Customized '53 Studebaker Starliner "Studillac" Hardtop

By way of introducing myself, here's my latest completed project. Apologies to all who may have seen it elsewhere...



Customized 1953 Studebaker Starliner “Studillac” Hardtop
(More photos below)

Raymond Loewy’s design for the 1953 Studebakers was a radical departure from virtually any other American car of the period. Low, streamlined, and devoid of the heaviness of the new pontoon style bodies pioneered by Ford in 1949, it was an instant classic. But the near-perfect integration of form, line and proportion, and the radical simplicity which was so atypical of the period, made it terribly difficult to restyle successfully – most of these cars suffer horribly under the customizer’s torch. And yet, when AMT developed their 3-in-1 kit for this iconic car in the early 60’s they showed remarkable sensitivity and restraint and came up with restyling parts that, if anything, actually served to “purify” Loewy’s masterpiece, emphasizing its strong points. In doing this project I set out to take advantage of what AMT had given me.

The result is a car that looks almost stock but which in fact is pretty thoroughly gone over. The front end consists of the kit’s Custom lower pan and grill surround, the Custom lower grille and bumperette pieces, and the stock upper grille pieces. I chose to use the stock upper pieces because the Custom upper grilles were designed to match the lower halves exactly, creating the impression of a large, continuous opening. It just looked too big to me. The stock pieces with their thin chrome spears and turn signals in the corner served to define the upper half and lighten up the front end a bit. The kit’s Custom rear bumper and taillight combination is incredibly simple and a perfect complement to the rest of the design. It’s so “pure” that I left off the license plate, something I have never done on a street drivable car before. The only other accent was to include a pair of polished aluminum exhaust tips, to make a performance statement.

The whole project was an exercise in less is more. The two tone paint scheme actually was never offered by Studebaker who only painted the roof in a contrasting color. But the coves seemed a natural to emphasize Lowey’s masterful lines. As for the rest, it’s the usual Customizer’s trick of cleaning up the basic design – shave, french and mold.

Motivation is provided by a Revell Parts Pac 354 Cadillac V8 with quad carbs. This modification was a popular one in the mid 50’s because the Caddy mill was dimensionally nearly identical to the Studebaker V8, about the same weight, and yet put out almost twice as much power. Similarly, the Revell Caddy drops into the AMT Stude with almost no modifications. Studebakers modified in this way were referred to as “Studillacs”.

Below are all the details. Unless otherwise indicated, everything else is from the basic AMT kit.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

Bodywork: AMT kit rolled front grille pan, Custom lower grille and bumperettes. Frenched headlights with kit Lucas beams. Kit Custom rear bumper and taillights. All trim handles, etc. shaved and vents and gas filler lid filled.
Interior: Custom tuck and roll upholstery using styrene strip over stock kit seats. Steering wheel from AMT ’29 Ford roadster kit.
Engine and transmission: Revell Parts Pac Cadillac
Chassis: Lowered 2 ½ scale inches front and rear using kit front king pin offsets and lowering blocks in the rear. Scratch built dual exhaust system using kit mufflers, solder and aluminum tubing.
Wheels and tires: Kit supplied ’53 Studebaker Commander hubcaps with Cadillac crests from Revell ’49 Mercury kit. Whitewall tires are Modelhaus T-193’s.
Paint: Duplicolor Hampsted Green Metallic and Wimbledon White over white primer. Chassis finished in Testors Metalizers and flat black acrylic.

Man that's a sweet build paint job looks flawless and welcome to the forum everyone's real helpful and full of advice on here. Look forward to more of your builds

Welcome to the forum Bernard, Thats an extremely pretty model you have there, it's definitely got 'the look' 

A favourite of mine. Makes me think of 'Diamonds are forever'...Felix Leiter drove a Studillac, except his was a convertible. Nice build.

Great work on this , love the colour and the style , looks terrific.

 That's very cool    

 

mgy125 wrote:A favourite of mine.  Makes me think of 'Diamonds are forever'...Felix Leiter drove a Studillac, except his was a convertible.  Nice build.

He'd lost the arm by then hadn't he?

Good work B.

zenrat wrote:

mgy125 wrote:A favourite of mine.  Makes me think of 'Diamonds are forever'...Felix Leiter drove a Studillac, except his was a convertible.  Nice build.

He'd lost the arm by then hadn't he?

Good work B.

Yup...he lost his arm in 'Live and let die' when he got dumped into the shark tank.

Nice clean build Bernard, love the 2 tone look mate.

nice build  ......thought it was a leg he lost

dv8v8 wrote:nice build  ......thought it was a leg he lost

Both...and I quote from "Diamonds are forever' when Bond first meets up with Leiter in New York and discovers that Felix is working for Pinkerton's.

"The right arm had gone, and the left leg,...but otherwise Lieter looked in good shape."

Great stories...

A very neat simple build Bern, the two tone really works well too.

Thanx everyone. I'm glad your dig it!

The Felix Leiter thing is interesting, especially since you are discussing the books, not the films (where Felix remains relatively intact). Thanks to the miracle of the InterWeb I found some background on why Ian Fleming included the Studillac in his novels at the time. Apparently Fleming was spending a good deal of time in the New York City area, often staying with a wealthy friend, William "Billy" Woodward Jr, in the state of Connecticut, northeast of the city.

The Studillac was the product of a gifted mechanic and race car driver named Bill Frick. Frick was Brigg's Cunningham's mechanic and was instrumental in the engineering of the Cunningham race cars as well.  He had developed the Cadillac engine conversion as a business, first with the '49-53 Fordillac conversion and then the Stude starting in '54. His shop was based on Long Island due east of NYC. The conversion was popular among those with a little money who wished to avoid too ostentatious a car but wanted real power and performance. The Studebaker was ideal in this respect.

In any case, Billy had one of these cars, a convertible, and he and Fleming would gad about in it. Woodward was an accomplished horse breeder and the two friends would go together in the summertime to Saratoga Springs in northern New York state for the racing season. Unfortunately Woodward got into an argument with his wife, Ann, after a cocktail party one evening and she shot him dead! This was in October of 1955. The circumstances of the death have always been disputed, Billy's wife claiming that she thought he was a prowler and shot him accidentally. She went to trial and was acquitted but Billy's friends never accepted the fact and she spent the rest of her life banished from New York high society. In 1975, facing the fact that Truman Capote was about to publish a serialized, fictionalized, and (as he could do so well) sensationalized version of the scandal in Esquire magazine, Ann took her own life.

So... when the US printing of Diamonds Are Forever was published the dedication included "and to the memory of W.W. Jr., at Saratoga. 1954 and ‘55".

What Billy's/Felix's Studillac might vey well have looked like: