INDIANA’S FINEST
THE AVANTI STORY
It’s sadly ironic that Studebaker’s most advanced car would also spell the end for the American manufacturer. The rakish Avanti coupe was ahead of its time in styling, performance and features but had only a two-year lifespan.
Studebaker could not keep up with the initial demand for the expensive Avanti, the base model of which cost more than a Corvette Sting Ray, plus there were difficulties marrying its fibreglass body to the chassis. Even with a second production line running to try to fill orders Studebaker was losing money and not just on Avanti.
So, production of Avanti and Hawk sports cars and Studebaker trucks ended at its South Bend, Indiana, plant at the end of 1963. The last Studebaker, a Lark sedan, came off the company’s Ontario, Canada, production line in March 1966. Only 4647 original Avantis were ever built and designated 1963 and ’64 models.
It was an ignominious end for a company that could trace its origins to a blacksmithing business in Germany (1736-50), its US beginnings in 1852, and production of its first automobiles – an electric car (1902) and a petrol-powered model (1904) – at the start of the 20th century.
In the US, Studebaker started by building horse-drawn wagons and celebrated its 100th year as a vehicle manufacturer 50 years before Ford, Buick and Cadillac did, but the company never had the marketing clout or sales firepower of Detroit giants GM, Ford and Chrysler.
The sporty Avanti (Avanti is Italian for ‘forward’) was to be the car that saved struggling Studebaker but even if it had stayed in production, the launch of Ford’s phenomenally successful Mustang in 1964 probably would have been the nail in its fibreglass coffin.
Stylistically, Avanti was the successor to Studebaker’s beautiful Hawk sports coupes of the 50s and its shape was the work of a talented team under design genius Raymond Loewy, a Frenchman whose company (which once included the great Virgil Exner of Chrysler ‘Forward Look’ fame) had styled Studebakers since 1938.