Studebakers Of Southern Oregon

 MY STUDEBAKER CHRONICLES Part 1, The Early Years

To tell the complete story of my relationship with 1952 Studebaker Land Cruiser 3H-Y5, serial #8229220, I'll have to start at the beginning, my beginning...

My dad used to take me to the big car shows in Pennsylvania when I was a kid growing up in Chatham, New Jersey. 

My first love at age 9 or so (1965), was Model A Fords. 

One of the first pictures I ever took with my little Kodak Instamatic camera with the little cartridges of film that I'd drop off at the local drug store to get developed was sighting down the radiator grille shells of rows and rows of Model As at Hershey.

But when I was 5 or so (1960), my babysitter, Mrs. Kelver, parked what I now know was her 10-year-old Comanche Red Studebaker Champion Starlight Coupe at the curb in front of my house. I thought the car was something out of Jules Verne and was enthralled with it.
That was the most exciting car design I'd ever seen and it remains one of my favorites...

By the time I was a teenage American boy in the '60s interested in cars, the memory of the first Studebaker I'd ever seen had faded into a subliminal one. 

But when I noticed some nice-looking Studebakers parked outside the local drug store where I got my Instamatic film developed and asked about them, the druggist said that they belonged to a guy who worked at the shop next door.

When I was 15, I got my first after-school job at Morty's Sports and Toys, the "shop next door" on Main Street in Chatham, New Jersey. 

The manager of the store, Morty's sun-in-law, was Marv Silverstein.

To all the neighborhood kids he was "Uncle Marv".

The outgoing Uncle Marv was very sweet to us kids and very cool at the same time. He wore striped bell-bottomed trousers, a moustache and sideburns. He loved us and we all loved him. 

 
Uncle Marv grew up in 1950s New Jersey.
Think "Lords of Flatbush" only across the river. 

His first car was a customized 1938 Ford coupe, by the time I knew him long gone, but he carried a picture of it in his wallet. 

I remember it originally had ribbed DeSoto bumpers. 

Marv would actually much later locate and reacquire that car and keep it until he died, updating and modifying it slightly, including adding '52 Studebaker tail lights.

In 1970, one could be a Studebaker collector on the cheap. Way cheap, even "adjusted for inflation"!
By 1970, only poor people and Studebaker lovers wanted a car for daily use that for some years was already no longer manufactured. 

But the Studebaker Driver's Club was established in 1962, actually before Studebaker quit making cars, so by the end of the '60s there was already a growing band of loyal Stude-Nuts scouring the countryside for cars and buying out the parts departments at closing Studebaker dealerships.

Uncle Marv had a like-new, two-tone blue 1954 Commander sedan he called The Blue Lady.

He had another, a Shoshone Red/Sandusky Beige '54 Commander Starliner that he had reworked with Hawk running gear (289, T-10 4-speed) and a GT Hawk dash and interior. 

This car was featured in the 1972 "third quarter" Studebaker feature issue of Automobile Quarterly magazine - which was actually a bound book, and a subsequent poster.

Marv and company with Elsie and The Blue Lady at a 1970 New Jersey Studebaker gathering.

Marv's '54 Commander Starliner with GT Hawk dash, interior and running gear.

Marv couldn't resist a deal and bought other makes of cars occasionally. 

When I started working for him at the toy store his commuter was a pristine blue and white '54 Plymouth.
At 15, I was just at that stage of dreaming of a first car. 

Somehow, while other kids dreamed of a Mustang or a Camaro or an MG, I had developed a fondness for big, black, late-forties/early fifties cars with visors and skirts, big, fat, down-to-the-road whitewalls and lot's of chrome bling.

One day in early 1971, Marv showed up to work in a black 1952 Studebaker Land Cruiser with wide whitewalls and only 23,000 miles on it. 

Big for a Studebaker but not like, say, a Buick. 

It had basically the same lines as Mrs. Kelver's Starlight Coupe only longer!
There it is, I said to myself, astonished at my good fortune or manifestative capabilities - I wasn't sure which, there's My Car!

He'd just bought it from the original little-old-man who'd purchased it new at the Studebaker dealer in nearby Plainfield New Jersey, drove it for a couple years, then set it aside for his daughter to drive. 

A few years later his daughter came of driving age and decided that she wanted something smaller and newer and with power steering and brakes. Especially after, on her maiden voyage, she backed the Land Cruiser into a fire hydrant. 

