Design
"The car's design theme is the result of sketches Sherwood Egbert "doodled" on a jet-plane flight west from Chicago 37 days after becoming president of Studebaker in February, 1961." Designed by Raymond Loewy's team of Tom Kellogg, Bob Andrews and John Ebstein on a 40-day crash program, the Avanti featured a radical fiberglass body design mounted on a modified Studebaker Lark Daytona 109-inch convertible chassis with a modified 289 Hawk engine. The car was fitted with front disc-brakes which were British Dunlop designed units, made under license by Bendix, "the first American production model to offer them." A Paxton supercharger was offered as an option.
The plan was to build the car bodies at Molded Fibreglass Body Co., at Ashtabula, Ohio, the same company that built the fibreglass panels for the Chevrolet Corvette back in 1953. Egbert planned to sell 20,000 Avantis in 1962, but could build only 1,200.
Read more about this topic: Studebaker Avanti
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