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