Bob Preston

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

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.

The information I provided is from The Studebaker Avanti Production Data book which was compiled by the Studebaker National Museum Archives. The book contains photographs of internal documents one of which contains the information I shared. The first black Avanti was 63R-1013. The first grey Avanti was 63R-2122. There were also 32, 1964 Avanti’s painted black.

Black was offered as a standard color from the beginning of production. Some time between November of 1962 and January of 1963 black was replaced by gray. Black remained available as a special order color.

Hagerty just put out a short list of affordable vehicles with 300hp. The Avanti II made the list. They included median prices for #2 and #3 cars.

There’s a black 1963 R1 for sale at Harwood Motors in Cleveland Ohio for $30K.

There’s a decent looking 63 R2 (3479) at Worldwide Vintage Autos in Denver for $32K.

Actually, I can and I did. The evidence is pretty solid to support my statements about declining values in the classic car market. There are certainly exceptions, but they are very few.

I certainly respect the experience and knowledge of a former classic car appraiser. It is their job to determine a fair market value for a vehicle without bias. Individual objectives also come in to play. It may be beneficial, in some cases, to sell the car in a timely fashion and move on to the next project rather than wait months or years trying to get top dollar for the car. Like it or not, classic car prices are in decline and have been for several years. A quick sale at a reasonable price may be the prudent option. In your example of ask for X and anticipate Y, when Y doesn’t hit the table then one may need to consider that Y is still too high of a price. Otherwise , the inevitable outcome is having a collection of items that have perceived values which exceed reasonable market values.

$25-30K is in alignment with actual selling prices for cars in a similar condition. Declining prices are quite the trend across the board for many classic cars. From what I’ve seen, there’s a minority of sellers who price their cars reasonably.

I’d recommend having them include photos of any used parts as well. This step may help you avoid a situation where you have to return unacceptable items and eat a 15% restocking fee. Also, nail down shipping costs. I paid about $60 to have some rusty parts shipped to me, but only $16 to have them returned. Maybe also ask the question “Would you put these parts on your car?”

Have you traced the wires? Does the light illuminate? Could be part of an alarm system.

Somebody may have changed it. The design isn’t brilliant because it’s sucking in hot air from deep within the engine compartment. If the whole affair was flipped to put the intake in front, it would be sucking in cooler air.

63R-3168 is listed by Hagerty in a no reserve auction in Phoenix, AZ. It’s a white/black R1 with some interesting history.

Understood. Thanks for providing photos of the invoices. I had a similar experience with the vendor that sends out the printed invoice. Haven’t ordered from the vendor that uses the hand written one. Both were easy to identify. While I won’t say that I’d never order from either of them, or the other one that sent unacceptable parts, those 3 are now the last 3 that will be given an opportunity to earn my business. As fate would have it, those 3 are the closest to my location in Michigan. However, I’ve received parts in a more timely fashion from Arizona and Florida.