Over the past couple days, the internet has been doing one of the things it does best, showing the entire population the same pool of things so that if one thing somehow catches people’s attention, it snowballs and becomes a fixture, if only for a moment, on the human collective consciousness. That’s currently happening now – perhaps actually winding down at this point – with a fascination with a young woman and her emphatic concept known now as hawk tuah. It was so pervasive that I found myself helpless to fight trying to come up with an automotive tie-in, which you see up above there.
If, somehow, you’re not familiar with the hawk tuah phenomenon, then first let me congratulate you from waking up from your coma, which I’m sure was no picnic, and I suppose I can just show you the original source.
Here’s the video clip that started it all, simply a woman being asked a question, and answering with a vigorous honesty and an undeniable joie de vivre:Â
Yes, yes, sage advice for us all. Really, in many ways, this feels like a refreshingly simple and fun thing to go viral, just someone with an exuberant way of expressing herself and everyone was kind of strangely enthralled.
Anyway, if you don’t get the automotive version up there, I’m happy to explain: that’s a Studebaker Hawk, so, the Hawk with the TUAH license plate I hoped would convey the hawk-tuah reference. And, as a bonus, it’s nice to get people thinking about the Studebaker Hawk!
I like Hawks; they’re great-looking cars that had available superchargers and 275 horsepower way back in the 1950s. But I also have a sort of complicated feeling about them, because, as cool as they look, they’re also an example, I think, of how a design can get progressively ruined over time and everyone feeling an urge to needlessly “update” it and add crap.
See, the basic Hawk design started out as the Studebaker Starliner in 1953, a design penned by Bob Bourke, working under legendary industrial designer Raymond Loewy’s team. The car they came up with was, by 1950s standards especially, incredibly sleek and understated and elegant. Remember, 1950s American car design wasn’t really known for elegance or grace; this was an era when designers like Harley Earl would specify the amount of chrome trim he wanted to see on a car in terms of pounds. As in “add 100 more pounds of chrome on that.”
Here, look at this progression of the basic design from its introduction in 1953 (1954 one shown here, but it was basically the same) to the 1957 Hawk:
All these cars are based on the same fundamental body design, but things were added and changed over the years; look how lean and svelte that Starliner was at the beginning, and then you see how the urge to add more chrome, a bigger grille, side trim and so on crept in, until the Hawk design which added a huge central grille and hood bulges and tacked-on indicator light pods on the front fenders and, of course, huge tailfins. They just couldn’t help themselves.
Much like how the Hawk Tuah woman can’t help herself from spitting on that thing, which is also why Matt suggested we add one more automotive Hawk Tuah image:
You’re welcome.
Seconding those who want to return to their comas, ha. Especially since that meme wouldn’t have gone viral the way it did if it had been anyone other than a conventionally attractive young blonde woman *eye roll*
Could’ve done without that while sipping my morning coffee as I attended to the cats’ breakfast, geez. At least those Studebakers, including the baroque-fied reiteratins, are mighty cool so thanks, I guess?
*reiterations. Looks like my morning coffee wasn’t strong enough to make up for spell check being turned off…
Only this site could put such a spin on something so dumb. Also, I actually like the simplicity of the ’54, I’ll take that one please.
I feel like years of work and study to increase my knowledge and wisdom were erased by a 21 second video. I am now legitimately dumber for having seen that.
However, you’ve redeemed yourself with Studebaker material. I love Studebakers and like you, I think that ’54 is a quite attractive car from an automotive design era I happen to like much less than most people.
that 1954 must have been a startling sight on the roads of its day, given the drabness of most car’s styling in that time. It still looks darn good.
May I return to my coma? Please?
I think the ’54 with the ’55 body side trim would be a sweet looking ride. The ’54 just looks too naked to me. I don’t want the fins and big chrome grille.
A friend was restoring a 57 and we were amused to find out that they were too cheap to tool new fenders. The fins were riveted onto the top of the original style fenders and then the rivets were hidden with a bit of chrome trim.
Should have titled this Great Expectorations.
I’m just delighted to hear at least one young person knows how to drive a stick.
