Automotive Exceptionalism

Canuck

With the appearance of Hot Wheels cars elsewhere on the MB, I thought it was about time that I showed my die cast model of a car that, to this day, is one of my favourite automobile designs ever. The book title is Cars That Never Were. This doesn’t apply to the Studebaker Avanti as you will see here. It did exist.........but unfortunately, not for long enough. The book pictured has a chapter on Studebaker prototypes that existed when the company folded. These were only “pushmobiles”, as none of them were ever produced. The designs of these cars is (in my view), stunning! This is a 1963 model. The Avanti was produced for the years 1962 and 1963.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studebaker_Avanti

Foo2rama

Avanti went much longer then that into the 2000's... That being said the original design looks great, the later ones (Avanti II) post 65 lost the purity of the design and never worked for me. The wikipedia for these is a mess... Avanti (car) is actually the Avanti II and the Avanti (studabaker) page makes no reference to the continuation.

Canuck

I knew of the Avanti II. I believe it was built using a lot of Chevrolet components. You are obviously more in tune with the differences between the Avanti and the Avanti II than I am. I wasn’t including the Avanti II production in the text of my post. I will edit out my link to the Wikipedia article since it seems to have bent your nose a bit. To me, the Avanti is still a beautiful design. The jury is out on how good a car it was, owing to production problems. Sherwood Egbert, president of Studebaker, saw it as the saviour of the company. Too little, too late.