So, the car sat another few years until Uncle Marv came along. 

Marv paid the man $125 for the 19-year-old orphan that "no one" wanted, put a new battery in it and drove it home...and then drove it as a year-long daily driver commuter and to many long-distance Studebaker meets over the next year, racking up 40,000 miles in just that one year.

Elsie while she was Marv's daily driver. Note the snow and snow tires and the slightly bent back bumper from the original owner's daughter backing into a fire hydrant.
The Studebaker Drivers Club "We'd rather fix than switch" sticker on the back window is there to this day.

I made him promise to sell it to me when I was ready and he agreed to, for what he had into it and no more, and so I fawned over his car for what was to me, an excruciatingly long year. 

Meanwhile he replaced brakes, tires, belts, hoses, tuned the car up and I helped him replace some pitted chrome.

 

As a '52, the car wore the infamous pitted "Korean War Chrome" - "pot metal" with very thin chroming over an even thinner copper rather than nickel base layer, all coated with thick, yellowing and, yes, peeling clear lacquer. 

But in 1970-71 NOS Studebaker parts were plentiful, even chrome for '52s, then the sort of "forgotten year" between the Bullet Noses and the '53 "Lowey Coupe", and as Marv bought parts, I'd put them on - a lower grille bar and some grille "teeth", headlight bezels, fender ornaments, a trunk lid handle and stainless rear fender gravel guards... 

I also installed a turn signal kit and a radio on what was still Uncle Marv's car. 

Unfortunately, I only guessed from pictures at the location of the hole I needed to drill in the cowl to someday accommodate the cool reel-operated remotely retractable antenna and sadly, I've not been able to add that super-cool Studebaker option because the hole I drilled for Uncle Marv's radio antenna when I was 16 is about 3/8 of an inch off, to the rear of the very forward on the cowl panel position it must be to accomodate the AC-1389 reel antenna.

Also, under Uncle Marv's ownership of the car I began a lifelong meditative practice of polishing its black, single-stage enamel paint! 

When he got "Elsie" as we now called her, or L.C., short for Land Cruiser, the Jones Dabney Velvet Black enamel had faded to a bluish purple. But with lots of "wax on/wax off" the dead paint polished off and she got very black again!

In the spring of 1972, I'd saved up the $400 Uncle Marv had invested in the car and he delivered it to my house. 

I only had a permit so, for a while, all I could do was tinker and polish and learn to drive it up and down the driveway of the house I grew up in. 

It shared the garage with mom's '65 Riviera, the family car since new. 

When I got the car mom gave me a couple of "I LIKE IKE" buttons. She had worked for general Eisenhower the year my car was made as a personal secretary at the NYC GOP campaign headquarters. She had been a teletype operator, knew shorthand and was a lightning-fast typist so it couldn't have just been her good looks that got her the job but I'm sure that didn't hurt. I have no doubt that she flirted with her famous and famously charming boss. I grew up in a very Ike friendly household, with Ike's book "Crusade In Europe in the bookcase and mom's invitation to the 1953 inaugural on the wall next to a signed picture of the war hero and peace president. Had it been a couple decades later when the man of the house (my dad) was not so intent on being the sole breadwinner, and had she not wanted a baby (me) she might have taken the job in the president's administration that she was offered. 
I mounted the Ike buttons she gave me on Elsie's radio speaker grill and began collecting more Ike schwag, amassing more stuff than just for the car. More Ike pins, bumper stickers, an Ike necktie, an Ike tie clip, Ike cocktail glasses, I Like Ike sunglasses, gloves, scarves... You wouldn't believe all the various things. In 1952 nearly everybody liked Ike.
I would later (2012) meet President Eisenhower's great-granddaughter Laura, a remarkable writer, speaker, astrologer and defender of humanity as her great-grandpappy had been. In 2017 I helped her replace her car which had been totaled and had the opportunity to give her a ride in Elsie which had by then essentially become the "Ike Mobile".

Mom and me with Elsie right after I "took delivery".

Mom (exiting the family '51 Mercury) in 1952 when she worked for Eisenhower.

Elsie likes Ike, 2023.

I still remember my first triumphant trip out of that driveway. 

I drove it to school senior year and had some of my first, um, intimate experiences in the back seat.

I took a year off between high school and college, much to the dismay of my father. 

While he was in a large part responsible for fostering my love of classic cars, he couldn't understand why I'd want such a "jalopy", as he once called it, as a daily driver. 

