You know what’s a remarkable car I think we don’t think about enough? The Studebaker Avanti. I think everything about it is pretty fascinating. It was the fastest production car (with the optional supercharger) when it came out in 1962, it was designed in a crash program where Raymond Loewy and a bunch of designers holed up in a Palm Springs house for 40 days, designing a fiberglass body to sit on a little Studebaker Lark chassis and cram a big V8 into, the resulting design was and still is remarkably original, and after Studebaker stopped building them, and even went out of business altogether, refused to die. It’s just amazing, so let’s just ponder it a bit.
As you contemplate that picture from a 1963 brochure up there, I’d like to point out something that you don’t see as much in car photography anymore: that brightly-glowing interior. I can only guess that they stuck a few lights on the floor in there, and hid the cables? Because that car is positively aglow inside. It’s like how every window in every Thomas Kinkade crap painting of a cottage looks like there’s a captive white dwarf star trapped inside. It’s a great effect when photographing cars, though.
You know what else I like about Avantis? This is a little detail, sure, but its one I like: they had a little trapdoor in the rear parcel shelf to give access to the trunk area from the inside. Most modern sedans have folding seats or a pass-through behind a rear armrest, but for 1963, this was a pretty big deal, I think. The little pop-up vanity mirror is cool, too, but I think more common in the era.
Another interesting thing about the Avanti: I think there’s a powerful lesson about the importance of bezels the Avanti can teach us. When production of the Avanti was stopped by Studebaker, the rights to the name and the body tooling were bought by some Studebaker dealers, who started production on the Avanti II, now with 327 cubic inch Corvette engines and some minor styling changes.
One of those changes was adding sort of cathode ray tube-shaped, mostly rectangular chrome bezels around the round headlamps:
I don’t think this worked, at all. The round, simple lights of the original Avanti design I think were just right, and this fussies them up too much, makes that clean front end feel cluttered. Bezels matter.
The Avanti continued on, improbably, later with new ownership and a new design from Tom Kellogg, one of the members of the original Avanti design team. A new ladder-frame chassis was designed, and there were now four door and convertible versions! Rectangular headlights, too, which worked better than the round-in-square-bezel one but still didn’t feel quite right.
Eventually the round headlights returned, on a strange, Mustang-in-an-Avanti-costume car, and while it didn’t really feel right, I’m still sort of amazed the Avanti mystique managed to take it this far.
There’s probably a deeper lesson here, but this is just a Cold Start, so we’ll investigate that later. Besides, it’s after 9 and I need to get this up!
Coincidentally, I started the week thinking about the Avanti, by adding a high quality, realistically detailed 1/43 scale model to my collection, and I’m lovingly gazing upon its Raymond Loewy-designed quirky but elegant lines as I type this comment.
I like the Avanti in as much as it’s a really great effort at making a Grand Tourer here in the US.
I would actually like to see The Bishop or Adrian take a whack at better integrating the front and back ends of the Avanti because these look like they belong on different cars.
The design process sounds remarkably similar to how some of rocks best albums came into existence…
The first Avanti was ok but had a lot of very awkward angles. Each version after that was like a bad photocopy of the previous version. By the time you get to that Mustang Avanti abomination, the only thing that remains is a blank face and a badge.
There was an exhibit of Mid Century Modern design at the LA County Museum of Art a few years back and the highlight for me was Dick Van Dyke’s cream colored Avanti parked on a shag carpet. https://www.fastcompany.com/1669155/check-out-this-replica-of-charles-and-ray-eames-s-living-room
There is the most 1960s sentence ever written. I’m surprised it did not spontaneously generate an Austin Powers-esque spiral time warp.
I once got to fight an Avanti’s engine fire at a Lemons race, so even though I liked them before, I really like them now.
The iron giant in the movie of the same name reminds me of the Avanti.
The interior, particularly the switches knobs and levers, never gets the praise it deserves.
I wonder if the headlight bezel change was in reaction to someone claiming America wants MORE CHROME!
An Avanit is one of the rare cars I have seen up close and in person. They really are great-looking.
The Headlight Bezel change happened in 1964 while Avanti was still produced by Studebaker.
