About 20 years ago, near my house in Lafayette Indiana I spotted the unmistakable form of a 53/54 Studebaker Loewy coupe sitting on a slab behind a local business with a tattered windblown tarp over it, secured with clothes line. The first 50 or a hundred times I drove by it I said "I should try to buy that car", but did nothing.
I had been born in South Bend Memorial the last month in 1948. My dad worked at Studeys along with my maternal grandfather and one of my mom's brothers. I remembered fondly the 53 starliner v8 that dad drove when I was in grade school. I always regarded it as the best looking car ever built in the US and wanted one for myself.
One sunny early spring day I made inquiries about it and found that It belonged to an older local gentleman who was a very successful business man. He had bought the building as an investment and was storing the car behind it.
I contacted him and talked to him about the car.
No he was not interested in selling it.
It had been his car as a young man in Walkerton Indiana. It had about 135,000 miles on it and was a champion but he had replaced the thrifty flathead six with a big six from the 50 and earlier Commander cars. It had a three speed with overdrive, a floor shifter and still wore its original roll and tuck white vinyl interior. It was complete and pretty rust free despite a decade and more sitting outside. The exterior was off white. The tires were flat so it looked like a Bonneville record car sitting hunkered down near the ground.
For the next three years I courted the gentleman, sending him notes, Christmas cards etc. a few times a year always gently asking him if he wouldn't like to see his old car up and driving again. One day he called and said he decided he would never get around to restoring it so I could buy it. We agreed on a price and I bought it.
I was much younger then and had small children and much more car ambition than I had ability to follow through.
I put the car in the unfinished basement garage at my house. I know, you are asking yourself what the heck a basement garage is. At my house I built a semi detached carriage house with living quarters above the main garage. When we began construction, once we cleared the scrub trees and underbrush we found the hill where it needed to sit fell off dramatically and would require a full story of fill under the main garage. I knew from my work that a story of fill was equal to building a reinforced concrete floor and creating another level of garage under the main one, so that is what we did. But at the time I did not have the money to finish it off so it had no garage doors and no floor.
So I put the lovely Loewy inside the basement garage and began assessing its condition. The motor was stuck. I removed the spark plugs and filled each cylinder to the top with MMO and put a battery in it. Every few days I would go out and bump the starter a few times until one day it turned over.
Life intervened but the Studebaker filled my spare moment daydreams. I wanted to put in a (little Dodge) Red Ram hemi and build a nice driver from it. My long time friend Rick Moon cursed me for thinking of putting in anything except a Studebaker engine in it but I wanted the Hemi. I bought Dana 44 limited slip From Tom Karkewicz and a convertible x member to take the torque of the Hemi, but still had not found a Hemi. Finally I located one nearby in a small town which was owned by an older gentleman who had it in his shed... but before I could pry it from his loving hands it got stolen.
One day I went down to look at the low slung coupe and realized the storage conditions were damp enough that mold was growing in the car. Not really being in a position to finish my garage at that point I decided to sell the coupe instead of allowing it to become dilapidated. I advertised it and by and by a local fireman who was a gearhead bought it with the intention of making a Bonneville racer of it.
A year or so later I was talking to my buddy Rick Moon and discovered his teenage son Jesse had bought it from the fireman and was fettling it to drive. He did so and still owns the car, it having been his daily driver in high school and for some years when he was in the Navy. He now has a modern car which he drives daily but he still keeps the lovely Loewy coupe in driving condition. It still wears its original paint and interior.
The attached pictures are of a different car same year same model. The left picture is of a car the same color, but with the wrong hubcaps. The right picture has the correct 53 wheelcovers which are my favorite wheelcover of all time too.
Oh yes, the left coupe? That is ivory, the color Raymond Loewy painted his personal 53 Starliner driver.