One of just 4,507 Hawks built in the 1960 model year
Exceptional design by Raymond Loewy Associates
Preserved in absolutely exceptional original condition
Perhaps the best-preserved Studebaker in the world
Owned for 45 years by the second of only four owners
There was always something slightly different about a Studebaker. Perhaps that was because it had to set itself apart from Detroit’s Big Three. From the mid-1950s onwards, however, much of it was also down to Raymond Loewy. The team surrounding the Paris-born industrial designer of Austrian descent was responsible for giving the new Studebakers their low-slung lines and an almost European appearance. Within Loewy’s firm, Robert Bourke took the leading role in designing the Hawk family introduced for 1956, based on the platform of the 1953 coupés. The distinctive shape appeared as the pillared Power and Flight Hawk and, without B-pillars, as the Golden and Sky Hawk. The Golden Hawk also stood out with its tailfins. Four engines were available: three V8s and a six-cylinder.
Flight Hawk, Power Hawk, Sky Hawk and Golden Hawk covered different price and performance classes. But Studebaker had to economise. The company had been losing money for years and could no longer afford such diversity in the species. By 1959, only the Silver Hawk remained, a pillared coupé. The economies appeared to be working: that same year Studebaker returned to the black for the first time in years. With strikes looming in America’s steel industry, the belt was tightened still further for 1960. Just one model remained, now known simply as the Hawk, and only one engine was left to choose from – or rather, to make do with. The 4.7-litre V8 produced 228 bhp and had little difficulty with the comparatively compact Studebaker. Its victory in the 1960 Mobil Economy Run therefore came as no great surprise.
The handsome coupé was no sports car, but it made a decidedly brisk American grand tourer. There was room for four, a useful boot and enough comfort for long journeys. By 1960, the Hawk seemed almost an antidote to Detroit’s ever more enormous land yachts. It was lower, slimmer and more restrained – by American standards, at least. Its basic shape was already seven years old, yet still looked remarkably fresh. That was perhaps its greatest virtue: Studebaker had made a virtue of necessity and continued to refine a good design rather than reinventing itself every year.
This Studebaker Hawk dates from the 1960 model year and it is not merely its unusual design that makes it such a fascinating motor car. What stands before us today is a 66-year-old Studebaker on which time has left remarkably little trace. The original paint, never resprayed, still gleams a deep black, while the equally original red interior looks scarcely used. No doubt it helped that the Hawk has had only four owners from new, the second of whom kept it for 45 years, from 1963 until 2008. Its original title from those days still accompanies the car.
In 2008, Marylou Stachon gave the Studebaker to her husband for his 70th birthday. Married since 1960, the couple had grown up in South Bend, Indiana, not far from the Studebaker factory. Later, in Connecticut, they ran a refuge for homeless cats. Hence the name they gave their Hawk: »Miss Kitty«.
With its fourth owner, this remarkable Studebaker came to Austria in 2011. He was every bit as astonished by the coupé’s state of preservation as we are today. Carefully stored ever since, it remains just as impressive 15 years later, although its mechanicals will need to be gently awakened after their long slumber. Is there another one preserved quite like it? One may safely doubt it.