Studebaker was one of the great under-appreciated gems of the time. They actually made a number of cars that stood out with a rare combination of styling, performance, and luxury. Remember the Hawk series?
The Avanti was the peak. It had it all. It was the kind of car you in which you could imagine Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin taking a fast drive in luxury across the desert to Sin City, arriving in time for a swanky dinner and night of fun, emerging from the car wearing a tuxedo with your partner in a long, flowing gown.
Cars like the Avanti fueled fantasies of driving. They were the American GT, our equivalent of Aston-Martin. They were the embodiment of the wonderful ad tagline for the Jordan Playboy, ‘Somewhere west of Laramie.’ They were cars you wanted to drive, that would make every trip a little adventure. Cars that made you feel special.
There’s no contemporary SUV/CUV box or soulless EV washing machine appliance on wheels that comes anywhere close to inspiring that kind of passion. At least not for me.
https://mailchi.mp/e01723fdd9d4/antique-autos-our-fall-show-cars-with-panache-oil-embargo
You mean you aren’t absolutely soiling yourself with excitement over Elon’s latest sex-mobile? /s
Teslas are the automotive equivalent of Ken dolls.
I’m just Elon
Anywhere else I’d be a felon
Eh, no thanks. I haven’t drunk the Tesla kool-aid and will never worship at the altar of Musk. To my admittedly old-school car tastes driving a Tesla or any EV is about as sexy as using a dishwasher. It might get the job done, but there’s nothing fun or exciting about it. It sucks out your soul.
And I don’t give a rat’s @ss about ‘but full torque at zero rpm!’ Can say the same thing about my washing machine.
On one of my more recent trips to South Bend, I did see a much more modern, probably Mustang, with an honestly not bad looking Avanti body kit on it of some sort. It was much better executed than the one you have in the ad at the bottom, though I was never able to find anything about it
The last couple years of the Avanti were just that – Mustangs they took down to a workshop in Mexico and slapped some new body panels on. Post 1985, when they finally exhausted the remaining Studebaker chassis inventory, the Avanti was based on a rotating assortment of GM and Ford platforms like the Monte Carlo and Thunderbird – with some Corvette components cycled in.
This is one of those designs that’s definitely timeless, by the 1980s, it was a solid 20 years old, but still looked perfectly modern. And I think it’s one look that was actually improved by later face-lifts, with the move to integrated body colored bumpers, rectangular headlights, and blacking out some of the chrome. Although, that might say more about the state of the car industry and car design in general in the 1980s than it does about the Avanti, not sure, maybe a 6 of one/half dozen of the other thing.
The driving dynamics apparently weren’t all that great, acceptable for the 1960s, but subpar by the ’80s, only so much that could be done with that hacked up 1950s chassis.
But, when Avanti moved to re-bodying GM platforms, it really just wasn’t the same car anymore in every meaning, the proportions changed for the worse and the interior dumped the ’60s Jet Age fighter plane cockpit look for an ’80s upscale kit car style that was an obvious downgrade.
Not as bad as what they would become when they resorted to bolting fiberglass front clips onto Firebirds and Mustangs, but a sign of what was coming
I remember the first time I saw an Avanti in person, when I was a kid in the 80s. I could not tell whether it was a new car or a classic car*. The dissonance kind of short-circuited my brain for a minute.
*It did not help when I asked my dad which of those it was, and he answered “Yes”.
I just bought my second Avanti so I guess I’m a fan. My wife and I have loved these cars since we were kids.
Also, pertinent to an earlier post about buying cars sight unseen, I bought the second Avanti and had it delivered while I was out of the country. Looking forward to seeing it in person for the first time in April.
I’ve come close on a couple of converts. But you are more than a fan.
I have always liked the Avanti, can’t afford it but like it.
I lusted after these as a teenager – maybe because I love the idea of a touring car (are there any new (true) grand tourers available today?), but also because at the time they were within a dream’s reach of being affordable – survivors/restored versions have become too costly, but at the time when you could buy an Avanti II new it was maybe more than a GM coupe, but certainly less than an Italian import – maybe less than a Corvette (or maybe not, for a variety of reasons we never spent much time investigating Corvettes in the 1980s).
I agree, the simple round headlights of the original Avanti are best, which just goes to show that the devil is in details of the headlight bezel, Bub.
