Geoff

Oooohh! USN submarines were using some supercharger pieces and they cannot afford to have failures. It is a tough call but I will say true.

Yep, MFG tried to assemble the first, how many? Some number around the first 86 cars were attempted to build without a jig. The story I heard about 1025 from my father. And he bought the car with my uncle in 1970. It left the factory, did whatever it did for the Granatellis, and then went to Bill Alderman who got into a fender-scruncher, looking as it did when it left South Bend. There was a sizeable divot in the roof which would hold water. The passenger side door's fit was so far off you could reach under the door from outside and be holding the bottom of the door while it was "closed." There was a wrinkled-oopty at the cowling/fender on the driver's side. Look at photos of a Ferrari F12. Notice Pininfarina sculpted the body so the air flow falls away at the cowling, diverting some of the airflow from flowing over the windshield. 1025 kinda sorta had that aerodynamic feature, albeit inadvertently and on an asymmetric basis, from July '62 until it was corrected in the later 1970s - early 1980s. Let me loop this back to judging vehicles today. Take 1025 (or any of the first 86 cars) back to "Factory stock" as it left South Bend, and make that car the judging manual's metric! Everyone else's car would score 140% - 160% by comparison.

This hit the SDC Facebook group too. John Hull says, "Unfortunately many errors which clouds the Avantis history." [Someone didn't want Studebaker carrying on. I say it was the banksters who were up to no good; they are nothing but trouble anyway. 1) The Lehmann Brothers pulled their funding and they didn't have to. Yep, the same company we had issues with during the '08 housing crisis. 1a) My father and I saw a photograph in Tippecanoe Place while visiting for the '12 SDC Int'l meet. The photo's caption mentioned similar to the above. 2) Henry Ford warned people how the nation's financial system works but not enough heeded his words. Henry was heavily involved in automobiles and was familiar with all the ins and outs of that industry. I believe all he said pertaining to that matter.]

I just inadvertently gave everybody else the ol' 50-50 from 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' 😁

Yeah, the two large American icons (Mustang & Corvette) get really wacky with their judging. On the Corvette forums, guys have altered the acronym NCRS which normally means National Corvette Restorers Society to Non-Correctly Restored Stingray, which was where I was going with my '69; most definitely not stock. The poster's issue with incorrectly drilled holes in the fascia is an easy fix. I enjoyed the fiberglass repair tutorial Mike & Mike (Avanti Restoration & Services) showcased at the 2012 SDC Int'l meet. Maybe they need to put on another one soon? Learning from them made repairing my crash of 1025 easier. We even removed one example of the old method to repair fiberglass. Bill Alderman (1st owner after the Granatellis) must've had a fender bender, as there was a thin galvanized steel plate backing inside the right front fender (at the vertex IIRC) and rivet locations were visible through the paint. I've gained confidence to take on much of my current project DIY status, between what I learned in South Bend, and via the YouTube channel 'Paint Society' who has a closing tag line, "Don't overthink it, it's just paint." I take that to mean, "It's not something which can't be easily worked or corrected."

How about 3) 39?

Oh, you mean before they were loaded up for Youngstown? I shall take a stab at 1) 17.

I feel a battery relocation could be reversed. The degree of in there you install it is up to you. It can be so in depth you remove interior pieces and lift the gas tank to follow the factory wiring harness, then reinstall all pulled parts. Or punch a couple holes in the trunk floor with a mental note the car needs future fiberglass work. Better brakes on mountain roads are important to vent that built up heat. Stopping shorter needs a reduction of weight and/or increased front tire width and/or increasing the tires' grip. Buy some Toyo Proxes RA1 tires or others in the UTQG 50-100 class. You won't be disappointed with their grip, you will be disappointed they do not last oodles of miles; they'd be really fun for one summer. Alternatively, some UTQG 200 tires are fun and last longer than their UTQG 100 cousins. The idea of hollowing out the factory 3EE and inserting modern guts sounds intriguing. Especially if in the act of hollowing the 3EE, you can design the action of opening to be repeatable. Then you'd have a forever case and the internals could be replaced as needed.

Jeeez! When you said, these instantly came to me, "Mercon. Dexron." I didn't know one of those was the answer.

Yeah, Blake was going to put together a multi-link IRS Dana 44 equipped chassis, probably lifted right out of C4 Corvette. Oh great paint debacle. How much you really screwed things we'll never know.

Just to replicate the stroked 299 R3 [3.75" stroke with stock 289 bore]. These days even strokes of 4" and greater can get there, and higher.

That looks like the Shelby museum in Las Vegas. Though it's either not, or it's not a part I've been through.

I surmise R4 would have an awfully hard time competing against the boost pressure of R3. R4's bump in compression ratio and additional carburetor can only get so far against a boosted engine. I've heard Andy Granatelli spun an early R3 engine to 8,000 RPM. [Another / the same] early R3 was regularly shifted by Ron & Doug Crall in the 1970s at the R (of "thousand R P M" printed at the bottom of the 6k tachometer). That's got to be closing in on 7,500 RPM engine speed. I heard it was shifting at 8k in half-mile drags at Riverside, Andy was able to beat 426 equipped Mopars. 426 Hemi*? Probably not. The 426 max wedge is more likely. The mighty Mopar would have led through most of the first quarter-mile while the R3 was reeling it in, making the pass before the finish. I hear it ... 8,000 RPM!!?? That's way up there; that's mother effing Hondur vee-tech territory. At that time, and in his position with Paxton Products, he didn't care if the engine went kaboom. I would love to acquire a basket case R2 Avanti and use some modern parts and practices to build an 8,000+ RPM capable stroked R3 homage. Although I would do what's necessary to back the engine with an M22 "Rock Crusher" 4-speed. Because too much gear whine is never enough 🙂 * Although, 426 Hemi cars don't do well on the drag strip⬇️ https://youtu.be/ey7WippcuCI?si=1v27SYBm8or__8mO

Carroll Shelby pretty much guaranteed the 427 Cobra could 0-100-0 in under 14.5 seconds. Ken Miles accomplished a 13.8 second time, and the record is 10.3 seconds. I don't know if the double Paxton Cobra could do much better? Well, unless slicks were involved on a VHT prep'd surface. Then decreasing braking distance requires wider front tires, stickier rubber, or as Colin Chapman said, "adding lightness." Might as well VHT the whole anticipated distance so the stickiness also helps in the 100-0 section. If that $6500 was witnessed in 1965, 2025 dollars would equal $64,729.48. I understand why they'd sit. The reliable $25k car is hard to come by these days. Flipping the values, $25k today would be $2510.45 in 1965.

CSX3015 has a twin Paxton blown 427 FE engine producing 800 horsepower to motivate 2350 pounds. 60 comes in less than 4 seconds if the tires can actually find and hold traction. Oh to feel that experience some how, some day.