Father of Disc Brakes?

[mfg]

Who first proposed installing disc brakes on the front of the 'new' Studebaker Avanti?

[abasile]

Gene Hardig

[Gunslinger]

Gene Hardig sounds like a reasonable answer. Sherwood Egbert insisted that the car which became the Avanti be the safest as well as good performance, and with Hardig charged with making that happen, it seems logical he would suggest disc brakes.

[mfg]

Gene Hardig

Great guess!....But it wasn't Mr.Hardig

[mfg]

No other opinions here?

[mfg]

Once again,...It was Otis Romine

[64Avanti]

It may have been Bendix.

[Gunslinger]

I don't believe it could be Bendix. It was Studebaker who went to Bendix with an order for a completely engineered, production ready disc brake setup within something like two or three months. There was no way they could design, test and produce a disc brake system in that short space of time which is why they licensed the Dunlop setup and began producing it for Studebaker.

[mfg]

The Dunlop disc brake already existed at the time. The premise here is 'who thought of putting them on the front of the Studebaker Avanti'!......Mr. Otis Romine

[64Avanti]

Don't forget that Bendix offered these for the Corvette but GM felt that the discs didn't have enough heat capacity for the Corvette.

These brakes were used by Jaguar, some Ferrari's and others.

[mfg]

And a slightly enlarged version of our Avanti's Bendix/Dunlop disc brake was used on all four wheels of the 1964 Ferguson Novi Indy race car (#9)