No, this multi-hued Studebaker Champ is not trying to be artistic. Its cab appears to have been stitched together out of a number of junkyard Champs (Anderson Bros. is a truck junkard, after all). And rather appropriate, because Studebaker stitched the Champ together out of the body dies in its junkyard out back, more or less. Sounds a bit harsh, but as we’ve seen over and over, when it comes to the dying years of the independents, necessity is the mother of desperate acts of cobbling up things from whatever one has on hand. Or can beg from someone else. Now this particular one is also missing some major 20th Century components, but fear not, this Champ has a very viable future in the 21st Century indeed.
So what exactly did Studebaker cobble up with its new for 1960 Champ? Well that depends on which pair of glasses you’re wearing. Now I’m not exactly famous for wearing my rose-colored glasses very often, but I’ll humor you and slip them on for a paragraph or two:
The Champ is often held up as a prophetic pickup, inasmuch as it has a genuine passenger car cab, conveniently borrowed from the Lark, which itself was of course nothing but a 1953 Studebaker sedan with its front and rear ends drastically shortened. Strictly speaking, the Lark wasn’t a true compact; more like a stubby mid-sized car. Which of course explains how its front half fit so handily on Studebaker’s 1949 vintage frame. Ooops; the glasses are slipping already.
Yes, although some claim the Champ to be some brilliant marriage of passenger car comfort and truck utility, their glasses are rosier than mine. The reality was that Studebaker’s 1949 vintage truck cab was hopelessly out-of date looking by the late fifties (1959 model above), and Studebaker couldn’t afford the dies for a new one. Presto: the front half of a Lark four-door sedan with a new rear panel fit quite well on the old chassis. And there was nothing particularly passenger-car-ish about the ride its solid horse-wagon front and rear axles afforded. But that’s the essence of the Champ; what you see is what you get: a 1949 Studebaker truck with a shortened 1953 Studebaker sedan cab.
But Studebaker called it “all-new”. And these very-well dressed folk seem mighty impressed indeed! Why not? And what else was Studebaker to do, given their plight? And folks bought it, metaphorically and literally; at least for a year (probably not the suits in the picture). The “all new” 1960 model created a nice little bump in sales, but that began to quickly crack in 1961, starting with the cylinder heads.
The 1960 models still had the old 170 and 245 CID flathead sixes, as well as the 259 and 289 V8s. But for 1961, the little six got a new OHV head, and it was problematic. It did bump power from 90 to 112 hp, but its rep got bad quicker than it accelerated the Champ to thirty.
The other thing the 1961 models sported was a fashionable new “Spaceside” beds, which obviously didn’t fit the cab at all. That’s because the beds came courtesy of Dodge. There was no way Studebaker could afford a new bed. Now the Champ really was a Frankenbaker. Or Studodge. Or Lardge. Or?
Just for historical perspective, Studebaker made a fairly full line of trucks until its end in South Bend, but the larger ones still used the old cab. The biggest of them, like this E 45 (picture by CC Cohort Dave_7), used Detroit Diesel engines and could haul a semi trailer full of new Larks and Champs.
Now before we take a closer look at this Champ, let’s also just consider the front end styling similarities of our two Curbside Classics today.
Well, the actual Lark’s grille was a didn’t have those bars, but a textured inset even more like the Valiant. Worth pondering, and remembering that the Lark came out two years before the Valiant. I’m not implying cribbing; design ideas are never created in a vacuum, and this was a popular theme, especially with Virgil Exner at Chrysler and Duncan McRae at Studebaker. There was plenty of cross-pollination of ideas between them.
So that’s been the good news about the Champ. Or was it the bad? Depending on your point of view, the bad/good news is that this one is not even complete; it’s more of what you would call a glider kit. A peek through those bars show that the engine compartment is bare. It’s not a problem; it’s an opportunity! Here’s the chance to update the Champ for the 21st Century. What shall it be? An Ecotec turbo four and transmission from a Solstice/Sky? A biodiesel from a??
The interior is really ready for a modernizing update; look how open and airy it feels, like taking down the interior walls of an old house. Just hang an LED panel from the cowl, put in some modern buckets, and cover the rest in some mod organic material, like woven hemp. A bamboo strip floor will complement nicely. This truck is just waiting for a fresh new start and some creative thinking.
But those power train choices are already so late 20th Century. We need to really put on our futurist hats, and the future is embedded in this very Champ.
Yes, this Champ has a genuine Studebaker bed out back. Now that should inspire something: this bed is the very last direct descendant of what made Studebaker successful in the first place;
Wagons, the animal-powered kind. Starting in 1852, Studebaker grew to become the largest manufacturer of wagons in the 19th century.