Many years ago I formulated the hypothesis that the first year of an all-new car design was the best because they had worked so intensely on it, rejecting lesser ideas and executions. Then subsequent “refreshes” came from those rejects. “Hmmm, I’m not loving this, Ed, but save it in the Maybe Later file.”
I think cost cutting happens over time. The used 1999 Grand Cherokee Laredo I owned was much better equipped than a friends 2003 model. Same vehicle, but without the incremental cost shaving.
Always loved Hawks, being from Indiana have a general soft spot for studabakers in general. The car lasted so long the design actually did get a bit better again towards the end of the run at least. Check out the ones built for the historic Pan-Am race, very cool.
My friends have hawk tuahed all over my FB feed for the past week but I haven’t had anything to contribute back to it, until now, I’m stealing that top image.
I saw a similar level of exuberance as the young lady when my Historic F1 friend drove a lovely Golden Hawk in the saloon car race at Goodwood Revival last year. “Tuah” was certainly one word that came to mind watching it through corners.
I have no idea what is going on, but in times of crisis I turn to Skinner’s reassuring axiom:
“Am I out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.”
Mother’s first job out of secretarial school was with Studebaker in South Bend.
But what did she drive?
A Corvair.
Would a Jeep Trailhawk serve as an acceptable substitute in a pinch if one was low on Studebaker Hawks?
Welp, my coma has officially been woken from. Thanks, Torch? lol
If I wanted to see what trash was floating around the Internet, I wouldn’t be here.
oh, sometimes you have to acknowledge the trash around you. Just ask an archaeologist; sometimes what we throw out is what is most revealing about us.
I think the Gran Turismo Hawk kind of walked things back in a good way, ditching the tail fins and adding the more modern roofline (and, eventually, a new trunklid). Might have still not been the masterpiece of design it started out as, but it did manage to look pretty contemporary for the early 1960s, did a good job hiding the age of the body within the budget limitations, a big deal when product cycles were more like 1-2 years instead of 5-7 (or 10-15, in the case of Stellantis)
When was boy, the man who lived across the street had a pillarless 1953 Starliner coupe (Nocturne Blue. blue interior). He was a Greyhound bus driver, and one day he brought home his GMC PD4501 Scenicruiser for the neighborhood kids to climb in and gawk over. A few years later I got a few rides in a ’63 or ’64 Grand Turismo Hawk (Velvet Black, red leather interior) driven by a family friend who was a Studebaker salesman. Those three vehicles set the standard for my appreciation of automotive design.
Well, I, umm, yeah… We’ll just go with that for now.
NO clue what you’re talking about, and the video link is “unavailable”. So, I will continue to live in my dark coma.
That Hawk is pretty cool, and this “viral” video has introduced it to me. So, I guess this was all a good thing afterall??
Video worked for me. Unfortunately.
Me too. Definitely a case where I wish I was still blissfully ignorant.
HUH, I guess I’ll have to watch it when I get home, then. Must be my company firewall?? They are normally there.
I would strongly advise against putting any effort into trying to watch the video. I would, however, strongly advise putting effort into avoiding it, as it will just make you sad about the state of humanity.
I’m just glad it was only 20 seconds long. And, now I get the joke.
If I spoke equivalently like that on video I’d get fired. Amazing world we live in now.
Years ago, I had a VW Thing I was selling, and I included the line “Buy this and you can safely ask anyone ‘Hey, wanna see my Thing?'”
Jason, you can spit out an article on anything.
He doesn’t want to blow it, though. Might lose his job.
While there’s not much excuse for the tailfins and superficial chrome, the larger central grille on the Hawk came into existence for a couple of valid reasons. Primarily, the higher engine output and optional supercharging on the Hawk needed better cooling — so a larger grille for airflow into the radiator was necessary.
The second was a little more obscure and may be partially apocryphal — But at the time, Mercedes-Benz’ entry into the US was via a partnership with Studebaker. The Hawk grille could have had any profile — but it’s said the redesign incorporated a bit of Mercedes grille proportioning so that when the Hawk — a “halo car” for Studebaker — was in the same showrooms with Mercedes offerings, there we be a sort of unified, cohesive family resemblance which was thought to be good marketing for both brands.
10/10 puns, no notes.