Wow! I don’t usually start out with the word wow but, wow! This 1965 Studebaker Daytona Sports Sedan is listed here on eBay in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, there is no reserve and the current bid price is $14,965. For the record, Hagerty’s #2 excellent condition value is $15,300 and I would not doubt if this one sneaks past that number in today’s crazy market. Let’s check it out.
Wow. By 1964, Studebaker production in the United States was done and had moved to Hamilton, Ontario for the final three years of Studebaker – 1964, 1965, and 1966. Then they were done. In 1965 for the Daytona line, the company offered the unusual Daytona Wagonaire with a sliding rear roof for carrying tall objects, and this two-door Sports Sedan, that’s it. The Sports Sedan had a vinyl top and the seller says that this vinyl top is original.
Speaking of original, the seller says that this car is “an original”, but then they list the things that have been repaired and restored, including new paint. I’m guessing they mean original spec, not original as in not having been restored or repainted. There is no rust which is a huge bonus. They say that it shows 19k miles and that may be accurate but they have no way of knowing if it’s turned over or not.
The interior is drop-dead gorgeous and yes, that’s a third pedal that you see. This car has a three-speed manual with a column shift. Can these perfect seats be 56 years old? It would be amazing if they are and they sure look perfect both front and rear. The trunk looks like new, too.
I have to go with original spec, this car sure looks as if it’s been restored at some point, doesn’t it? Another unusual feature of the Canadian-built Studebaker Daytona is that with US production being stopped, they didn’t have engines so the company contracted with General Motors to equip V8 cars with a 283 cubic-inch unit which this car has. It has just under 200 horsepower and this one runs great, having had many of the systems brought up to date. Any thoughts on this gorgeous Canadian-built Studebaker Daytona Sports Sedan? Wow, what a car.
So cool if only it had a manual transmission. Love cars with a red interior.
Look at the pictures. Three pedals. Also noted in the excellent write-up. That is a sweet car.
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This may just confirm my suspicion that no matter what the subject some people have to put in their opinion even when clearly they haven’t fully read or understood the article or description . With all due respect why can’t we just congratulate the seller on a vehicle that no matter what our personal likes are is in an unbelievably near perfect condition . This is in no way meant to be rude just pointing something out .
Now in all reality yes WOW this is a Beautiful example of a vehicle that has been meticulously maintained !!!! Congrats to the Owner !!!! I could only wish that I would be that meticulous .
Uh, alpha, I am no mechanic by any means but a 3-on-the-tree sure means manual to me. Being born in the backseat of a Studebaker I can’t help but being enamored whenever I see one.
I’ll give odds that this car is original. Look at the saging glove box door and the quick fix battery cable. Eather way AWESOME.
This car is beautiful! My first car was a tan with white vinyl top, black interior, bucket seats Studebaker Daytona, chevy 283 engine, automatic, in WA state Someone rear ended me, then the body man (brother) took off the front bumper and rear ended someone. Made me sick! I ended up selling it (so cheap) because i thought it would never be the same. I later really regretted selling it. I still look around for the car periodically. I always wanted to paint it a dark sparkly red. Glad to see this post. I replied bc looks like only members can post an original comment. Thx!
My husband was a car buff, as is my son, who was not yet born when we bought our Studebaker. He is on his way to pick up a 2008 Jaguar that he will need to baby since I am told that a snowflake never fell on it and otherwise was kept in a garage. He hasn’t the $$ to fix up the 1975 Mazda Cosmo his Dad decided was a good deal when it was new. My son even bought a second one for parts. The result is that I should have more knowledge about the 1965 Daytona we bought when she was a year old (named Violet because she was white). After driving a 1951 Plymouth with a manual transmission that my father bought new (guess how old I am) I decided we needed a car with an automatic transmission since we were now living in hilly Halifax, NS. Violet became my car. We lived at the top of a hill and one day on my way down my brakes gave up (no reason). Gearing down or using the hand brake didn’t slow me at all. I was about to intersect with another hill and I had nowhere to go but to continue my speedy descent. I thanked God that there was no traffic on the second hill and then visualized creating a major problem because I was about to meet a major highway. If I escaped that hurdle (by then I was flying) I would have fallen onto railway tracks. If they didn’t stop me I would have ended up in a large water basin that fed into the Atlantic Ocean.
When I was almost at the highway I noticed a clump of trees to my right. Then I heard my husband’s voice in my head saying if ever in trouble “Hit the Ditch”! Then a small gap appeared in that clump of trees which I neatly passed through and ended up on top of the stopping place for buses. I had not a scratch on the car. Then in my very fragile mental state, I was able to walk about a block to a gas station to phone my husband to “HELP”. Despite the fact that we ended up in a ditch with our two very young children in the back seat because my husband decided he wanted to participate in a car rallye I was sorry when the car was sold. The buyer turned out to be a nasty person who seemed to think he didn’t have to pay for it. In the meantime, he ruined the car beyond repair.
