Avanti Eye Candy

There's nothing prettier than a really loving restoration. Brad Bez, who owns a shop called Bez Auto Alchemy in Washington state, has been blogging lately about an R4-powered Avanti upon which he's executing a painstaking body-off restoration for one of his clients. Check out his blog for the latest installment and follow along! I know it's inspiring for me... maybe you too? There's only one portion of Barney's frame that's as clean as the one shown here, and it's getting less shiny by the day ;)

Studebaker Ad of the Week, #3: Avanti!

1964 Studebaker Avanti , a photo by coconv on Flickr.

Love this ad for the '64 Avanti. As a good friend of mine says, "When this thing hit showrooms, it was like nothing anybody'd ever seen. It was a flying saucer."

Wait for the kicker.

Recently Jim McCuan, one of the regulars on the Studebaker Driver's Club Forum, acquired a pristine, 7,900 (yes, seventy-nine hundred) mile '63 Avanti with the supercharged R2 engine. (The car was found on Craigslist Seattle by another Forum member; if you want to read the car's whole story, click here.)

Anyway, Jim just put a video on YouTube; he set his camera beside the road and captured a few high-speed passes. Listen to the sound of a low-mile, blown Studebaker winding up and watch it get plenty of rubber! (Oh, and stick around for the surprise ending.)