Well, what else? It’s back to the future: a horse drawn Champ! It will be the darling of Eugene, when it shows up every Saturday morning at the Farmer’s Market with a load of fresh organic vegetables from the local farms.
Wow, I’d known the Champ was a dogs breakfast, but that 61 bed! As we saw with their advertising a few weeks ago Studebaker did not have the resources to care one bit about what was going out the door.
I Love it very much like the one I saw in OZ not all there but enough to be confused with an early Valiant Running gear ok this has to be a 21st century revival so how about Toyota Hilux D4D common rail diesel, 5 speed, transfer case, both diffs, Im sure the vintage Stude frame could cope interior from the same source Surfs and Luxes are everywhere a kwik shot of primer to tidy the panels and away ye go there aint any point in going back to original even stude didnt try that
When I was young, one of these lived down the street from me. My neighbors were Studebaker people. A red Champ pickup was the last one my friend’s dad used as an everyday driver, well into the 70s, after he retired his Avanti from daily service. I seem to remember it as a 61, but do not recall him having engine problems. However, he was quite good with a wrench and worked for an auto parts company, so he probably had the ability to sniff out a good head and swap them out over a weekend if necessary.
His was the 6 with the stick on the floor. It was old when he bought it, and had that wide bed. I never knew until now that it was from an obsolete Dodge, but even then I knew that there must be a story because it plainly did not fit. The red paint looked like it had not seen a wash or wax since the mid 60s, but the body wasn’t too bad. The interior was straight out a Lark sedan as well. It was the first time I ever saw duct tape upholstery. But at least it had a cool looking set of mag wheels on it. I guess it doesn’t matter what you drive to work when you have an R2 Avanti in the garage.
The one other thing that sticks out as the result of Studebaker’s scavenger-hunt engineering is how the front bumper hangs several inches below the indentations obviously designed for bumper clearance when that front end was on a car. I wonder if the name Champ was the result of being able to use old stamping dies that had been used for Champion nameplates in the 50s? I’m betting yes.
I have a hard time seeing this as prescient. Studebaker had offered a conceptually similar pickup with a passenger car cabin in the late thirties — the 1937 Coupe-Express. Hudson launched something similar in 1939, and of course Ford Australia had introduced the ute in 1934. The U.S. Ranchero followed in 1957, with the El Camino in 1959. So, it was not a new idea by any stretch. A handy expedient, yes; prophetic, no.
I was parroting the positive spin that exists on the Champ; that it was somehow forward looking to mate a passenger car cab with a truck chassis, and as such predicting the general trend of trucks becoming more “comfortable” or passenger-friendly.That trend was inevitable, and underway already anyway.
I don’t think Studebaker was trying to create a truck in the Ranchero/El Camino idiom. And it clearly wasn’t in that category.
What many forget is that prior to WW2, many light trucks also shared cabs with the passenger cars. Unique light-truck cabs were a fairly recent phenomena, at least at the time of the Champ. Back to the future that way too.
Yeah, I assume Studebaker’s reasoning here revolved around expedience and cost, much like the Lark itself.
Unique chassis-cabs for pick-ups weren’t that new in 1960. I think the divergence really started around the time closed bodies started to overtake open bodies in the late twenties. By the late thirties, trucks like the Coupe-Express were the exception, rather than the rule, although obviously there were still commercial versions of passenger cars (station wagons, sedan deliveries, etc.) well into the fifties.
The US was late in building utes every make available in OZ had a ute from little Ford Anglias on up Chev utes were top of GMH s pile sbove Vauxhall and Holden Ford had Mainline utes as the pinacle down to Zephyrs Prefects Anglias even Armstrong Siddley made a ute.Pickups were around but sedan based utes were much more popular.
Definitely — it was much more popular in Oz than here. By comparison, the U.S. examples (Coupe-Express, Hudson Big Boy, early Ranchero and El Camino) really didn’t sell very well, and they never sold nearly as well as standard pick-up trucks.
Ok, I have been trying to paste a picture of a 99 Cadillac Escalade, which I have always thought bears an uncanny resemblence to the Studebaker Champ front end. Probably not the look they were going for. The Valiant just makes it more spooky.
But my lack of computer skills tells me that everyone will just have to imagine it or go look it up.
It’s just like adding an image for one of your posts. Are you trying to do it directly from the web? You probably have to download it first, then upload it from your PC. That’s what I just did:
You mean like this?
