Peter Stutenbecker sold his first wagon in the British Province of Maryland in 1740. The first production Studebaker motor vehicle was a 1902 model, and the very last Studebaker rolled off the assembly line in March of 1966. Here's one of the cars from the final few months of Studebaker, now residing in a self-service car graveyard near Denver, Colorado.
Studebaker car production ceased at the main plant in South Bend, Indiana, in December of 1963. After that, production moved to the Studebaker Canada factory in Hamilton, Ontario.
The Commander name goes back to the 1920s, when it was applied to the mid-price cars of the Studebaker range. Commander badges went on various Studebakers, on and off, for the next few decades (I've documented a couple of 1950s Commanders for this series). When the Lark was restyled for the 1964 model year, the Commander name was revived as the designation for the base trim level. The Lark name was deleted soon after that.
The 1964-1966 Studebakers looked modern enough, but the Detroit Big Three had been putting an ever-more-relentless squeeze on the company since just after World War II. A merger with Packard in 1954 didn't help matters.
The list price of the cheapest 1966 Studebaker sedan was $2319, or about $22,123 in 2023 dollars. It had to compete for sales against the $2065 Chevrolet Chevy II, the $2086 Rambler American, the $2095 Plymouth Valiant, and the $2114 Ford Falcon (as well as the $1790 Toyota Corona, then in its first year of North American sales). Those manufacturers weren't teetering on the edge of failure, as Studebaker so obviously was at the time.
Is this small-block Chevrolet V8 a blasphemous motor swap performed by this Studie's final owner? No, Studebaker halted production of its own engines after 1964 and purchased Canadian-built Chevrolet straight-sixes and V8s for the final two years of production. If this is the original engine, it's a Chevy II-spec 283-cubic-incher (4.6-liter) rated at 195 horsepower and called the Thunderbolt V8.
The transmission is the optional "Flightomatic" Borg-Warner three-speed automatic; a three-on-the-tree column-shift manual was base equipment. Since Checker Motors was already using Chevrolet engines with Borg-Warner transmissions in its vehicles at the time, Studebaker was able to buy the special adapter bellhousings that allowed its preferred transmissions to be installed.
This car would have been just as pleasant to drive as a Valiant or Falcon, but 1966 was game over for Studebaker (though various entrepreneurs have revived the Avanti over the subsequent decades).
There's some rust, but the hard-to-find glass and trim pieces are nearly all here and this car wouldn't be an especially challenging restoration project. The problem is that final-year Studebaker sedans in nice condition just aren't worth much.
1966 Studebaker Commander in Colorado Car Graveyard
