Studebaker Lives!!!!!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Well, at least it’s in the early stages of a revival attempt as a big ass SUV! It’s being done by the guy who’s building the new Avanti’s, so he might be able to pull it off. Gotta wonder if he won’t try and buy the guy who’s trying to revive Packard.

Somebody give me a couple of million, will ya? I’d like to try my hand at building Tucker’s!

2

That reminds me of a bumper sticker I once saw:

THE LARGER THE SUV
THE SMALLER THE PENIS

'Nuff said.

3

Wow. That is a really unattractive vehicle.

4

That thing is even uglier than the Honda Element :stuck_out_tongue:

5

It won’t survive. It’ll be seen as an underfunded catch-up attempt to cash in on a fad that is reaching its peak of popularity. The original Avanti, which sustains the memories of the Studebaker name, was one of the most un-SUV-like vehicles imaginable, and wasn’t trying to catch up to anything.

The original civilian Hummer could get away with being a Hummer because it was based on a geuine military vehicle. The H2, at least, can bask in brand-linkage. This thing, on the other hand, appears to be trying to rip off the Hummer look.

Buh bye.

If I had a few tens of millions to spare, Tuckerfan, I’d back you in that revival attempt. :slight_smile:

6

That Avanti is obviously a reworked Camaro. Good luck with that. And the Studebaker looked like the offspring of a hummer and an old military truck (not a compliment).

7

Oh, the company doesn’t hide the fact that they rework the Camaro for the Avanti. There’s some horsepower modifications along with the cosmetic changes, but the redesign was done by one of the members of the team which designed the original Avanti. Plus, Panoz has been building high performance cars which are little more than reworked Mustangs. Saleen also has had some success doing the same thing, so it’s not entirely unusual.

The big question is if he’ll be able to keep the operation going now that GMs killed the Camaro. And yeah, the Studebaker’s an ugly thing, but that seems to be an increasing problem with the automotive industry, so you can’t blame the guy for wanting to blend in a bit. (Though, he’d have been better off basing it on some of Studebaker’s actual truck designs.)

8

Not at all. The Avanti was first designed in 1961 by Raymond Loewy, one of the greatest 20th Century industrial designers, as a last-ditch effort to save the Studebaker Corp. The company went under anyway, but the design, as you can see from photos and drawings has survived to today.