Dwight FitzSimons

Somewhere during the '63 model run the grille was made standard. --Dwight

It depends on your car's serial number. Earlier '63 Avantis came with a gold "S" and later '63s came with a silver one. I don't know the serial number at which Studebaker changed from gold to silver, but someone does. --Dwight

Cars & Coffee meets in Charlottesville, Va are excellent (1st & 3rd Sat, 8am - 10am). There are always dozens of interesting cars, with few modern cars, and a wide range of cars from Alpha Romeos to Wartburgs (just kidding, no Wartburgs). There always seems to be an exotic or two: Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren. Plus Twin-Cam MGA, SAAB Sonnet III, etc. --Dwight

Weren't some 305 HO (high output) engines installed in Avanti IIs? Those made decent power. I once had an '84 Pontiac Trans Am with this engine (BW T-5 5-speed trans) and it was reasonably powerful for the time.

I have two sets of 1970 Avanti II doors, both with power windows. Both have a nice, substantial extra layer of fiberglass glued onto the interior side of the inner door panel. This was added to prevent fiberglass cracking. I am fairly sure that Studebaker hadn't gotten around to making that needed repair by the time Studebaker Avanti production but don't know when Avanti Motors made that change. As I said Avanti IIs had that improvement by 1970. --Dwight

By "biggest" are you referencing the volumes of the cooling systems?

I can name one: On '64s the PW wiring from the door to the door jam was protected by a steel housing. On '63s the wiring was just wrapped in tape. Some time in Avanti II production the inner door panel was reinforced by double fiberglass. --Dwight

Three

That R4 engine belonged to the late, lamented Paul Johnson.

The "date-of-assembly" engine serial numbers began with the 1964 model year (not 1963).

True

I don't remember the exact number, but it was something like 40. I, personally, have seen one (in 1965). The trans. was the T-86, which is not a heavy-duty trans. I assume it was made the base transmission to keep the base price of the Avanti down. I agree it was not a very good idea.

Kiekert, of Germany

I will say 1) Bob Doehler, because he worked for Studebaker in its own design studio.

2) Dropped front suspension spindles IIRC dropped spindles were used at Bonneville

I like your bracket, but I notice that the positive battery terminal is awfully close to the aluminum bracket. If the positive battery clamp (cable end) were to touch the aluminum bracket then the bracket would be hot. The bracket may not touch ground anywhere, but I still wouldn't want that bracket to be hot for safety reasons. One solution would be to use a type 51 (not 51R) battery. That would reverse the terminals, and the positive terminal would be to the front of the car and far away from the aluminum bracket. The positive battery cable would have to be longer, however (& the neg. cable could be shorter). --Dwight

50

$175

Nice solution/bracket. Thanks, --Dwight

42 inches is 1,07 meters to a European. (I don't know why Europeans have the period & comma backwards, but that would be a subject for another day.) --Dwight

These (4 of them) attach to head bolts, and the stainless steel ignition shields mount to them. If you have the SS shields you can bolt these brackets to them, then hold the SS shield next to the cylinder head to determine location of the brackets. Or, just do some measurements. Page 56 in the Avanti Parts Catalog shows them, as RegnalBob has posted above. The Avanti Parts Catalog, as well as the Avanti Shop Manual are essential resources for working on an Avanti. They are excellent manuals. --Dwight

Some have used a modern activated-charcoal canister to replace that vent hose. That was described in a thread on here (or the SDC Forum) --Dwight

WTF! I have worked on a couple of these & have never seen anything like this. All I can say is to put the fuel-tank attachments back to original. One issue with these is the vent hose that goes off the top, then over & down near the right rear wheel. Over time that hose will crack & let gas fumes into the cabin. That issue has been discussed on this forum (maybe also on SDC Forum). --Dwight

I think that all of the pieces are screwed on, with phillips-head screws.

"....Shortly before the Avanti was introduced" would have been way too late. The drive-train system would have had to be re-engineered, and that would have delayed the introduction by quite a bit. Sherwood was in a great hurry, and for good reason. Besides, using Ferrari engines would have driven up the price of the car by a lot, certainly pricing the Avanti out of the (Corvette, Riviera, Tbird) market. I do think that Studebaker should have bored out the R1 & R2 engines 0.080" to make the displacement 302 cu. in. There was a displacement race then and 3-something sounds better than 2-something. Plus, "302" would have separated the R1 & R2 engines from the plebeian 289 engine. And, they could have cast the intake manifolds out of aluminum to take some weight off the front end. Plus, how much more could the R3 exhaust manifolds have cost to manufacture than the regular ones? Adding both of these as standard would have added considerable "wowee" factor when people looked at the engine. Adding, say, $100 to the price of the car might have been worth it. After all, the Avanti wasn't intended to be a volume car, or even a profit maker; it was intended to be a traffic draw at their dealers. Dwight ('63 Avanti R1, '64 Avanti R3)