The OG Avanti is one of the most beautify cars of it’s era. Yet, a few small tweaks and a few years later ruined much of the appeal. Too much chrome, the wire wheels, and the square headlights turned it into a parody of itself. This only becomes more apparent when you go to a Studebaker show and you see a Studebaker Avanti parked right next to an Avanti II.
Post-War Studebaker is really underappreciated for the sheer amount of design chops they had, in no small part to their collaboration with Raymond Loewy. The Avanti. The Lark. The entire Hawk line (GT Hawk being my favorite). The 1953-1956 Champs. All gorgeous.
I read that Avanti II ad in the Knight Rider intro voice “Michael Knight…” “Avanti II…”
If the original Avanti was an Autobot, it would transform to Number 5 from Short Circuit.
Johnny 5…is alive!
Okay, I’m not just trying to throw red meat to this crowd, but I think that Avanti sedan would look GREAT as a wagon. Give it a glass tailgate like the Volvo 1800 and “chef’s kiss”.
A wagon/shooting brake Avanti would be incredible. Go ahead and toss that meat to me.
Bishop! Bishop where are you when we need you!
Studebaker envisioned an entire range of Avantis (or Avanti-inspired designs) and there were sketches for a wagon done in the ’60s, would have been steel instead of fiberglass and also re-used the tailgate and possibly some side glass from the existing Lark-based wagons.
The ’90s Touring Sedan body was loosely based on Studebaker’s own drawings for a sedan, which, of course, had been done at the same time as the wagon proposal
I just Googled “Studebaker Avanti wagon”, and the 2 door shooting brake isn’t bad, bit the wagon version… woof. They needed to take a few more passes at that.
Signs of how desperate the financial situation was, they probably thought it would sell in too high numbers to make fiberglass practical, but couldn’t reproduce the swoopy, curvy shapes as easily in steel, and would have needed to economize on tooling costs as much as possible
Kind of like how AMC brought us the Gremlin economy car by chopping the ass off a Hornet, and then gave it the same I6 as their larger cars because the development of an economical engine fell through. They were trying to keep the lights on and had to work with the parts at hand.
Studebaker did the compact 1959 Lark by cutting down their 1953 full-size cars by just shortening the overhangs and cutting out some of the wheelbase in the front seat area, and then the wider Avanti was built on the Lark convertible chassis by just welding on some extra steel braces to either side to match the extra body width. Crazily, Avanti Motor Corporation continued building cars on a stockpile of NOS Studebaker convertible chassis they bought when the Hamilton plant shut down up into the mid 1980s
There’s a gentleman named Jim Bunting who had an Avanti 2 seater built on a shortened frame, it looks really good.
Here’s some Raymond Loewy designs for a 2 seater. https://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/forum/your-studebaker-forum/general-studebaker-specific-discussion/81827-two-seat-avanti
Torch, you should do a deep-dive on those kitty holes that connect the trunk and the back seat. Since I don’t ski, I use mine for two things:
As someone who uses an old-school, big, wiry antenna, this intrigues me. Please elaborate. Why would you need more than one antenna? Building a huge antenna farm to contact aliens?
Besides wrenching on hopeless cars, my other hobbies include TV antennas and genetic genealogy.
Since the digital transition, I’ve been able to receive OTA TV signals from 3 separate TV markets. This is because with digital, “just good enough” reception is perfect, unlike in the old analog days. I used to be able to get 4, but the frequency repack in 2019 took Madison away from me. I currently receive about 150 over-the-air TV channels from Chicago, Milwaukee, and Rockford, and they’re all on the same feed thanks to a fancy electronic box from Spain. Yes, some are duplicates and some are not worth watching.
There are also sub-hobbies like DXing (taking advantage of anomalous tropospheric ducting to target stations from hundreds of miles away), modifying factory antennas (gangs, stagger stacks, rescaling for the current spectrum, etc), and plain-old building one yourself out of materials available from a hardware store. There is an enormous online community on forums like AVS.com and DigitalHome.ca.
As for the garbage-picking, I’m always on the lookout for old antennas that are still in good condition. Even the ones that aren’t can be recycled for materials to support the hobby.