I have many more car stories that I won’t bore you with.
Thanks for the memories. (BTW, I had my 88th birthday yesterday. Somebody up there must like me!)
Scotty could start all his posts with “Wow”, because his choices are always “wow worthy”. It should be noted, this car has the almighty coveted overdrive, which will send this car over 100 mph, if need be. Studebakers days were numbered and even Mr. Ed couldn’t save them. Studebaker had classy some subtle features, like hill holder clutches ( a feature Subaru snapped up on after the patent ran out) and full length clutch pedal ( like IH), disc brakes, but the end was near. I read, aside from the many issues they faced, it was the name that always held them back. Just sounded old, and it was. Studebaker originally made wagons in the 1800’s. Another great find, and like the Kaiser, soon nobody will know what a Studebaker was.
You can’t fake original, and I’m pretty sure this is it (except for paint) . That interior is amazing.
You won’t see another one at Cars and Coffee, I remember seeing a picture of one, back then, but never one in the flesh, or steel. A good way into the hobby, you can get parts for the engine, the engine is powerful enough and with the overdrive you can do 75 all day.
And keep in mind that 3 on the tree was invented in the late l930’s to make more foot room in the front seat for the middle passenger. I drove my late aunt’s ’36 Chevy with the floor shift, with a very long handle, a little rubbery, and therefore a little slow to go from gear to gear, and three in the front, me in the middle between two adults for many years unitl I was 14 and too big to fit, but, was allowed to drive it on the farm.
A single stage paint WHITE car with 19k miles (or virtually any mileage for that matter) should almost never need a repaint. White paint holds up very well and if it should become chalky, just needs a polish. Looks like engine compartment has been spruced up too. Makes you wonder just how “original” this car is. hmmmm.
I will add the word Stunning to your wow. Love these cars, and this one is spec’d out perfectly. Someone is going to get a very nice car to enjoy for years to come for Hyundai money.
Very nice and rare. This is should be in the Steadybreaker museum in South Bend, Indiana.
I love these ‘orphan cars’. If I had 15 grand to blow, I’d buy it in an instant…and then start looking for someplace to live, after my wife kicks me out.
Nice looking car!!!!
Had a nice ’66 Daytona 2 door circa 1988. Read the ad that stated “283 V8” and knew that was wrong until I got out my parts interchange manual (an ancient JC Whitney catalogue). Sure enough it listed a 283 Studebaker V8 in an engine parts section. Odd…….the full gasket set has the same part # as a Chevy V8. Hmmmm…. Bought it, loved it. Eventually found an old geezer in a NAPA store that knew them and he taught me things like “Girling” front brakes from Jaguar, Ford-O-Matic auto tranny (or was it a Cruise-O-Matic, I forget). They are often called the Pontiac-Studebaker because the 283 built in Canada was built in a Pontiac engine plant. Back then Studebaker purists disdained the car for that, but I suppose you’d be welcome at a Studebaker event now. :-) Terry J
The “Studebaker” nameplate on the decklid doesn’t belong there for a ’65. It was in that lower panel, along with a “Daytona” nameplate on the opposite side. That placement on this car is from a ’64 Commander.
Minor maybe, but little stuff like that bugs me because (a) it isn’t hard to figure out, (b) the nameplates are readily available, and (c) it’d be a pain to remove the decklid nameplate so nobody could tell it was there, sigh.
The build sheet (‘production order’) has long been available for these cars. I’d like to see it to verify the white with white vinyl top, which is very unusual.
Not a Studebaker fan; they did themselves in for a variety of reasons having absolutely NOTHING to do with the name. That said, truly this car is a stunner!
Original or not, that’s a stylish car and I would drive it with pride.
It’s about the same size as the same year Falcon and Chevy II but to me the interior is better and I think the styling has stood the test of time better. Note the transistorized ignition under the hood.
Here’s another “Wow”. A sharp looking car indeed. I always liked the red interior/ white exterior combination. Friends of my parents bought Studebakers in the ’50’s and ’60’s and I remember riding in their ’63 Lark when I was about 4 or 5 years old. When Studebaker went away, they switched to AMC. I think they had a thing about rooting for the underdog. They had lots of AMC’s from 1966 thru 1987. Sadly, the friends have passed away and their cars are long gone, but I have a feeling they would love this Studebaker.
I.m with them, love Studebakers and love AMC’s. Both had great engines. The 258 six in my Rural Carrier was pure dependability even in Yuma’s broiling summer heat.
Beautiful Studebaker but what the hell is going on with that glove box door?
And speaking of odd fits, a lot of people may not know that the later versions of Studebakers had Chevrolet V8s, in this case it being the Thunderbolt V8 283 which was a Chevrolet-supplied unit.
Not at all uncommon on the ’64-66 models with this large glovebox door….sags after decades. Reminds me in a roundabout way, that Stude’s entire panel was padded vinyl, not padded on just the top and metal everyplace else, like everybody else’s at the time.
