Enzo’s Avanti!

[mfg]

 In 1962, what was the offer Enzo Ferrari made to Sherwood Egbert shortly before the Avanti was introduced ?

[DWR46]

Ferrari offered to supply engines to Studebaker for the Avanti.

[mfg]

16 hours ago, DWR46 said:

Ferrari offered to supply engines to Studebaker for the Avanti.

You got it!

[Dwight FitzSimons]

"....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)

Edited March 19 by Dwight FitzSimons

[Nelson]

Yes, Dwight. A weight saving at the front end could have been considerable by just manufacturing the water pump housing and pump itself in aluminum, blower mounting and idler in aluminum along with crank pulley and water pump pulley. Even an aluminum intake. Also tube headers as you mention and placing that heavy ass battery in the trunk on the passenger side. I wouldn’t be surprised if the weight distribution could have gone from the road test thought of 58/42 to 55/45 maybe better.

As for the Ferrari engine: I’m glad the offer was made just for bragging rights but the cost would have been high, warranty cost out the roof and no time or money to make the change.

Edited March 20 by Nelson

[Gunslinger]

Not simply the costs of a Ferrari engine itself but the shipping costs…the time and  expense for engineering changes to properly fit the engine…transmission changes and changes to the driveline geometry…plus costs and time for things not even considered.

Given time and money it was probably doable…but in the end would have made no difference.

[Nelson]

Hey Gunslinger. I just noticed you are in Sun City West. Are you a snow bird? I’m over on the east side of Phoenix for the winter.

[Gunslinger]

No…full timer here.