STUDEBAKERS - A new challenge in Touring Greats?
The sonorous bellow of a V-8 engine always brings excitement to any historic grid - but this application is scarce in the genre of '50s Touring Cars - until now....................'Touring Greats' has long held a reputation for fielding 'left of centre' choices of car in both marque and model. Gavin Watson's restrained Borgward Isabella is one - Shaun Rainford's Kelvinator-inspired Nash Metropolitan is another. Roger Wills' Gaz Volga has to be one of the more extreme examples - and all the more delightful for it. But none of these cars run engines with that most elusive burble, which can only be projected by a true V-8. If one takes the view (or the HRDC Touring Greats regulations) that the car/model in question must have started out in life before 1960 with a factory fitted V-8 - the field of viable choice narrows by a substantial margin. Add the oddball factor and you could be forgiven for really having to scratch ones head in order to come up with an original answer to the premise.
So think long and hard on these criteria - rare / oddball / innovative / V-8 powered.
I think the answer may well be one of these:
And it appears that you do not have to travel out of the U.K to get into one; the boys down at CCK Historic have two! A President and a Hawk. Both are destined for HRDC Touring Greats Class 'A' - and both have an eye for an invite to the Goodwood Revival in 2014. Now this truly is a temptation well worth indulging!
http://www.cckhistoric.com/1955-studebaker-president/
This is a pretty thorough burn thru of actually raced in period Studebakers. The two entries that made it to Goodwood in 2014 were a 1965 Chevybaker and a Packard engined Golden Hawk, both beautifully presented, but the quick one dropped out and the other one was totally stock aside from its rollcage. I am hotlinking you to my site, Looking Back racing, where if you scroll far enough back you will find a couple of additionally raced Studebakers, among which is the Avanti powered Excalibur coupe.
ReplyDeleteOn the issue of 4.7 liters, that size only happened for the Sky Hawk of the following year and onward to the demise of the US brand. Only the 4.2 liter came during 1955 for the Commander, President and Speedster. As no visible clues to differentiate it from the 4.2 liter shorter stroke one, swapping might well have occurred. A similar looking lesser 3.8 liter smallvalve preceded either from 1951 through 1954, while a fascinating ultra short stroke replacement of 3.7 liters having the bigger valving and bore existed as a half year version in 1955.
ReplyDelete