Studebaker Avanti - An American Sports Car Ahead of Its Time

Before there was the Delorean, there was the 1962 Studebaker Avanti, an American sports car that was way ahead of its time. The word "Avanti" means "forward" in Italian.

Sherwood Egbert

In 1961, a new CEO with the unlikely name of Sherwood Egbert came onboard ailing Studebaker Motors in South Bend, Indiana. He was a visionary that saw Studebaker being labeled by its bestselling Lark, a family economy car. He wanted to jazz up the company image with a new sports car to rival Ford's Thunderbird and Chevrolet's Corvette. For a brief time from the late forties to the mid-fifties, Studebaker had achieved a "forward" design due to its European high-style Hawk model, designed by master industrial engineer/designer Raymond Loewy. In '61, Sherwood Egbert hired Loewy back to Studebaker to design its forward-looking sports car.

Raymond Loewy

Paris-born and Palm Springs, California-based Loewy had made his reputation designing a wide rage of products and product logos from Studebaker Hawks and streamlined locomotives to the Shell Oil and Lucky Strike cigarettes logos.

After Studebaker hired him back, Raymond Loewy assembled a design team consisting of Thomas Kellogg, John Ebstein, and Robert Andrews. CEO Sherwood Egbert gave Loewy and his team 40 days to come up with a full-scale model. The tight deadline was due to the fact that Studebaker was facing bankruptcy and time was running out.

Loewy rented a house in Palm Springs, the team went to work, and created the Studebaker Avanti full-scale model within Egbert's deadline. The full-scale working model was ready for production within the year.

The Studebaker Avanti

Loewy and his team were striving to emulate both the best of California car customizers like Big Daddy Ed Roth and the Barris brothers and best of the aircraft designers. The Avanti's sleekly designed fiberglass body was inspired by the usage of fiberglass body styling for car customization and for the Chevrolet Corvette. The body shape itself was inspired by aeronautic design more than automotive design. The car's interior resembled a cockpit, and the dashboard controls resembled an aircraft control panel more than the usual automobile dashboard.

On the race track, the Avanti bragged a 6.7-second acceleration from standing to 60 mph.

Unfortunately, Studebaker dropped the ball on its own production deadline. The Avanti wasn't ready for display at the big 1962 national auto shows. However, despite coming late to the marketplace, thousands of Avantis still were sold, but the final sales numbers were still not enough. Only 4,643 Avantis were built.

Studebaker CEO Sherwood Egbert, however, was still impressed by the strong public reaction to the Avanti. He told Raymond Loewy and his team to design four-door and hatchback models for "the Avanti II."

In 1963, Studebaker ran out of money and the Avanti II designs were scrapped before they could be turned into full-scale models.

When Studebaker folded and Avanti production ended, a South Bend Studebaker dealer named Nate Altman bought the Avanti name and continued to build small numbers of custom Avantis under the name "Avanti II" until 1985

Avanti Revivals

In the late 1980s, one of the original Loewy design team members, Tom Kellogg attempted to revive the Avanti, but failed.

In 2004, a car company in Cancun, Mexico attempted to bring back the Avanti, but the company's CEO was indicted in a multi-million dollar fraud scheme.

But, never fear. The Avanti may be a design idea that will never die.