Now I kind of understand that from his perspective...

Dad was a "Mad Man", a Madison Avenue advertising executive. By 1968 his company moved to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey so he couldn't just take the Erie/Lackawanna train + subway to work anymore. Moving up in the world, he got himself a loaded '68 Mercury Cougar XR-7 with a 390 cubic inch V-8, and the Riv bacame mom's car. 

By the time I took possesion of Elsie, dad had his second Cougar, a loaded '71 XR-7 351 with A/C, power everything, stereo radio.... 

Spring '72. Still no driver's license. Dad's Cougar in the background.

So, yeah, now I totally understand wanting your kid to have a car as safe and modern as possible, but having my beloved chariot called a jalopy stung.

By now though, I think I've had the last laugh, so to speak.

I got good at using the clutch and at operating the overdrive, a wonderful transmission. 

But I had yet to learn some finer points about perhaps when NOT to use overdrive.

My first mishap with Elsie came on a short drive home after visiting my friend Vic in hilly Summit New Jersey. Elsie and I were descending a fairly steep, short, residential hill that ended in a blind intersection. We were in overdrive-enabled free-wheeling when I felt myself push all the brake fluid out of her single reservoir brake master cylinder, and lose the brakes. 

I quickly accelerated enough to safely pull the "T" handle that locks out the overdrive with my left hand and pulled the pistol-grip parking, now truly an "emergency" brake with my right, and quickly downshifted into second gear. I ground Elsie's right front whitewall into the curb to come to a stop just before entering the intersection. Then with no hydraulic brakes we bravely limped to the nearest gas station (they all did repairs back in those days) locked out of overdrive in second gear using the hand brake for final stopping power. 

Coasting in to the station at about 5mph with perhaps by then, some warm rear brakes, my final super-human pull on the hand brake pulled the handle right out of the dash, frayed cable and all. 

The car jumped a concrete parking lot stopper and the right front bumper guard gently came to rest against a telephone pole, miraculously with no damage.

I'm class of '73 so that summer I'd planned a couple coming of age adventures for the month of July!

The Studebaker Drivers Club International Meet was held in the Air Force Academy parking lot in Colorado Springs that year on the 4^th of July and I made plans to go. 

Some high school friends, Frank and Janet (who I was crushing on, big time) hitched a ride with me. 

The first leg of the trip was from Chatham New Jersey to St. Louis and I drove eighteen hours straight with only gas, food and rest stops. 

Gas was 35 cents a gallon that summer and I made it all the way to Colorado Springs on $50 gas and oil. That's about $340 today.

Elsie's picture made it in to the issue of the Studebaker Club's magazine "Turning Wheels" that covered the meet, as did a panoramic composite picture of the whole assemblage of Studebakers that clearly shows me standing next to my car.

After the meet, fueled by youthful enthusiasm and the hots for Janet and armed with a big bag of marijuana I toured the state of Colorado, climbing Pikes Peak nearly all the way, visiting the Garden of The Gods, up to Boulder, over to Steamboat Springs, down to Silverton.
By the time I got back home to New Jersey Elsie and I'd traveled over 10,000 miles in under a month.

Garden of the Gods, Colorado 1973.

After returning from Colorado Elsie and I went on our next adventure.

Back in 1969, at age 14, I had no hope of getting parental permission to go to Woodstock but as I was about to turn 18 there was this other big music festival happening in upstate New York at a race track, a place called Watkins Glen, featuring the Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers and The Band. 
It turned out to be a lot like Woodstock - and it was even bigger.
I parked my shiny 21-year-old "jalopy" in the weeds off the shoulder of an access road and before I walked away in to the festival, I turned to energetically surround the car with a protective bubble. She was unscathed when I got back.

I remember really loving the music, especially The Band, and at one point I was enjoying a great view of the stage from atop a Porta-Potty. All anyone could smell was burning cannabis.

By 1974 I was a pretty serious young Studebaker geek and I wanted another one. 

A few months before I went to college, I bought a '61 Hawk 4-speed that ran great but had seen better days cosmetically. 

A previous owner had removed the big canted out metal fins and grafted on the short vertical fiberglass fins of the flagship '56 Golden Hawk. 

I gave the car a rattle-can white paint job that looked pretty good and I burned considerable bias-ply rubber as I tore up the streets in that car. 

