First Avanti I Ever Saw!

[aardvark]

Mfg..

It is amazing from all the Car Shows I was involved in as a Youth, and all the Car restorations I did as well as those I hung with.. but I speak truth.   I heard they were making Avanti's in Canada. I didn't know that was basically false.  No clue of the AVX's and their History. The only thing I knew about the Studie Company is my Dad drove a Commander but i was age 5ish....My Dad was a Hi Level Ford Exec. I was artistic (still am) and He would take me to work and into the Design Studios.. The Mustang was in clay modeling, thus my love went to them...Owned 4 of em over the years.

But the Avanti's? I'm again WOWED !! 

[regnalbob]

3 hours ago, aardvark said:

Mfg..

It is amazing from all the Car Shows I was involved in as a Youth, and all the Car restorations I did as well as those I hung with.. but I speak truth.   I heard they were making Avanti's in Canada. I didn't know that was basically false.  No clue of the AVX's and their History. The only thing I knew about the Studie Company is my Dad drove a Commander but i was age 5ish....My Dad was a Hi Level Ford Exec. I was artistic (still am) and He would take me to work and into the Design Studios.. The Mustang was in clay modeling, thus my love went to them...Owned 4 of em over the years.

But the Avanti's? I'm again WOWED !! 

Here is an Avanti at Ford.

 

[aardvark]

Reg...

Exactly... introduced in ''64 1/2 - 66''... An answer to Avanti , though Studie was going down and out... then Camaro in ''67', coming in late to the game. I owned one of these, detonated the engine, sold it to a Friend and we Restored it with parts from 2 other Stangs.

Gotta Love them Pony Cars.

So according to John Hulls book,  Studie made 1390#'s in '63' and 3257#'s in '64'..Then it was taken over by Altman (and later others) and numbers dropped to no more than 256#'s in any given year. (most years less than 150#'s)... What is confusing me is when the production numbers plummeted, why then are their values less than the first 2 years?  Due to Rarity they should be equal or more valuable. I guess it's due to the '63-4' being the originals???

All were basically Hand Made Cars.... A lost art in this Country.. with some exceptions.

[mfg]

I think you hit the nail on the head with higher value directly related to the Studebaker Avantis being the original article…..

That said… arguably the hand made Avanti ll’s were a more refined, higher quality automobile. (IMHO)

[regnalbob]

16 hours ago, aardvark said:

Reg...

So according to John Hulls book,  Studie made 1390#'s in '63' and 3257#'s in '64'..

The production numbers you quote are for calendar years 1962 & 1963 not model years 1963 & 1964 and the total of 4647 is incorrect.

There were 4643 production Avantis built. 

1963  3834  

1964    809

 

[aardvark]

Not doubting you Reg...  Just a direct quote out of John Hull's book.

Your point also makes sense since i consider a round headlight model a '63'.    .When seeing what You typed, and knowing the round ones were also sold in '64', it makes sense.

I also ran into conflict trying to find out production numbers of my '02' Model. Finally one day John Hull sent a forum message that there were 33 made that year. I still don't know about production numbers for the surrounding years.

It has been a strange thing to me that good production records were not kept...especially in the later years.

 

[Mark L]

On 6/24/2024 at 4:01 PM, regnalbob said:

Here is an Avanti at Ford.

 

Is that a Jaguar or a Corvette in front of the Avanti?

[regnalbob]

3 hours ago, Mark L said:

Is that a Jaguar or a Corvette in front of the Avanti?

Jaguar

[mfg]

5 hours ago, Mark L said:

Is that a Jaguar or a Corvette in front of the Avanti?

Looks to me to be the tail end of a Jaguar XKE Coupe.

[aardvark]

Definitely XKE..

But back on topic.. The first Avanti II, I saw was when Ron Dame came over with His red one. '''Nice Car, Ron!'''.

He resides about 35 miles from me and drove out one day. He also is a poster on this site.