To many, the short-lived original Avanti was one of the most unique cars of its time. It was a personal luxury automobile with a fiberglass body that was rushed into production for 1963-64 to help save Studebaker – which sadly it didn’t. This 1963 Avanti is one of just 2,282 that were built for 1963 and looks to be in excellent condition. It can be found in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and here on Facebook Marketplace where the seller is asking $47,500. Kudos to Dawson Hittle for alerting us to this find!

Studebaker’s roots went back more than 100 years. They began by making horse-drawn wagons and advanced to electric cars around 1900. The company soldiered on through two world wars but was in trouble in the 1950s even though Americans were hungry for post-war cars. Their merger with Packard didn’t produce any success but the advent of the compact Lark in 1959 helped them stay afloat for a bit. Sherwood Egbert took over the helm in 1961 and quickly went to work conceiving a new car – one that would become the Avanti.

Designers Brooks Stevens and Raymond Loewy came up with the slick styling of the new car. It went from cocktail napkin to clay model and production automobile in record time. That created some issues getting the car off the ground, with early problems arising with the fiberglass bodies. Instead of a projected 20,000 units built every year, barely 4,000 saw the assembly line in 18 months. The cars were powered by one of two 289 cubic inch V8, with the R1 outputting 240 hp while the R2 with its supercharger was good for one horse per cube.

The seller’s car is an R1 edition, meaning it doesn’t have the supercharger apparatus. But it looks like a beautiful car from head to toe. The off-white exterior is flanked by a matching interior, and we don’t see anything to complain about in either area. At 85,000 miles, this is either an awesome original or a well-done older restoration. It continues to support many of the safety features that Studebaker built into the car, such as a roll bar, padded interior, and door latches that became structural body members when closed.

Only 3,834 Avanti’s were built in 1963 and just 809 were classified as 1964 models. The general rule is that the 1963 Avanti had round headlight surrounds and the 1964 model had square ones. The car was rescued by two Studebaker dealers after the company went out of business. The Avanti II, powered by Chevy engines and transmission, would be built into the next century.