I usually select a main photo that shows as much of a vehicle as possible (usually a 3/4 front view). No need to do that here. There’s only one classic automobile with this front-end styling: Studebaker’s advanced Avanti. In 1961, young blood was added to the sinking Studebaker ship in the form of 41-year-old president Sherwood Egbert, who thought he could save the Company. Egbert wanted a bold, stylish “halo” car to help change Studebaker’s image and also drive foot traffic into its dealers. Despite a lofty goal of 20,000 units a year, only about 4,600 1963 Avanti’s were produced and this is one of them. It was sold new in Bellflower, California (it still has the original window sticker), has been a California car all of its life, and has only had two owners (the original owner sold it to his neighbor about five years ago). This awesome Avanti is currently located in Costa Mesa, California, and is for sale here on Ebay for an opening bid of $5,000.
Based on the photographs and the brief information about the car’s history, the original owner had good taste, had the means (Avant’s weren’t cheap), and pampered this car for more than 50 years. The paint is Avanti Red and the seller says that with the exception of a blend on the right rear fender, it’s original. It’s a great color on the Avanti’s sleek lines and looks very presentable for its age as does the brightwork (mostly the wraparound front and rear bumpers as chrome was kept to a tasteful minimum), trim, tinted glass, and very Raymond Loweyish looking stylized full wheel covers.
I’ve always loved the elegant, European-inspired interior of the original Avanti. It, like the car’s exterior styling, has aged well over the past 60 years. The seller says it is original, and it appears in very good condition. I could only spot a few tears on the driver’s bucket seat that appeared to be covered with black tape. The padded dash, steering wheel, and aviation-inspired instrument panel and controls look very good. Avanti’s offered a unique Power-Shift Transmission (a $219.50 option), that Studebaker advertised as “another first from Studebaker….that performs as an automatic, but also permits manual shifts up or down by hand, at will.”
Another cool feature on the Avanti is their “Beauty Vanity” which has an illuminated pop-up mirror, makeup tray, accessory shelf, and a handy “beverage tray.” Power steering and brakes were also standard on the ’63 Avanti.
Under the Avanti’s front-opening hood lies a Jet-Thrust 289-cubic inch V8. The seller shares that the second owner had the motor and transmission rebuilt, had a new stainless exhaust system installed, and that the Avanti “runs and drives excellent.” Sure, it was too little, too late for poor old Studebaker, but their last-gasp halo car, the Avanti, was quite a swan song. Its styling was way ahead of its time and it still looks “modern” 60 years later. Given this cars condition and documented ownership history, this one will have no trouble finding a third owner. And, it’ll probably look this good 60 years from now, too.
That is a great color on what is a good looking car. Nice.
A wonderful car in all respects. One of Stufebakers biggest problems was they agreed to pay UAW do nothings tons of money and benefits. Greed killed them. UAW workers historically were overpaid and it shows today with more imports on our roads than ever.
Oh Good Gravy, Come Back To Reality If You Ever Have Been !!
The Pay The UAW received Generated The Economic Boom of the 1950s and 1960s !!
Cost Cutting, Poor Design and Low Quality Materials caused the Down Fall of The American Automotive Industry. The Right Wing Myths Have To Go !!
-Sarge
Where have you been frank?
The left now owns the unions.
Watch the fall of G.M
Such a SWEET vehicle!!! In 63 I was a mere12 Years old but at that age I was quite the aficionado of vehicles and this one caught my eye right off. I also liked the introduction of the G T O in 64 and then Chrysler’s Turbine all truly fine automobiles but simply by design and advanced engineering the Avanti wins.
Agreed, Harry; love these cars! Gorgeous design in and out, but the engineering was essentially a Lark underneath and hence obsolete in that regard. Stout, strong V-8 certainly helped.
When the Avanti was introduced the ‘62 Corvette was still being built and as much as I like them, their chassis was every bit as obsolete, but you couldn’t get disc brakes or a three-speed automatic.
Aucyion ended at opening bid shut down wonder if vhanged mind or someone bought sure was a beauty
Love these cars, I was 11 when they were introduced. 1 correction… the “Exclusive Beauty Vanity” wasn’t exclusive to just the Avanti, it was available in the Lark as well, but don’t remember if it was in the Hawk.
Thank you for your comment and correction. In Studebaker’s 1963 sales brochure, it was called “Exclusive Beauty Vanity” in the Avanti section. But, you’re right, “after further review,” it’s also shown and described in the Lark section and listed as standard equipment (and called Vanity with Cosmetic Tray and Mirror). It has been corrected and thanks again. I learn something every day here on Barn Finds…
Me too!!!
The Avanti is a modern classic by all accounts. One could say it was Studebaker’s last and best design (the 1965 and 1966 cars were third generation Larks that first debuted in 1964). Certainly a nice example.
I might consider freshening the interior with camel color seating and carpeting, though a purist might not like that idea. I always favored the 1963 ivory color (ermine white) dash over the 1964 color scheme.
Did someone forget to mention that the Avanti was the fastest production car of its era?
168 miles per hour by that gal…?
I’m 80 years old and I had many Studebaker vehicles…
These were very beautiful cars, but as nice as they were they turned out to be the final nail in Studebaker’s coffin. All the resources to build this could and should have been used to develop a modern car for the masses, something that could be sold in quantity. A modernized Lark and Hawk might have kept them afloat at least a little longer.
