The supercharged Golden Hawk is my all time favorite Studebaker! The styling is unique and the engine is powerful. Earlier Hawks used a heavy Packard engine, so the lighter 289 was a welcomed upgrade. When fitted with a supercharger it put out 275 horsepower! Not bad for a car in the late fifties. This particular one has been parked for many years, but the seller has been able to get it to start. The brakes will need redone as will most everything else. It has been resprayed too, but that supposedly happened 42 years ago! It’s located in Cincinnati, Ohio and is listed for sale here on eBay for $13,500.
Here it is out in the sunlight. That old respray doesn’t look too bad! The seller mentions that there’s some filler in the rocker panels and the floors are clearly patched with license plates, so you will want to redo the bodywork and paint if cosmetics are important to you. I think you could get by using it for a while as-is though. It is ratty, but overall this car is in decent condition. I suppose it should be considering the seller’s decent asking price though.
The interior looks good with a bench seat and machine-turned dash. Notice the pad on the top of that handsomely styled dash. That may have been common practice in the seventies, but remember, this was a fifties car. I’d love to have one of these with a 4-speed, but there is no way I would turn my nose up at this automatic. The manual would just add a little bit of that sports car feel that Studebaker claimed these had. Marketing materials even suggested that the Hawk provided “sports car fun with room for five” and that it was “America’s only authentic family sports car”!
Pretty big claims there, but here’s the firepower to back it up. That Sweepstakes 289 V8 has a McCollough Supercharger strapped to it! To get everything to fit in there, Studebaker had to cut a hole in the hood and stick a fiberglass dome over it. I’ve never had an opportunity to pilot one of these missiles, but I have a feeling that it would not disappoint. Studebaker tried their best at combining European sport with American muscle. The result may not look like a typical sports car, but like the brochure said, this really could be America’s only authentic family sports car!
This is priced below market and appears to be a very good deal. Having worked on two Stude projects over the last year I can tell you I would have rather started with this one. I hope one of you guys will snatch this up! The 57 SC Hawk is one of the most desirable. I will have the 54 Stude hot rod ready in the next 2 months and I’ll post a picture of the finished car then.
I remember a friend with a Studebaker Hawk and a 289. The engine looked about the size of a 390 Ford.
Actually Dan, it looked like my 455 Olds V8, but was more in tune with middle 50’s Caddy V8. I actually used the 2-4BBL’s from Eldorado and it fit!!
Had ’56 Sky Hawk that I logged on 498,821 miles, a ’53 Coupe w/428hp 109 in 13 sec., ’63 and ’64 GT Hawk and also 1963 Daytona Wagonaire 289V8, 4BBL, Duals.
Gary Talbert
Westwood, KS
Have parts from ’56-’61 Hawks 4 Sale
I love those round gauges. Just like a real sports car.
I’ve always liked Hawks. The grafted on tailfins do nothing for me. But this does look like a good car to restore. I cannot imagine very many of the supercharged Hawks still exist. Stude did not make many to start with.
Licence plates used as rust repair panels for the floor, thats a novel idea. Haven’t thought of that before.
I too think these were the coolest Studebakers (with the possible exception of the Coupe Express trucks) As stated, this will need lots of work, and with the supercharger belt missing ( good luck finding one) that tells me the unit is probably stuck tight, and those aren’t cheap. Never saw an oil filter where this one is. And yes, there was a time when license plates did make a good metal patch, or exhaust repair. (old beer cans too) Being the ultimate miser, I’d take all the supercharger stuff off, sell it, and go for the economy version. Neat car just to cruise around in, not go 130 mph in.
Im with you Jesse, I have always loved these.
would love to take one with a working super charger for a ride!
Old school rust repair! License plates on the floor. Combined with Ohio winters and the obvious rocker and floor rust I’m thinking this is ripe for metal repair and a body off frame rotisserie. These weren’t unibodies were they?
Don’t know where it sorts out at the high end but with a supercharger it might be worth it.
Hey Jesse.dont want to be the spelling police but I think its “MCCulloch ” supercharger :)
The Hawks were body on frame. The basic structure of the car dated back to 1953. Stude never built a production unibody car.
Thanks Ed P!
…..except for those nine 2007 Avanti II prototypes… 2 of them were roadsters rigid enough to go the distance and not fall apart… Power and chassis were Chevy power and SAAB 9000 body works over Corvette sub-frame and suspension (remember SAAB was part of GM until 2008 and the failure of Bush/Cheney Economics)
I had a boss who had one of these , He used to take it down to the Air National Guard Base and run it up to triple digits . I was a class car !
My uncle was a studebaker man. He had one of these for years. Always had a soft spot for studes.
The Lady that lived next to my parents owned a Studebaker SC Hawk, when I was just a little lad, she drove it everywhere, she was a teacher like my Dad and Mom, and always went on vacation during the summer, and she always took her Hawk. I remember it was a pretty Gold colored, and she kept it washed and waxed all the time. She passed away while I was in High School, and having no family, she had named a co-worker to over see her estate. My Dad tried to buy the car, but the Couple who over saw the estate bought the Hawk and gave it to their son, he never took the time to treat the car the way she had done and it lasted a couple of years, and he wrecked it. What a waste of the beautiful well maintained car, Dad got so upset over it. Oh well we are talking about the late 70’s, when kids did not take care of the classic’s.
Found one of these in North Carolina in the early 90’s. It was all original and running. Just a few loose trim pieces and a cracked drivers side window. It needed a paint job but the guy wanted $6,000 for it. A bit too high for me at the time. I wanted to give him $4,500 but he wouldn’t budge from the $6,000. It was even the same color scheme as the on above.
Looks like my Dad’s. We had to sell it when he had a stroke. Both my grandparents worked at Stude as did my father and mother, and uncle. I later on worked at Allied Products, the company that bought the plant in South Bend. My Dad was a vice president there. Been around these beauties all my life…..
me too RJ ….my Dad worked at the Hamilton plant from 1947 to 1966 when it closed ,,,we always had a Studebaker in the driveway …love them !! I have now a 1961 Lark 4 door, 259 V8 Holly 4 BBL ,,,dad and I started it ..he died ..in 2009 ..I finally got to finish it in 2012.