Tweaking an antenna system for the highest performance is very similar to doing the same thing on a car, it’s very satisfying when you get it right.
Well then on that subject what’s a good antenna that can still be hidden behind the tv? During the remodel we moved our TV 15 feet to the south and the little rabbit ears we had behind it suddenly can’t get crap!
Depends on your location and signal environment. The first step would be to move that antenna around in the room to find the sweet spots.
If you want more advice than you ever expected, first go to RabbitEars.info and do a “Signal Search Map”. You’ll enter your location info and the site will calculate the signal levels at your location and produce a report.
You can then go over to AVSForum.com and find “Local TV info and Reception”, then the individual forum for your TV market. You can post your report, ask for advice, and those nerds will pile it on like you wouldn’t believe.
Awesome, thanks!
Dammit! Where were you 15 years ago when I moved into my current home! There are several channels that I receive only sporadically. Sucks to record a show only to have it digi-freeze halfway through. Now we plan to move this year, so no point in investing time or effort into improving reception.
Must be nice. We live in a rather steep valley. In order to get any OTA channels they claim we would need a 265-foot tall tower for the antenna. And even then, we might be able to get 4 channels, with one of them being a duplicate and the other being a local public station.
Yeah, that’s a tough spot. You might as well just pay for cable or satellite instead of what that would cost.
There was a Studebaker dealer (back then a lot of stores had room for 2 cars in the showroom) within biking distance of our house. I remember heading over there to check out the Avanti, sitting in the driver seat and pretending to shift the 4-speed. It was a pretty radical thing for the day.
I know I’m a heretic, but this design has never worked for me. The proportions are off in mostly indefinable ways. There’s too much front overhang, and the whole thing just wears out its welcome by the time my eye travels the length of the car. You can chunk out sections of it and they look lovely, but it’s not cohesive.
I agree. Would love to get Adrian’s take
Or the Bishop’s take on a reinvention of it.
I came down to the comments to ask for an Adrian take, since this is a mostly loved design but the people who don’t really don’t. Rather like the E type actually.
Not a heretic. I’ve never thought the design worked. Paging the Bishop. Bishop, Autopian Design, White Courtesy phone.
Or do we send up the Adrian signal?
Why not both? Adrian tweaks. The Bishop reinvents. Of course, I am biased towards the Studebaker Avanti as-is, so I’d be more interested in seeing them correct the Avanti II and revival models.
Edit – I forgot The Bishop did some Avanti concepts where Studebaker saved itself using NSU rotary engines.
Me either. It’s an incredibly ugly, disjointed design.
It’s a Raymond Loewy design… And Loewy tended to go his own way in the face of more established design conventions. The Avanti is one of his designs that definitely pushes a few limits. It’s as much a collection of contrasts as it is cohesive. As in music — dissonance can be good, and is used to great effect in jazz and avant-garde classical. But it’s also not for everyone. I tend to put the Avanti and a lot of Loewy designs in that category. I’m a fan, but not everyone will be, and that’s OK.
Also, I tend to prefer the rectangular headlight bezels with the round headlights within. I think the original round bezels were intended to be a contrast to the otherwise rectilinear “face” of the car, but it’s a bit too stark. The softly rounded rectangular bezels create a sort of visual transition from the rectangular profile to the round sealed-beam headlights themselves. The 1980s facelift with rectangular headlights went too far — the entire “face” of the car becomes a monotony of rectangular forms.
But I’m just an amateur with an admitted affection for Loewy designs and the Avanti in particular. Let’s hear it from our Autopian experts…
The jazz comparison is an interesting take. Dissonance is a good word; I always feel kind of conflicted looking at it.
It also occurred to me that it’s as if Jaguar started with the 2+2 E Type. Interesting to think how this would have looked with the cabin sized for a 2-seater.
You’re not alone. There’s something about the design that has always made me feel… uneasy? I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something that just doesn’t work for me. If I look for too long I start feeling vaguely nauseated.
It was also in Gattaca as an electric conversion, are we in the Gattaca timeline?
Andrew Niccol’s EV conversions of old cars in his movies is just so wonderful and ahead of its time. The Charger Police cars from In Time are esp. cool.
You know goddamn well we’re in the dumbest timeline.