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I saw my first Avanti one summer in the mid-1970s when I was 12 or 13. It must have belonged to someone who liked to golf, because it showed up at the local par-3 course at least once or twice a week. Standing out from the rococo “personal luxury” cars surrounding it, the clean-lined Avanti was a jet-age marvel that belonged in the driveway of the House of the Future.

I immediately wanted it.

In 1961, Studebaker’s energetic new president, Sherwood Egbert, was working hard to turn the fading car-maker’s fortunes around. He retained legendary designer Raymond Loewy to style a new “halo car” that would attract attention. Forty days later, Loewy’s team finished their design. They called it “Avanti,” an Italian word meaning “forward,” and what they had designed was certainly going to attract attention.

The car was low and swoopy, with “Coke bottle” curves in the fenders and a short, up-swept tail. At a time when wide chrome grilles were the norm, the Avanti had nothing on its sharply-beveled nose above the bumper but two headlights. An asymmetric bulge ran down the hood and through the windshield to form the top of the instrument panel. There were no bright chrome side moldings, hood ornaments, or tail fins–just discreet stainless trim and modest bumpers. 

The Avanti was swank and sophisticated and had “space age” written all over it. It was a car for Mercury astronauts and Boeing 707 pilots and Nat King Cole. If Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore drove to a tiki bar for cocktail hour, they’d be driving there in an Avanti.

Egbert wanted to unveil the Avanti as a 1963 model at the New York Auto Show in April, 1962. Turning clay models and sketches into a production car in less than a year would be a challenge for any manufacturer. For cash-strapped Studebaker, creativity would have to make up for what the budget couldn’t provide.  It didn’t have the coin to engineer a new chassis or drivetrain, and it couldn’t afford to produce the car’s body panels in steel. 

The body would be made out of fiberglass to cut tooling costs, with fabrication farmed out to the same vendor that made components for the Corvette. The frame came from the Lark convertible, the suspension from the Studebaker parts bin. The only truly new technical feature was the Dunlop disc brakes on the front wheels–the Avanti was the first U.S. production car to have them. To mate the fiberglass body to the narrow frame, the engineers bolted wide steel channels (called “hog troughs” by Avanti fans) to the outer frame rails.

Inside, the instrument panel and console suggested an aircraft cockpit, a theme enhanced by putting the light switches on an overhead panel. The bucket seats were reverse-engineered from an Alfa Romeo Spider. In an unusual touch, the glove compartment contained a built-in vanity with mirror.

Though cobbled together in haste and on the cheap, the Avanti drove as well as it looked.  A base-model Avanti would go from zero to 60 in 10 seconds, a respectable turn of speed for 1962. Reviewers praised the car’s braking and handling. With its sophisticated looks and sporty performance, it was the 3-series BMW of its day.

The base engine for the Avanti was the “Jet Thrust R1,” a 289 cubic inch V-8 which produced 244 horsepower. Most buyers ordered the optional R2 engine with a Paxton supercharger, tuned by racing legend Andy Granatelli and his brothers Vince and Joe. The R2 produced 289 horsepower–one horsepower per cubic inch–and propelled the Avanti from zero to 60 in around seven seconds. An R2 Avanti could accelerate with the contemporary E-type Jaguar and Corvette Stingray, and outrun the 1964 Mustang.

The ultimate Avanti was the supercharged R3, of which there were two prototypes and nine production examples. The Granatelli brothers bored out the R3’s engine to 304.5 cubic inches and fitted larger valves and hotter cams. It produced either 335 or 400 horsepower, depending on whether you believe the official Studebaker press releases or later comments from the Granatellis. Whatever the correct horsepower rating was, an R3 could scream from zero to 60 in five and a half seconds. The prototype recorded a top speed of 171.10 MPH on the Bonneville salt flats, making the Avanti the fastest production car in the world. 

The R3 was a true fire-breathing muscle car–the swankest, most uptown fire-breathing muscle car ever built.  It was the only fire-breathing muscle car with a built-in vanity in the glove compartment as standard equipment. You could even order it in pastel turquoise! (Two customers actually did.)

Though an artistic and engineering success, the Avanti was not enough to save Studebaker. It was a little too radically styled for its own good, and the perception of Studebaker as a fading brand surely didn’t help. Full production was delayed by numerous engineering bugs (a consequence of the shoestring development budget) which led to canceled orders and lost sales. When Sherwood Egbert left Studebaker in late 1963 due to illness, the company’s newfound energy left with him. Studebaker closed its South Bend plant, and the Avanti model was dropped after only 4,647 had been built.

The story would have ended there but for Nathan D. Altman, a Studebaker dealer in South Bend with a great love for the Avanti. In what is perhaps history’s greatest example of car lust, he bought the tooling, design rights, and parts inventory from Studebaker, along with part of the abandoned South Bend factory, and started his own automobile company just to keep it alive.

From 1965 through 1985, Avanti Motor Corporation hand-built between 50 and 200 “Avanti II” vehicles each year. Customers ordered them direct from the factory. You could have your Avanti II painted any color, and fitted with any upholstery and carpet found in the civilized world. The build quality was, of course, superlative.

As Studebaker had discontinued the 289 V-8, the Avanti II used a Chevrolet engine. When the supply of 1963-vintage Powershift automatic transmissions ran out, GM Turbo-Hydramatics were substituted. In the early 1980s, body-color bumpers were introduced. Other than that, the basic 1962 design (with the squared-off headlight bezels introduced for the 1964 model year) remained in production–Coke-bottle curves, overhead switches, built-in vanity, and all–until the stock of Lark convertible frames was finally used up.

Even then, the Avanti did not quite die. Seven hundred or so Avantis were made from 1987 through 1992 by putting fiberglass body panels on Chevrolet chassis. A reconstituted Avanti Motors resumed production in 2000, fitting a modified version of Raymond Loewy’s Coke-bottle curves to a Ford Mustang platform.

Loewy’s design is now nearing fifty years old, but the Avanti still looks like a car out of science fiction.  Avantis have been cast as background vehicles in sci-fi productions such as Gattaca and the new Battlestar Galactica precisely for their crisp retro-future looks. Park one next to a 21st-century Camry or Taurus, and it’s no contest–the Avanti has them completely out-swanked and out-futured.

Once I learned that Avanti Motor Corporation was still in business, I spent much of that summer lobbying my father to take the ‘72 Ford Galaxie to South Bend and trade it in for an Avanti II. It didn’t work. Dad’s taste in automobiles didn’t run to exotic sports coupes.

I still want one. Both Studebaker Avantis and Avanti IIs show up regularly in the used car listings, and they’re not that expensive as collector cars go. The fiberglass bodies have held up well, but one must be wary of rust in the frames and hog troughs. If I ever get one, I’ll have to dress appropriately– Botany 500 suits and narrow ties–and rig a hidden CD changer to play Brubeck and Mancini, Sinatra and Nat King Cole through the radio speakers. Anything less … well, it wouldn’t be cool enough.

See you at the tiki bar.

The commercial art paintings and the uber-cool cocktail party scene (with Raymond Loewy and Sherwood Egbert making cameo appearances in the background!) are Studebaker promotional images found at theavanti.com, which also provided the interior photo showing the built-in vanity cleared for action. The brightly colored Avanti IIs (including the pink “Malibu Barbie custom edition”) come from the gallery pages at the Avanti Source website.

–Cookie the Dog’s Owner