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/vehicle-pictures/2000/cadillac/escalade/00122291990002-260.jpg
Gawd you manage to do whole posts wish I could figure that one out pics are easy
God Bless the Champ (and long live Studebaker). The Champ (along with the Lark, and, Duncan McRae’s “$1.98 budgeted-1958-Studebaker-restyle) was Studebaker being handed lemons – and making lemonade.
Stude trucks were rugged, durable, reliable pieces of machinery. The Lark based 90hp six too weak? No problem – move up the the old Commander long stroker six or the strong-heavy V-8s.
Yes – the conversion from L-head to OHV with early ’61s were troublesome (and expensive for cash-strapped Studebaker to fix under warrantly), but once that was licked, they were pretty good trucks.
In retrospect, these Champs were just a stopgap, I suppose, for a new (truck) product that never (could) come to be.
A shame that rig is gutted that way. There’d be almost no way to find or fabricate a workable dash substitute…the only thing left for that unit is parts donation. Which of course it’s already seen plenty of.
The whole story, the write-up and the story of decline and failure it’s written about, alternates between deep-sigh depressing and morbid-curiosity engaging. I’ve always thought the Champ was a good answer, expedient and also clever, to the Pickup Problem at Studebaker. I’m sure the El Camion and Ranchero were a comfort to them, even though they weren’t really trying to duplicate that market. Maybe, someone must have thought, we really are riding a trend.
Of course it was a different CLASS of car/truck. Just as the Rabbit pickup was an entirely different vehicle from the Rampage. But it was a pickup; a serious working truck, even if the side-sculpting lines didn’t match; and it apparently had a bigger share of the market than did Studebaker cars.
Here’s the million-dollar question, though: Just how much money could tooling to make matching side-stampings on the styleside pickup boxes, have cost? We’re talking something elementarily simple here…A BOX. Not even the WHOLE box; just TWO STAMPINGS on the sides.
Studebaker wasn’t THAT broke. The same time they cobbled together that Frankendodebaker, they bought Onan; STP; Gravely. They had the money; maybe in doing everything on the cheap, failure became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Maybe if they’d saved money on their half-baked OHV designs, and just contracted to buy GM power…they could have lasted a little longer and ended a little better…
I reckon since this is Studebaker the entire dash fro another model would bolt right in no fancy fab needed christ every other piece is froom some other model why not the dash. I am astounded at how much Stude did with so little money and a sawsall These guys were old skool hot rodders with a factory to play in they almost tailor made every model using one original car then sold them, mind how many people Knew what they were up to at the time?GMH has produced some great cars from the world GM parts bin and no money they build very good cars with nothing but cast off Opels and Chevs to play with but Studebaker are amazing With little more than a wrecking yard they built all these different models The money went elsewhere.
I have no idea how it is Down Under with worn-out cars and trucks; but here…where much of the nation gets a lot of snow every winter; where they de-ice the roads with rock salt…there simply ARE no more Studes in wrecking yards.
There weren’t that many to begin with; and the last Champ was made in 1963. The Larks that year and later used a different cowl and the dash won’t fit. So it would have to be a 1959-1962 Lark or a Champ.
And the boneyards, except for a handful of specialty lots like this one, have long ago crushed the Studebakers and sent them off to (then) Japan or (now) China.
…Blimey, mate! I know ya turns a wrench for a living, but DO try to break your comments down into sentences and paragraphs. Makes it a lot easier for us Yanks, with our limited attention-spans, to read.
At almost any car show you see street rods with custom dashboards, so I’m sure something could be done here. I always prefer the stock metal to custom stuff, but some of these guys are miracle workers with a metal bender. All it takes is money….
That truck would be pretty sweet with a Cummins 4BT dropped in and an 88+ Chevy 1500 Stepside bed.
Chime in time – Lark ’59-’61 dash should bolt right into the cowl – no problemo (at least none I know of). My only qualifier here is that my buddy’s Dad in Junior High (Scoutmaster) had a ’49 Studebaker truck. Drove to Sierra Camp in that. B-r-r-r-r! Made it up with no chains (but had chains and sanbags/large pieces of wood for ballast if required/needed). I think it would’ve had the (Commander) six. This was back around ’71 or ’72.
If I had it today . . . . purist in me says find a 259 or 289 Stude V-8 or Chevy/Jimmy straight six or pull a Vortec V-6 out of wrecked GM truck from the last 20 years. No SBC LT/LS. I’m a stocker!
Did the Stude trucks use a New Process, Saginaw or B-W manual in the day?
The 1959-60 Lark dash should fit in the Champ. So should the 1956-58 if you prefer the “cyclops eye” spinning speedometer. However, the 1961 Lark received a deceptively different windshield and cowl shape that were not carried over to the Champs.