At one point, the throttle stuck wide open after flooring the gas pedal and I went screaming through a red light in, thankfully, my then rather sleepy town. 

I had the front springs replaced and the handling improvement was dramatic. 

I wound up selling it after a couple seasons because I couldn't really afford two cars.

My first of three 4-speed Hawks, a '61 with '56 Golden Hawk fins.

After I gained release from my freshman year first semester interment in the "West Tower" of Ithaca College for the second semester in early 1975, I used my Land Cruiser to commute about 10 miles each way to and from Trumansburg New York where I and four other students had rented a big old Victorian gingerbread house. 

Elsie looked right at home in the old home's car port which I naturally insisted she have. 
I took a part-time job as an attendant and mechanic's helper at Barnett's Sunoco in Ithaca. 

Founded in the late '40s by Edward "E.J." Barnett, the station had become a downtown Ithaca institution on Main Street with his son, the generally jovial, corn cob pipe chomping ex-Navy SeeBee Rollie. The Barnetts were Chevy people and during my time there Rollie would acquire and restore a '55 Nomad.

Roland C. "Rollie" Barnett

One time, going home after classes, a very rusty '67 Ford Galaxie jammed on it's brakes for a yellow light right in front of me (I was following too close) and Elsie stuffed the Ford's left taillight halfway up to the back window. 

Luckily, the Ford driver didn't really care about his old rust bucket so I was off the hook for any liability. 

The impact took a chunk out of the right headlight ring, making a deep dent in the fender at the headlight opening, a buckle in the fender above the wheel opening, a slight crease in the cowl panel to the rear of the fender and making the right front door operation sticky.

At the time, I easily obtained a new headlight ring and for $80, I was able to get a new-old-stock right front fender, including the entire inner fender apron, shipped to my door from Newman & Altman who had taken over the factory's former parts inventory in South Bend and who were producing a few hand-built Avanti IIs at the time. A local body shop did a fine job installing and painting the fender.

Around this time is when, along with a '54 Hudson Hornet Special, a '48 Dodge and a rust-free, triple black $700 '64 and a half Mustang convertible, one after another, other random Studebakers began following me home or to the Sunoco station.

They were mostly cast-offs, freebies or parts cars, although at one point I had a '60 Lark VI sedan with only 20-odd thousand miles that was quite nice. 

One of the parts cars, a '62 Lark V-8 car provided larger later model Studebaker brakes for Elsie. 

I simply changed everything from the backing plates on out, refreshing parts as necessary. 

The drums were pretty worn but later I found some NOS drums. 

The only other mods I did to Elsie were a 6-blade fiberglass fan and a 12-volt deep cycle battery in the spare tire well to run what was then a kick-ass CRAIG cassette stereo with 6x9 speakers in the back package shelf. 

I put heavy duty adjustable Gabriel shock absorbers on the front to compensate for weakening front springs. I thought it was cool that the shock absorber part number also applied to early '60s Corvettes.

By early 1977 I was starting to get bored with Elsie and of being so identified with her and, as a starving art major college student, I wondered what I could get for her. 

I decided to offer her up for sale. 

John Hurd, an older man who operated an Exxon station in Ithaca expressed an interest in the car. 

It seems he had one new that got totaled and he missed it and credited the car for saving his life.

By now Elsie had 98,000 miles on her and I thought I was doing pretty well to get four times what I paid for her after 35,000 miles of driving her.

I took $1600 for the car and John took ownership.

What did I do with the money? 

Well, of course I ran out and bought another Studebaker - a beautiful black with red interior 4-speed '62 GT from John Paulos, who, like me, is still active in the Studebaker hobby, down near Annapolis Maryland. 

I had fun with that car for a few years, and I had one classic GT Hawk mishap with it where the unlatched hood came up while driving and got destroyed. It nearly, but luckily not quite, wrapped itself up so far as to dent the roof. 

When I sold Elsie to John in 1976, I never expected to see her again, but I soon discovered that he lived on what was then my commute to work and school in Ithaca from my new home with my girlfriend in Candor, New York. 

As I went by John's house, I could look in his garage door windows and see a familiar roundish black roof and know that she was safe and sound.

In 1982 I heard that John had passed away and shortly thereafter I noticed that his snowmobile and trailer, boat and trailer and pickup truck all disappeared from his driveway and so I stopped by to pay my condolences to Mrs. Hurd and to see what was to become of my old car. 

 TO BE CONTINUED...