Terrry: I’m no Studebaker expert by any means, but I’ll disagree with you. Correct me if I’m wrong. Everything under the shell was pure Lark, so no development costs there. Studie outsourced bodies to a company in Ohio who would have been responsible for the molds. Whatever that company charged Studie would have been passed along to the customer. A ’63 Avanti was only about $500 cheaper than a same year Coupe de Ville. Could anything, including the Sceptre, have saved Studebaker? We’ll never know!
https://macsmotorcitygarage.com/a-brooks-stevens-masterwork-the-studebaker-sceptre/
Well, the frame was beefed up with a center X-member, used a few months later in the Wagonaire. The frame at rear was shortened and a unique rearmost crossmember used. Both engines were not straight out of the Lark; the supercharged one was a product of Granatelli’s Paxton Products division. Raymond Loewy was known to bill a lot–a lot–for his services and the Avanti was largely his baby. Disc brakes were utilized for the Avanti when they weren’t for any other ’62 model Studebaker. The automatic transmission used was specific to Avanti at introduction time. And the body supplier screwed up the bodies so much that Studebaker ended up building fiberglass bodies at South Bend. This is all very expensive stuff. I love the Avanti, but even my late Stude dealer friend said he wished they’d have used that money on the Lark and Hawk. He was a small-town dealer for 40 years (well, he and his Dad) and he said he never sold a single Avanti.
Gone with no bids
Some broker must have had a client.
Big fan of these cars. Bold thinking at Studebaker those last couple U.S. model years. I’d have to fix the driver’s seat, paint the wheels off-white as factory, and scrub those whitewalls!
Total Studebaker Avanti production was 4,600-odd, with 809 being ’64 models, so ’63 production is even less than the article states.
And with no grill, it will be mistaken as an electric car by the masses.
Ebay says is not active, removed by owner. No bids were received.
Always liked these cars. So many styling and engineering firsts as evidenced by the many cars produced by various entities after Studebaker closed. As mentioned by others, they put all their eggs in one very expensive basket. And the first few had production and reliability issues that didn’t help. BTW, I was 10 when this this car came out.
Listing has ended. This is in my backyard of SoCal. I would put off paying my 1/4lys to own this one.
I’m guessing that this example does not include the Paxton supercharger…
I was 13 when I first saw the Avanti introduced in the Fall of ’62 at a Farm Progress Show in Morton IL. I vowed at that time I’d get one. April of ’66, as a senior in high school I bought a lightly used (titled ’64) Black R 1/automatic, ac and round headlights. I drove the daylights out of it for 3 years before selling it. January of 2011, I got back into Avanti ownership, getting a ’76 Avanti II. In November ’14, I added an ’89 convertible to the collection. Today I’m down to just the ’76 which I have driven to Avanti and Studebaker meets all over the Midwest and East Coast as well as driving Rte 66 to Santa Monica. I will have the Avanti as long as I’m driving.
The Avanti shared the X frame with the Lark/Daytona convertible. While the Avanti used a fair number of Parts common to other Studebaker models, the Avanti introduced many new innovations for Studebaker that really ok meant limited sharing. The complicated Fiberglas bodies were cast in Ohio by the same outfit that did Corvette bodies but without the same level of quality. The Avanti was rushed to market on an existing platform-a 10 year old platform no less. Fastest production car in its day thanks to Paxton supercharging. By 64 many Avanti innovations were available on the GT Hawk and Lark class models.
The first 100 or so bodies from MFG were botched. Studebaker eventually built their own fiberglass body facility in South Bend. I had forgotten in my earlier post that the X-frame was shared with the convertible. The rear of the frame was shortened and a unique rarmost crossmember used, for Avanti. Studebaker President Sherwood Egbert wrote a letter to MFG’s president complaining of Avanti body quality and their not being able to meet production numbers they had agreed to. I’ve seen a copy online some time back and it was…cranky, LOL.
The text states that PS & PB were std on the Avanti. PS was an OPTION, not std. Not sure about the PB.
Power disc brakes were standard on every Avanti.
Found this online, from a guy who has a copy of a letter dated 10/62 from Robert S. Morrison of MFG, to a bunch of people at Studebaker. It’s interesting:
“The attached are notes taken by Morgan Martin and Warren Diebold at a meeting at Studebaker on October 19, 1961 when the question of an acceptable finish on an acceptable finish on the Avanti was being decided. After reading it over you can see how much more fussy Studebaker is, which fussiness is in no doubt justified for show cars, but which is costing us a tremendous amount of extra money per car.”
I don’t condone the finish of the Corvette and say that we should not make the Avanti better than the Corvette viewed last October
“HOWEVER WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS THAT OUR COST ESTIMATES IN PRICING THE AVANTI TO STUDEBAKER AS A FINISHED PAINTED BODY WERE BASED ON CORVETTE STANDARD PRODUCTION COSTS. UNLESS WE BACK OFF SLIGHTLY FROM THE STANDARDS NOW BE DEMANDED BY STUDEBAKER, WE WILL HAVE TO ASK FOR A SUBSTANTIAL INCREASE IN THE COST OF THE FINISHED PAINTED BODY.
However, we will do nothing on this at the present time except try to make a good body for Studebaker at a reasonable cost.
All capping was done by RSM on the original memo.
Had I have seen this listing when it came out, I would have been a bidder for the right and pleasure of owning this wonderful piece of driving the best car of that decade.