Saved a Studebaker Champion last night...

Cool save!!!
In a former life I was a certified Stude nut.. well... "hotrodding stude nut".. I am very familiar with them top to bottom.. If there is anything you would like to know.. ASK!!.. The roof looks fixable to me.. I always had a soft spot for them with fuel injected Caddie's
Here is a picture of one that I owned in the late 70's..It is a 55 speedster that was built in the early 60's (Not by me) and was shown at our worlds fair in 62..

 

Sent you a PM.

 

Scott, good job saving that. It definitely is fixable, although a roadster style would be pretty cool, the example pics people made look great. I'll look forward to seeing it around town, I hope.

 

Neat car. I like them Bonneville-style myself.

Here is a friend of mine's, father's car. It was built in the mid 60s at the latest, and still runs Stude running gear. The yellow pic is it in its current incarnation with Salt Flat wheels and Hawk fins. The beach picture was taken on Daytona many moons ago. Very very cool car. Truck. Whatever.

That's a Triumph in the back...

 

That orange Stude with the heavy scallops makes me crazy. If that was for sale, I'd have to start looking for someone to take my Falcon off my hands. I have always loved that car since the first time I saw it. I don't know anything about it and the few pics I have are the only one I ever see.

 

I like your Studey find. I agree on the V8 switch over. Its ripe for convertibilism.

Score one for convservation.

 

great save. Leave that roof on it. The roof on those studes is what makes those cars so bad ***. Someone needs to post pictures of the slippery stude from back in the day maybe running a hemi recessed way back into the car.

 

Youre my ****in hero........way to go on the save!!!

 

Here's mine.
I haven't had much time to work on it this winter but I have tried to get something done every week so it's not a total stoppage.

 

Actually they did , or at least they made a couple of one off prototypes.
Does anybody remember the ARTICLE in one of the hot rod mags about 25 -30 years ago about the guy who found the place where Studebaker dumped all their prototype bodies when they were thru with them? somewhere around Great Bend in the woods, had lots of pics of stuff they built for experiments. There were a couple of 53 era converts in the hulks. I don't know if anybody hauled any of them out, but I sure would have tried.

 

Nuts can't get it to send .

 

Someone kindly post a pic of Jim Ewing's Stude, seen in the December '88 RnC! Man, was it bad!

 

I remember that car. It set the standard for me. Where is it today?

 

Funny you should mention that. There was a young guy at a Goodguys show at Texas Motor Speedway a few years ago with a 55 Packard convertible. I'm sure someone will correct me here, but it was one of the last Packards but the body looked like a Stude. By all appearances it was a factory convertible. He told me it was p***ed down to him from a friend of the family and supposedly it was a one off prototype. Neat looking.

 

I owned two of them -- one back in the late 50s and one in the early 60s. All I'm sayin' is TRY TO SAVE THE TOP. They can look sweet minus the metal top, but it's a ton of work to make it look right, and the original metal looks fine as is.
Beyond that, just the "Hill Holder" and the dash board make them worth saving.
The only problem (as I remember) is that they had a two-piece driveshaft that scared me for a Buick/Chevy transplant.
Hey -- later Impalas had the same set-up -- how much of a handicap could that be?

 

Those are cool cars. I think you can fix that roof. I'd build a bonneville car for the street with it.

My dad told me when he was a kid he remembers guys driving a '53 stude made convert to school on nice days, one day when it was raining the hardtop was back on. Sounded pretty cool!​

 

Wow, thanks for all the replies, guys. It's good to know about the frame being flexible, especially if I want to stuff a V8/stick shift in there.

I didn't know these were that popular, or rare. Kinda changes things, at least a little. I've seen a couple of these cars done in the Bonneville way. They sure look slippery.

In my mind, the roof doesn't look aesthetically pleasing with the rest of the body. I think it would make a killer convertible, especially lowered, and those convertible pictures did nothing but reinforce that idea. I do have the rear and some of the side gl***, if I do keep the roof. All the trim is there, even has the original locking gas cap, with the little Studebaker "S" on the lock cover. Too cool!!

I won't do anything to it until this Summer at the earliest, except maybe clean it up and out, and maybe try to pop that roof dent out using your suggestions. I haven't see any rust out at all yet, but I haven't cleaned off the floorpans yet.

I'll keep those of you who expressed interest in the car in mind if I decide to send it down the road later.

 

Yeah. I don't know what you'd use for a top, maybe a 47-52 Stude ragtop? The '52 hardtop gl*** and vents are close. They did build at least one prototype Stude ragtop, this body style, I've seen pictures of it in older issues of Special-Interest Autos.

Packard made convertibles through '56, went to the Stude body in '57, have never heard of a prototype convert version.

The neat car that came out of the proving grounds was a '50 or so woodie wagon. There were some similar-era sedans with flared fenders that were tire-testers, but not a lot of useable or desireable stuff - pics were also in SIA as I recall. Then again anything super nice they might have left out on purpose, too, I'm pretty sure I would have.

 

My Buddy built this 57 Hawk a few years ago, dropped the top and back gl*** down into the body, chopped and tilted A pillars back, cut windshield opening into the cowl and top so he could run stock windshield. it turned out beautiful, somewhere in the Phoenix area now.

 

Just my honest .02 here...that car loses it's "wind swept" look without a top. If the posts bother you that much (they kinda do me too) you can always black them out and make em go away. I agree with everyone else in that they are just too kool.

 

This is my 54 Champion, I haven't worked on it in so long it should probably just be called yard art.

Chopped 3" in front and 1½" in back, 57 Hawk fins modified and molded in, '65 Continental taillights frenched in, and 57 Hawk dash, I've got a Caddy 472/th400 to go in it.

 

That "funny looking" Packard would have been a 1958 Packard Hawk. www.packardhawk.com
They were built on the Studebaker line in South Bend, IN. That was teh end of the Packard badged cars. Studebaker did build one 53/54 Convertible. It was originally built as a 53 then was updated to look like a 54. It was a styling study that they had a local SB body shop do. The car still exists and I believe is now in CA. The Packard Hawk convertible you saw was done by a hobbyest in WA. I ***ume you are talking about the blue one? It was originally a HT as were all the Packard Hawks.
You did good in saving this Champion. They are becoming rather rare. There was a car built using the 53-54 Studebody by a guy in NY named Frick with a Cadillac engine. The Cad engine is very similar to the Studebaker V8 in dimensions. If I can provide addtional information please let me know.
Mike

 

Dont cut it man, its a gorgeous car as it is. Slam it, paint it pink but DONT CUT the roof.

 

dude that's crazy!!! MIKE COY was telling me about your car on saturday! small world.

 

Exactly what he said...its save-able.

 

put a cad motor in it !

 

the orange stude with scallpos all over actually belongs to kris' harness' wife kait. he found it in the trees in wichita ,she gave him the money and said go get me that car. it was already chopped and lots of other work. he painted it and did the layout. haven't seen it in a few years,kris doesn't do alot of show s or public apperances.

 

Or even cut the center part out and recover with a vinyl top? Oh and what about that red 55-57 back there?