. The base the scoop sits on was hand-formed from a 3 1/4 inch-wide strip of sheet steel - and the curved front section (ya' gotta' have some semblance of 'aerodynamics' don'tcha' know!) was made from a pair of 'support brackets' salvaged from an old household furnace oil tank! Mart3406 =========================
Hay i like that. How hard are they to find. the clearance thing is no problem carb sets abought 6" below hood and there is an adaptor to seal to bottem of hood. Next Question how high do we raise the front end. Yes we are just bench building at the moment. I know some of you guys got it rougher than we do but its rained almost evey day for two months. Well at least 40 days 40 nights. Or seems like it. Wating for it to dry enough to unload and get started.
-------------------- The scoops aren't too hard to find. Ford used them on their F-700 and bigger, gas engined "Super Duty" series trucks from 1958 through to about 1967 or '68 The best place to look is a heavy truck or contruction equipment boneyard that still has some older stuff sitting in the back rows. My buddy paid 20 bucks for his scoop, off of a junked '63 Ford F900 dump truck in a wreckers. Avoid E-Gay though. These scoops show up there all the time, but the vendors there, usually ask outrageous prices for them. The reason is, that Pontiac also bought this same hood scoop - minus the grill insert - from Ford, to use on their '62 and '63 421 Super Duty factory race cars - and every E-Gay vendor that has one of these scoops for sale - despite the scoop still having the dead-giveaway 'Ford truck scoop' grill insert still intact, of course lists his scoop as being a "super-rare, genuine Pontiac 'factory race car' piece"! The going rate seems to be about 100 to 150 dollars on E-Gay, or or 20 to 25 dollars in a truck or construction equipment boneyard. Take your pick! Mart3406 ==========================
There was gold Stude gasser at the Hunnert last fall. There some pix here toward end of album if you are interested it was pretty cool flickr.com/photos/pyrocars/sets/72157625129828420/
----------------------- Cool car, but the front end is way too high for my tastes...even for a "gasser". Love the engine 'set-back' and the Stude body lines though. Mart3406 ============================
Thanks for the scoop info. Yes thats one bad stude but front is to high for me also. Maybe abought 1/2 that. Rear wheels i am thinking 8.5 wheels with 31x11.5 or 12.0
It is a cool car and I agree that the scoop leaves a little to be desired. here are a couple of poor shots of the scoop for my '53. I am making it from the front of another '53/54 hood turned around backward. It no doubt isn't the best looking scoop in existance but it is what it is. Note please excuse the mess I like working in clutter it makes my day challenging.
Check out this one for stance. I scanned this pick from a dook bated 1966.The scoop on this one looks like a super duty or early t-bird to me.
Nice find. I drag raced a 59 Hawk at Lions, Irwindale and OCIR in the day. Was my first car. I'm finishing up my Bucket List Bonneville project this year and will start on my Bucket list Studebaker Gasser this winter. I will be building this 53 2R5 truck. I'll tow it with this cool Studebaker: Currently it is doing duty towing my current ride: I'll see you at the March Meet at Famosa. Dan
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