1963 Studebaker Avanti R1

It is always interesting to learn why people enjoy certain types of cars. I’m half English and half Italian, and I have always gravitated toward makes from those countries, although I do wander occasionally into American muscle. If your family has been in the car business and has owned dealerships selling everything from Whippets to Grahams to Kaiser Frasers and ultimately to Studebaker Packards, you might be a Studebaker fan. And Ray Petros is a Studebaker fan. You might also be interested in owning an early Avanti, especially if it was delivered new to its first owner on March, 6, 1963 and had a warranty card signed by Raymond L. Petros Sr., Ray Petros’ dad.

Studebaker was in trouble and Sherwood Egbert believed it needed something in its showrooms that was different. The last totally new car from Studebaker was the Lark—different but not stunning. Egbert wanted stunning. On a trip in early 1961, Egbert supposedly bought some car magazines to see what cars they were covering, and he drew a sketch of a two-seater sports car. Egbert engaged Raymond Loewy to come up with a car with “ultra-modern lines,” which he wanted to show at the New York Auto Show in April 1962. Loewy, who had done a lot of work for Studebaker in the past, put together a team, secreted them away in a rented house in California, and went to work. In order to save some development and production costs, Egbert was convinced to make the car a four-seater GT so a Lark chassis could be used. The chassis selected was the cross-braced version used for the Lark convertible.