1941 Studebaker Champion

South Bend, Indiana

6/20/2007 to 6/22/2007

For the first time we made the trek to a SDC club meet. I
left the car at home (I freely admit my cowardice) but we did get to
see a lot of Studebakers. The icing on the cake was the meet
being held in
South Bend.
This is where Studebaker was headquartered and where my car was
built.

 

The meet lasted a week but I was mainly interested in the concours and swap meet so we came for the last couple of days. A full week of this stuff would have sent my wife and kids over the edge of madness. We also scored admission to the new Studebaker Museum for the week of the meet. Since the signup was at the museum we hit that first.

Here is the oldest known Studebaker gasoline-powered car
in the world. 1904! Of course the wagons went
back into the 1800’s but I only have room for REAL cars.

I
guess if you show the oldest you have to show the newest.
This is the absolute last Studebaker ever to roll of the
production line. This Cruiser was built March 17, 1966
in Canada.

There
were hundreds of cars at the show. Since I have
41 I am going to favor those. Here is a very
nice 41 Skyway President. This car is very, very long
(18′ or so) and has a huge in-line 8 cylinder engine.

Check
out this 1941 Commander. I wish I had his
chrome.

 

There
were no 41 Champions at the show. But there was a very
nice 39. This was the first year for the Champion.

Note the lack of sealed-beam headlights and the running
boards.

Studebaker
would have been a worthwhile car company if the Coupe
Express pickup was the only vehicle they ever built.
This near-perfect example shows why.

 

During
the war Studebaker mostly made Wright aircraft engines under
license. But they also built the

M29 Weasel. This light amphibious vehicle used the
engine and other parts from my car. It is about the
same size as a Jeep but the tracks up the cool factor.

I really hoped to see one run at the meet. But the two
I saw were both parked.

 

Here
is something you don’t see every day. These very
short-wheelbase trucks were built to deliver mobile homes
without exceeding load-length limits. There were two
of these at the show.

 

Oh
yeah, it was a Packard show as well. Packard and
Studebaker merged

with disastrous results in 1954. This Packard taxi has
the meter and everything.

 

I
also took some pictures of the remaining Studebaker factory buildings in
South Bend. There is a map
at
this site. This is Body Assembly Building (84 on the map).

It is intact but I heard it is due to be demolished soon.

Here
is the Administration Building (62 on the
map).
This shot shows the CEO’s office in the corner facing the plant complex.
This building is about to be renovated into office space.

This
terra-cotta logo is on the top of the Engineering building (92 on the ).
A parts vendor (SASCO)
is in this building now.

The
Foundry building (85 on the map)is about to fall down and will probably be
demolished soon.