PIC: Something different #159 (8/2/2026)

Ah yes. LOVE it! A great choice John. What a beauty. Bob Jackman will have more to share with us.

@perrone1 Yes indeed Tony. Mine was a 1963 R1 in Avanti gold as pictured in the Wikipedia report with a doe colored interior. Studebaker only built the Avanti for 1963 and 1964 before selling the rights to the car to Newman and Altman who then named their version the Avanti 11 which was powered by Chevrolet motors. When I bought my car the motor was stuck but after many months of pouring Marvel Mystery Oil and transmission fluid down the spark plug holes and using a breaker bar to try to nudge the motor in both directions, I was  finally able to turn it over. I took a chance and hooked a battery up to the car and it spun over freely which was a miracle IMO. After a thorough tune up the motor ran beautifully as did the Borg Warner transmission. My car had factory A/C. As most probably know you could not have both A/C  and the R2 supercharged car because the A/C compressor and the supercharger occupied the same space. One of the biggest problem with restoring an Avanti that might have been used in salt country is that the frame rails, sometimes referred to as hog troughs would rust out. When I restored mine I replaced these with stainless steel which were available in the aftermarket. Another rust problem I had was that my car had sat outside for many years in the elements and the ashtrays on the back seat armrest had rusted out due to the flipper windows being left open. After much thought about where I might find replacements, one day i discovered that the ashtray in my 61 Corvette was exactly the same. Some unique things to the Avanti is that it had a built in roll bar and altimeter. The Bendix disc brakes in front let the car stop on a dime and the weight of only 3148 pounds made the car a real performer. The grill shown on the red car was an after market item as that did not appear on the production cars. The styling of the Avanti has always been controversial but the performance and handling of these cars was unlike anything else that was going on at the time.

Posted by: @bob-jackman

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@perrone1 Yes indeed Tony. Mine was a 1963 R1 in Avanti gold as pictured in the Wikipedia report with a doe colored interior. Studebaker only built the Avanti for 1963 and 1964 before selling the rights to the car to Newman and Altman who then named their version the Avanti 11 which was powered by Chevrolet motors. When I bought my car the motor was stuck but after many months of pouring Marvel Mystery Oil and transmission fluid down the spark plug holes and using a breaker bar to try to nudge the motor in both directions, I was  finally able to turn it over. I took a chance and hooked a battery up to the car and it spun over freely which was a miracle IMO. After a thorough tune up the motor ran beautifully as did the Borg Warner transmission. My car had factory A/C. As most probably know you could not have both A/C  and the R2 supercharged car because the A/C compressor and the supercharger occupied the same space. One of the biggest problem with restoring an Avanti that might have been used in salt country is that the frame rails, sometimes referred to as hog troughs would rust out. When I restored mine I replaced these with stainless steel which were available in the aftermarket. Another rust problem I had was that my car had sat outside for many years in the elements and the ashtrays on the back seat armrest had rusted out due to the flipper windows being left open. After much thought about where I might find replacements, one day i discovered that the ashtray in my 61 Corvette was exactly the same. Some unique things to the Avanti is that it had a built in roll bar and altimeter. The Bendix disc brakes in front let the car stop on a dime and the weight of only 3148 pounds made the car a real performer. The grill shown on the red car was an after market item as that did not appear on the production cars. The styling of the Avanti has always been controversial but the performance and handling of these cars was unlike anything else that was going on at the time.

wonderful contributions John and Bob. I swear I recall seeing one in Melbourne at some point but just cannot remember where or when. This makes it a unique sighting, as I thought more were around: Studebaker Avantis were never officially mass-marketed or sold new by local dealerships in Australia, as the car was only produced in the US for a brief period (1962–1963) before factory closure. However, a small number of original units (estimated at 15 to 20 cars) and later hand-built Avanti II models have made their way to Australia over the years through private imports. Surprisingly there appears to be a heavily modified version for sale here in Sydney.

https://www.carandclassic.com/au/car/C1915446

Question, preference for Avanti headlight bezels… Round (my choice) or rectangular ?

@100ford2003 how about one of each Steve? 🤪 Sorry! Round too.

@100ford2003 All of the 63s and the early 64s had round trim. I too prefer the round.

@sizedoesmatter Thank you John.

Another great writeup and info. Thanks guys.

@geoff-jowett Geoff, Thanks for the info and the link.

I loved that Studebaker Avanti and seriously considered buying one at the time. Thank you Joh for the post, Bob for the intimate details of restoring an abandoned version and Geoff for the Australian connection.