1964 Studebaker Avanti Paxton Supercharged R2 Muscle Car Of The Week Video Episode #138

it was built in 1963 and it's got a Supercharged V8 what is it we might be stretching the envelope of the definition of muscle car as we look at this week's vehicle this is a 1964 studa Baker Avante wearing the R2 supercharged 289 V option now this car is very different not only in its styling but in the way it came to be and we think it's uh worthy of taking a look at a lot of times you might see an Avante like this and walk past it at a car show and I think the reason for that is because these things evolved over the years where you had the original production ianes made in 1962 and 63 and sold as 63 and 64 models and then studa Baker kind of took a dive so I think a lot of times people are confused by what they're looking at so they just kind of walk past them but I believe the early 1963 and 4 models are very special and very unique cars and when you start to understand the details behind them you can really appreciate how cool these things really were it's pretty neat to think that a car that looks this modern was actually done back in the early 60s it's got a flush mount glass cover over the headlight which looks like a modern car it's got this neat as symmetric Hood bulge which ends up going right through the windshield to become the gauge surround the whole body is made of fiberglass the rear window is flush mounted for better aerodynamics but one of the biggest elements is this is a textbook example of a coke bottle design the concept started when the new studa Baker president named Sherwood Eggbert wanted a Highline uh almost a GT car a performance car to be the flagship for the studa baker model line and stud Baker's had some pretty flashy cars in the past the Golden Hawks of the ' 50s and the GT Hawks of the' 60s but the Avante was totally different and uh stud Baker wasn't a very well financed company they weren't as big as General Motors or Chrysler or Ford so everything they did uh had to be kind of done on a budget so the chassis and drive line for Devante were sourced from existing parts the frame is actually a studa baker Lark convertible frame which means it's a perimeter frame but being from a convertible it has an xrace in the middle adding structural rigidity the front suspension is Lark suspension that has been enhanced with stiffer rate Springs and a larger front sway bar the rear suspension was studa Baker station wag and stuff so it had a higher rate rear spring uh and again some heavy duty Parts but when you put that all together you had a nice driving chassis to support the lightweight fiberglass body and here's where the studa baker leaves convention in its design and styling they hired a very famous designer named Raymond Loy to design the look of the studa baker of ATI and loie was very famous in the United States as being a guy who designed many very familiar corporate logos so when Loy got his hands on this thing he redesigned the studa Baker logo and came up with what they call the Lazy S design which was a very contemporary design for the early 60s and then he went to work on this car and his team did this whole car design in about 40 days and you can see it's very different from other early 1960s americanmade contemporary cars and when you start at the front of the car and go back one of the first things you notice are the headlights which are round headlights but they're flush mounted behind a glass cover which makes them slippery like an aircraft uh there is no big front grill grills on American cars are one of the prominent styling elements and this car it's gone the engine breathes through a slot underneath the front bumper so the nose is very very clean uh and speaking of bumpers the bumpers on this car are very lightweight they conform to the shape of the car and they've got rubber tips on the edge so that they were protected the car has a very unique profile uh the passenger compartment almost resembles a bubble especially when you look at the Fastback styled rear glass uh from the side of the car you can also see the unique unque wheel openings and they called these re-entry curve openings and it's interesting that they actually kind of curve backwards instead of Leaning forwards again something you didn't see on any other car of the time and even little elements like the tail lights wrap around from the backside to the quarter panel making them more visible but back in ' 63 and ' 64 uh the cars by law did not have to have side marker lights so this was a nod to safety the interior on this car is more like fancy Ferrari than stagi studa Baker it's got a lot of very elegant touches uh a wood grain console with some very light detail bright work uh a nicely accommodating dashboard with a lot of gauges uh a racy looking steering wheel and leather seats it's uh really an advanced design once again that complement the outside of this car and the controls rather than being switches uh have another aircraft inspired appearance as they look like the lever that controlled the ailerons and the flaps on a small aircraft uh even the dashboard had some aircraft inspired gauge design and at night these lit up red again looking like an aircraft so at this point we've got an interesting looking car that's got some Innovative manufacturing design and safety features but the reason why it's on muscle car of the week is because under that forward tilting hood is the supercharged 289 cubic in stud Baker V8 and stud Baker had an ad that said this would take off like a kangaroo with a hot foot when he stepped on the gas I'm not really sure what that means but I know that this ended up making 289 horsepower which was 1 horsepower per cubic inch which was pretty good for 1963 the studabaker 289 was a pretty powerful engine and it had been around for a number of years in its base nons supercharged version it made uh 10 and A4 to one compression had solid valve lifters and made about 240 horsepower but the Paxton products division was uh owned by studa Baker so they figured hey why don't we throw one of our dual belt driven superchargers on this thing and see what it can do the first supercharged studs came out in the ' 50s but by 63 and ' 64 uh this thing was making around 300 305 horsepower somewhere in that range but by the time they installed them in the avanes The Supercharged R2 engine was making over 289 horsepower and around 305 310 foot PBS of torque uh because that supercharger although they lowered the compression ratio to 9 to1 uh it boosted the engine by about 5 PSI so it made these things pretty respectable on the street and interestingly uh the studabaker ronti was the first regular production American car that had front disc brakes so not only did they want want this car to go fast they also realized it had to handle well and stop well so it was fitted with 11 1/2 in disc brakes in front and 11-in drums in the rear and it also had a 3.54 to1 Dana 44 rear axle so it was able to put that power to the ground this car found its way into the brothers collection because it's an outstanding example of an original 64 stud Baker uh they didn't make very many of these avanes uh I think total production was around 4600 uh in the 63 and 64 model years and this particular car only is showing about 6500 mil on the odometer and that is original actual mileage uh there's a sticker that shows an oil change back in 1983 when this car had already racked up 5,000 miles so we know that it's a legitimate deal it was a one-owner car before it entered the collection and today it shows a little bit of wear and tear but it is probably one of the best examples in the world of an original studa Baker Avanti that's a great [Laughter] burnout it was one of those silent burnouts that's going in ready [Music] so studa Baker took futuristic styling and modern performance technology put them all together and created the Avanti which in Italian means to go forward and you can go forward and sign up to our YouTube channel where you'll never miss an episode of muscle car the week and on our website we now have a forum where you can share your stories of performance cars like our studa Baker we'll see you next time time

Channel: MuscleCarOfTheWeek

Views: 268,267

Keywords: muscle car of the week, muscle car, 1964 Studebaker, Avanti, Paxton Supercharger, R2, The Brothers Collection, V8TV

Id: AnynfKKwE3Y

Length: 9min 37sec (577 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 20 2016