Up through 1958 the Commander always had eight cylinders and the Champion six. The Lark inherited both engines, although the six had a shorter stroke.
The Champ deserves an award for the most hashed together assortment of body parts of any post-war American vehicle. (Though the Jeep Gladiator could plausibly earn an honorable mention.)
In theory, Studebaker did have the money to come up with a better pickup. In 1959-60 the company was profitable to the point where it invested in a brand-new compact for 1962 that incoming CEO Sherwood Egbert unplugged at the eleventh hour. Light trucks just weren’t a priority.
In retrospect it might have made more sense for Studebaker to base the Champ on the more civilized wagon chassis. The basic Studebaker body may have been hopelessly obsolete for a passenger car but could have had considerable staying power as a compact pickup. Recall that the Big Three avoided entering that market until the mid-80s.
Not sure I understand any of this. New compact killed at the eleventh hour? Egbert was an outsider hired, according to several observers, to do an ordered execution and burial of the automotive division. When he discovered an enthusiasm for cars (e.g., Avanti) the Board tolerated it for a short time, and then, as he was off on medical leave, sacked him.
The Board had plans to end any automotive presence since the Lark’s debut, where the profits were plowed into diversification, not new models.
Second, by the time the Champ debuted, the old Studebaker models (except the Hawk) were gone, gone, gone. There was no Standard Studebaker to make a pickup from – resurrecting it would have cost as much as a new pickup cab.
Third…why do you call the Gladiator “hashed together”? Allowing for how it was made out of the Wagoneer trucklet…it was a pretty good package; appropriate size for a full-size American pickup; body-on-frame and separate bed. The cab was practical enough that it was used in Kaiser’s M715 military trucks.
Yo, Just, check out this Hemmings article: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2007/05/20/sia-flashback-more-stude-studies/
The Champ was a sawed-off Lark. A more substantial redesign (e.g., make the doors line up with the bed) could have resulted in a very-nice looking compact truck that could stayed current for more than a decade.
From a styling standpoint the Gladiator looks hashed together to me. For example, the front end of the roof has a weird lip to give it more headroom than the Wagoneer. The side creases don’t align between the front (they taper) and the bed (they are horizontal). I suspect that the ungainly wheel well cladding was necessitated by Jeep’s desire to give the bed greater width between the rear wheels than what the Wagoneer offered.
That Stude’s a sweet roller and my futurist hat is on. Trucks are for hauling and hauling means torque. Big gobs of torque. Diesel-electric locomotive type torque.
EV Album has lots of trucks, here’s a particularly good example:
http://www.evalbum.com/3726
This community college class electrified a Chevy S-10 with the 11 inch Netgain DC motor and a fat 1200 amp, 144 volt controller. 300 lb-ft of torque at 1000 amps.
This truck reminds me of a late-’50s Ford 4×4 that’s been parked in front of a local junkyard for some time. I was curious because if original, it would have been the last to use a Marmon-Harrington 4×4 setup. M-H was the hired gun of the 4×4 world, building kits for other manufacturers’ vehicles, as well as building private-venture armored vehicles for sale to foreign countries, so there’s some historical significance there. So I stopped one Sunday afternoon for a look-see.
Not this truck. The cab was Ford, but the bed was Chevrolet, and the chassis and drivetrain were indeterminate (I couldn’t open the hood), but I thought that it was ’70s or later. From the way the holes in the floor had been chopped open to pass the shifter and 4×4 selector, and the connections for the pedals had been rigged, I knew the cab and chassis had been involved in a shotgun (or maybe welding torch) marriage.
No wonder the truck had been sitting there. A dog’s breakfast is fine–for the first dog. The second dog may find it unappetizing.
Although the poor little Champ ended Studebaker’s truck career with a whimper, one should remember that they once had quite a bang with an excellent line of trucks. Their WW2 2-1/2-ton trucks were every bit as good as the GMCs that we normally think of as Deuce-and-a-halfs. I believe that mainly for logistical purposes GMCs were kept for US Army service, while Studebakers went to Lend-Lease clients, famously the Soviet Union.
The Studebakers that survived the war had a long career in the Soviet military. In Khrushchev’s memoirs, he commented that at the big Moscow May Day parades during his regime, the artillery pieces and rocket batteries were still being towed by Lend-Lease American trucks. This was at least ten years after the war was over. IIRC he asked why Soviet truck factories couldn’t build trucks as reliable, which was probably another reason why the other Soviets ganged up on him and tossed him out of his job.
My uncle bought 2 Studebaker 6×6 for logging work ,used em thru till the 80s when he sold the mill the spares one was nearly untouched and the worker still went Good tough trucks