Would hope this car has overdrive although if it has hill hold that was part of the overdrive system, this would have to be one of the best Studebakers to come on the market recently, can’t see a brake booster which would tell me it doesn’t have disc brakes, although the Hamilton industries GM 283 should give reliable service for years
And, you might ask, WHY would GM and Ford (but their automatic was probably a Borg-Warner, not built in house), sell to Studebaker? Because federal anit-trust litigation was a real thing in the ’60’s, in some years of the 50’s and 60’s GM sold half of the cars sold in the US and Canada. It was self defense to keep the independants open to avoid being broken up into separate companies as happened to AT&T (which not only manufactured most of the phones used in the US by “Western Electric” but still owned them when they were in your house, you just rented your phone, much like you now do with your modem in many cases). GM, by cutting prices in half for a year in the 1950’s could have put everyone else out of business, and stayed in business itself.
While the styling of the 1964-1966 Studebaker was an improvement over the more antiquated 1963 and earlier models, they simply weren’t a very well made car. My Grandfather bought a ’63 and it seemed much more solid than the 1964 Commander that my Father bought new. The doors on the ’64 would not stay in adjustment and the passenger door would occasionally fly open on a left turn. The rocker switches were poorly designed. The seat upholstery was sub-standard and wore out quickly and the 6 cylinder was a warmed over 1940s engine. Rust was also a major issue as it was on many cars of that era back in the northeast but the body just seemed “tinny”. It just wasn’t a very good car and did not fare favorably compared to the used 1965 Chevelle 300 or the used 1965 Dodge Dart, cars in the same price range, that I had during the same time.
Funny. The rocker switches on a ‘64 were identical to the ‘63. It’s widely recognized in Studebaker circles that the ‘64 interiors were sturdier than the ‘63 and particularly the ‘62 all-vinyl interiors.
You nailed it, Keith. Studebaker made good cars in up to the early fifties. The Commander that arrived in ’53 had very advanced styling and a good V-8 available, but the rest of the car was substandard. Then the Lark came to “save” the company. Unfortunately it was a “warmed-over downsized” model based on the cars of the mid to late fifties and was a turd. An uncle bought one new; great V-8 engine but he soon discovered what the rest of the car was and traded it. Admittedly this Daytona was what the Lark SHOULD have been, but even then it was substandard. AMC, on the other hand, built VERY good cars for the most part until their demise.
In ’63, you couldn’t even get a Rambler Classic or Ambassador two-door hardtop. Not even a V8 Classic until mid-year. This while Studebaker was building Larks with superchargers, disc brakes, and sunroofs, not to mention Avantis and Hawks. Also, Stude was still building trucks in gas and diesel varieties up to two-ton size, as late as the ’64 model year. All things AMC didn’t even attempt to try.
Wilbur Post loved Studebakers! Of course, though, he was paid to.
I think one would be hard-pressed to find a 1965 Rambler two-door sedan that garnered the bidding this Studebaker did. I think this generally shows how all these years later, Studebakers are usually regarded higher than Ramblers.
And as for the competition, my mother, bless her soul, had a ’68 Rambler American Rogue, hardtop, red, with black vinyl top, V8, and it went very fast and handled very well. She sold it in the mid 90’s when she stopped driving to a guy who had stopped and asked if she were ready to sell, every three months or so, for about 5 years. Only the carpet (and wear items like tires, battery, filters, hoses, belts, etc, were not original. About 90,000 miles, did not burn oil. She bought it because she could see all four fenders – just about impossible with anything being made today except the Mini.
Perhaps so, Bill, but AMC was building very good cars right up to their end. They had very strong unitized bodies starting in the late ’40s; Studebaker never did; the chassis under that Lark, and the Avanti were antiquated at best. The same for their suspension systems. AMC had modern suspensions, the first automatic HVAC systems and the first automotive filters for them, in the early fifties. Both companies worked on “shoestring” budgets but IMO the AMC guys accomplished much more on theirs.
So now we are arguing over which dead brand amde a better car! Lets just enjoy old cars for what they are.
This banter is part of that enjoyment, MitchRoss! Friendly exchanges, opinions, and discourse amongst old car aficionados. Obviously this current topic is as moot in the long run as the dead companies represented.
Exactly! Come on guys. Enjoy them for what they are.
To John & Mitch, I wish everybody agreed with me on every subject, LOL. The Lark was a year ahead of the Falcon and 3 years ahead of the Chevy 2. It was a full frame (not unibody) and the ’66 Daytona I had was a good solid car.
Studebaker’s Hawk was a “Pony car” 10 years before the Mustang and the Avanti ? Nothing quite like it. :-) Terry J
Auction update: this gorgeous Studebaker sold for $22,300!
Not valve cover yellow .After market windshield washer bag should be round solid plastic jug .