Black Paxton!

[mfg]

I noticed in the latest issue of AVANTI MAGAZINE (213) that the Paxton supercharger on 63R1001 (first production Studebaker Avanti) was refinished in the color black…..

I’m certain that the restorers of this particular Avanti were striving for authenticity, and I found that interesting.

[ronmanfredi]

Black was the original color of the super chargers.  The color was changed to Orange as the model year progressed.

[mfg]

18 hours ago, ronmanfredi said:

Black was the original color of the super chargers.  The color was changed to Orange as the model year progressed.

I believe that black is what Studebaker engineers originally had in mind for the superchargers… however, since the blower is the ‘star’ of the engine compartment, they decided orange stood out much better. (and I agree with that!)

[Nelson]

For whatever reason I remember the Avanti blowers being black and The R2 Lark and Hawk versions being orange. This made some sense as the Hawk and Lark back ends were clocked differently than the Avanti so you couldn’t interchange the two without re clocking the case. I imagined the two styles would be different colors just to keep the confusion down when stationing the blowers at their particular installation point. However, the first Avanti predated the R2 Lark and Hawk by maybe several months so the first Avanti could have been orange, red or black. It’s too bad there aren’t a bunch of color pictures from back in 1962 and 63.

[mfg]

The bearing housing would also need to be redrilled to make the swap between side mount Avanti and top mount Lark…

Color might have depended on which shipment (and date) the blowers were delivered to South Bend from Paxton…

I once owned a full package, all black, 1964 Daytona R2 hardtop, never altered, and the supercharger was ‘factory black’.

 

[regnalbob]

I owned a 1964 Daytona R2 convertible and the supercharger was orange.

[mfg]

29 minutes ago, regnalbob said:

I owned a 1964 Daytona R2 convertible and the supercharger was orange.

Seems to bear out my idea of period Paxton supercharger color somewhat dependent on which pallet they were unpacked from!!