I couldn’t help noticing how this Studebaker driver and passenger are so good at maintaining their poses, no matter which version of the new ’53 coupes they find themselves in, as well as the settings.
Makes you wonder if they bought the background shots from a stock photo company.
Full ’53 – ’54Â Studebaker Coupe CC here
These Low, Lithe & Lovely Studebakers make the same year Chevy resemble the packing crate the Studies could had been shipped in.
Pity this Studie was not as comfortable or as well built as the Chevys were.
The eternal balancing act. It’s too bad Studebaker couldn’t afford to build the Loewy styling across the whole line, as unibodies with much greater floor-to-ceiling height within the same overall height, and then jumped off the annual-styling-change treadmill until the 1959 Lark. 20/20 hindsight and all.
One thing you gotta give these Studebaker ads, never a worry about getting the hubcaps wrong.
Ever notice how these older car ads always had each hubcap positioned so any script or emblem was correctly and symmetrically oriented?
They had an eye for detail.
I guess if you were a commercial artist and/or photographer then, you had a different set of skills…and if you’d been young then, the digital thing got rolling around the time you retired.
I’m not certain, but “Paris” below looks similar.
BTW, some helpful eBay seller is giving us a really nice look at the big brochure: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1953-Studebaker-Lg-Brochure-Commander-Starliner-Champion-Starlight-Nice-Original/284167681175?hash=item4229b6b497:g:RDoAAOSwJ9hgFqza
As with all of the photos, she seems like she is having fun, he looks…nervous
YThe use of acetates…clear plastic with images printed on them…was the pre-digital way of doing it. The acetates would have an image of the car with the paint-color areas transparent, a layer with the color areas of the car image under it, and both would be overlaid on a photo of the background which could be purpose-made or purchased from a stock photo source. The whole was then photographed.
Thanks. I was wondering about that. It looks like the rear window was just empty in the overlay, and had to be glassed in by the artist. It didn’t work quite as well in the pillared coupe.
Truth in advertising? Likle the Sunbeam Rapier being almost as big as the Studebaker?
Interesting that the red car has a shorter door, and visible sill under the door, whereas the light green car has not.
That’s curious. Admittedly one’s a hardtop and the other’s a pillared coupe, but you’d expect the door sill line to show up with the lighter colour.
After the war, many Studebaker ads seem to use much smaller people inside their cars, and more “average” size people outside. I’m attaching an ad from 1946 showing a driver who can barely see over the steering wheel.
It wasn’t just Studebaker. Many advertisement illustrations for many brands and many years, as far back as the 1920s showed tiny people in cars. This makes the cars look bigger and, imho showed the cars better, since they were promoting cars, not people.
Illustrations allowed for all kinds of distortion not allowable in photography. The 1950s saw Illustrations of cars with exaggerated proportions, longer, lower and more slim than actual production vehicles. The Illustrations included people equally distorted, small, attractive, well dressed and improbably thin.
At some point, in the early 1960s, realistic photography rapidly displaced such fanciful Illustrations. I guess consumers were tired of being duped by the fantasies of the Illustrators.
Re your photography comment: True, except it seems Pontiac was the last to get that memo. Their “you can play Ping-Pong on their hoods” illustrations may have gone on longer than any other make.
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“Pry off the hubcaps and put them on right-side up. If there’s a female model inside the car, cast a lady jockey. If outside, cast a lady basketball player.”
–Instructions on a photoshoot from back in the day.
(Not saying how old I am but I read from a book. pre-internet, no cite; this is paraphrased.)
The earliest examples I am aware of are the elongated illustrations of the 1941 and 1942 Henney-Packard hearses and limousines. The drawings make them look at least 2 feet longer and a foot lower.
I was hoping to find examples online, but that didn’t happen. But if I have an opportunity to get into my original Packard literature files, I’ll pull examples & post them.
Studebaker also resorted to airbrushing to modify the 1955 sedans mid-year to accommodate the new fishbowl windshield, with the models and surroundings otherwise unchanged. And what’s with the taxicab-yellow exterior paint that was all over the brochures and advertisements but not offered on the cars in real life?
On that yellow – I have had this same question. That shade was used for eons in the advertising but nothing remotely like it was on the cars.
Haha, a great catch – I had never noticed the identical occupants. Studebaker used those composite drawings/actual scene photos for decades.
A little known fact is that every Studebaker came with the same lady driver, Miss Betty McDonald, crowned Miss Studebaker 1953. She lived in South Bend Indiana and was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John McDonald who was fourth generation Studebaker employee.
Miss McDonald was to be stored in your garage, along with your new Studebaker and available for any of your photos. She was quite the professional and a quiet kind of gal. Today, she is 91 years old and living in a small garage in Peoria Illinois.
Interesting spot, and also interesting (I suspect) that the driver is the woman, not the gent.
in coupé and 4 door versions, the 1953 Studes’ shape ranks with the most elegant of Farina, Michelotti – any of the great European designers and manufacturers – and, I believe, influenced them. This beautiful, restrained classic would embellish the automotive world if produced today. Ah, Studebaker! Who loves ya, Baby!?!