All Activity

In my continued search for the 2000s cars, I located the only 2 T-Top cars that were produced with the Diamond Pearl White colors. There is a 2001 in Dallas Tx with 45,000 miles on it and I met with the owner last year to see this beautiful car. Now, I have made contact with the second car, a 2002 model which is in Bakersfield CA. The owner, who is now an elderly female, wants to sell due to age. The car is in immaculate condition with 15,000 original miles. It has been garaged its entire life and covered in the garage. She does start the car once a month and takes it on a cruise around town just to keep everything working. She has not been proactive in selling the car, so I offered to help her with this as much as possible. She knows how rare the car is (9 T-Tops were made) and she believes the car is worth north of $50k. Serious potential buyers are welcome to contact me and I'll work on connecting you with her. Attached are what the car looks like.

Colors were really a problem with the later models. My 2006 states "Furza Red" on the window sticker. We searched high a low and never found a Furza Red color code. Since you could pretty much select any color that you wanted, I'm guessing some of the color names were made up as they painted them. It's really not an issue since most all body shops today can match paint using a scanner. A local body shop did that for me when doing some paint work and supplied me with a quart of the paint and clear coat after the repair. The paint was a perfect match also.

Seems there likely isn't an answer out there. There are a number of unanswered issues with these cars.

I have a 67 Avanti II 4 speed. When I got the car it had an Edelbrock carb on it and a Holley in the trunk. I wanted to use the original air cleaner so I rebuilt the Holley and put it on. The Holley was a 4160 750 cfm dual feed double pumper- not the original carb. While researching for which carb it should have I came up with these Holley numbers for the 67 327/ 300HP engine. R3605A R3810A R3814A All are 4160 carbs. The 4160 has been made in many different CFM ratings and configurations I plan to put a 4160 600 CFM electric choke carb on the car. Steve

Do you have a workshop manual and/or parts catalog?

The panel vinyl is supposed to wrap over the window edge and be glued down before window install.

Don’t know about rebuilding an original but Crutchfield has retro radios. Mike https://www.crutchfield.com/shopsearch/retro_radio.html

No…full timer here.

Seems to bear out my idea of period Paxton supercharger color somewhat dependent on which pallet they were unpacked from!!

I owned a 1964 Daytona R2 convertible and the supercharger was orange.

I am looking to convert my Avanti Radio to Bluetooth. Any recommendations on a radio guy?

Hey Gunslinger. I just noticed you are in Sun City West. Are you a snow bird? I’m over on the east side of Phoenix for the winter.

Presently have a rechromed Avanti II rear bumper (with the holes). Also have the vertical bumper guard pieces with fresh chrome. Anyone have a '63 Stude bumper ready for mounting and interested in a swap arrangement? Can negotiate from there.

I had one rebuilt by Studebaker International a few years ago (2024). Hopefully, they still do that service.

Really too bad it wasn’t in the cards to continue development and production of the Packard V8 engine… which had a very large bore spacing with eventual maximum displacement of up to 500 CI. Studebaker ‘owned’ this quality engine, however, the years ‘53-‘58 were a terrible struggle for Studebaker… and an expensive engine being built in Utica was, at that time, un-affordable. General Motors Chevrolet Division showed interest in purchasing the rights and tooling to continue production of the Packard V8, which GM would have most likely called the ‘Mark lll’ had they purchased it, however, they ultimately decided against the project.

Not simply the costs of a Ferrari engine itself but the shipping costs…the time and expense for engineering changes to properly fit the engine…transmission changes and changes to the driveline geometry…plus costs and time for things not even considered. Given time and money it was probably doable…but in the end would have made no difference.

I’d say further experimentation and implementation wasn’t in the cards for Studebaker at the time. The displacement of the R3 is 304.5cu/in (bore 3 21/32) with a rating of 335hp. That, disc brakes, superchargers, innovative styling and numerous land speed records weren’t enough to save a struggling company. The bore on the R3 is +.09375 when compared to the R1/R2 at 289cu/in. So Studebaker was doing exactly what has been postulated. It just didn’t work out. Chevy engines were used after US production was halted.

That was planned and prototypes or at least one prototype was built. The bore of that engine was 3 7/8 inch. With the std stroke of 3 5/8 the displacement went to 342 ci. Oil gallies on this block had to be moved upward and outward to gain clearance for the larger bore. A longer stroke by 1/4 inch would yield 365 cubic inch. I believe this engine was aimed at the 1965 model year.

The bearing housing would also need to be redrilled to make the swap between side mount Avanti and top mount Lark… Color might have depended on which shipment (and date) the blowers were delivered to South Bend from Paxton… I once owned a full package, all black, 1964 Daytona R2 hardtop, never altered, and the supercharger was ‘factory black’.

I thought I'd ask this question here rather than the Avanti Trivia page, where there is a discussion going on about Ferrari engines... Dwight has postulated a bore-out by 80 thou over would have brought the 289 Engine into the 302-ish realm. My query is - Surely the ability to change the core patterns for the casting of Engine Blocks would have been a viable, economical and realistic way of ensuring an increase in HP as well as a safety margin to ensure overboring would not be compromised by thin walls. Anybody wanna comment here? 🤷‍♂️

What is stamped on the pad on the engine block under the fuel filter?

For whatever reason I remember the Avanti blowers being black and The R2 Lark and Hawk versions being orange. This made some sense as the Hawk and Lark back ends were clocked differently than the Avanti so you couldn’t interchange the two without re clocking the case. I imagined the two styles would be different colors just to keep the confusion down when stationing the blowers at their particular installation point. However, the first Avanti predated the R2 Lark and Hawk by maybe several months so the first Avanti could have been orange, red or black. It’s too bad there aren’t a bunch of color pictures from back in 1962 and 63.

I agree, screwed on.

Yes, Dwight. A weight saving at the front end could have been considerable by just manufacturing the water pump housing and pump itself in aluminum, blower mounting and idler in aluminum along with crank pulley and water pump pulley. Even an aluminum intake. Also tube headers as you mention and placing that heavy ass battery in the trunk on the passenger side. I wouldn’t be surprised if the weight distribution could have gone from the road test thought of 58/42 to 55/45 maybe better. As for the Ferrari engine: I’m glad the offer was made just for bragging rights but the cost would have been high, warranty cost out the roof and no time or money to make the change.