12/20/63 was the last day the regular car production line ran in South Bend. A moment of silence, please! (The last trucks were built on 12/27 and the Avantis, I have heard both dates of 12/26 and 12/31).
A couple years ago, I was in a Friday's restaurant with my daughters and had an SNM sweatshirt on. A distinguished-looking fellow came over to my table, commenting on my sweatshirt, and told me he worked at a South Bend TV station in his early or mid 20's in 1963 and had snuck into the plant on the last day and took 'spy footage' of the last car going down the line, which was spirited off to the NBC affiliate in Chicago and used on Huntley-Brinkley that night. I thought I had heard that story before and looked in the Dec. '83 TW and did see that mentioned in a South Bend Tribune article from Dec. '63.
He said he didn't shave for a few days, paid a guy the day before for his employee badge, and just walked in with the crowd the next morning.
He also told me he had driven the station's Avanti, some days or weeks earlier, out to the SB airport to interview Jimmy Hoffa and sideswiped a bridge en route but kept going despite pretty massive fiberglass damage to the car! He did get the Hoffa interview. He claims the car was loaned to the station by Studebaker and that they had promptly repaired the car afterwards. (I wondered if they might have actually replaced it with a similar-looking Avanti.)
I invited him to speak at a friend's Ohio Region SDC meet the next summer. He accepted and was an interesting speaker. Ironically, one of our club members had his white '64 GT with black Sports Roof and red cloth interior, built on 12/20/63, at the meet the same day. I took a picture of the speaker next to the car, as they probably passed each other that December day some 40+ years earlier.
He was a Notre Dame grad and still attended the occasional home football game there, despite living over four hours' drive away, but had never been to the Studebaker Museum.
SIDE MORAL OF THE STORY: Wear those Studebaker shirts out and about.
Bill Pressler
Kent, OH
'63 Lark Daytona Skytop
A couple years ago, I was in a Friday's restaurant with my daughters and had an SNM sweatshirt on. A distinguished-looking fellow came over to my table, commenting on my sweatshirt, and told me he worked at a South Bend TV station in his early or mid 20's in 1963 and had snuck into the plant on the last day and took 'spy footage' of the last car going down the line, which was spirited off to the NBC affiliate in Chicago and used on Huntley-Brinkley that night. I thought I had heard that story before and looked in the Dec. '83 TW and did see that mentioned in a South Bend Tribune article from Dec. '63.
He said he didn't shave for a few days, paid a guy the day before for his employee badge, and just walked in with the crowd the next morning.
He also told me he had driven the station's Avanti, some days or weeks earlier, out to the SB airport to interview Jimmy Hoffa and sideswiped a bridge en route but kept going despite pretty massive fiberglass damage to the car! He did get the Hoffa interview. He claims the car was loaned to the station by Studebaker and that they had promptly repaired the car afterwards. (I wondered if they might have actually replaced it with a similar-looking Avanti.)
I invited him to speak at a friend's Ohio Region SDC meet the next summer. He accepted and was an interesting speaker. Ironically, one of our club members had his white '64 GT with black Sports Roof and red cloth interior, built on 12/20/63, at the meet the same day. I took a picture of the speaker next to the car, as they probably passed each other that December day some 40+ years earlier.
He was a Notre Dame grad and still attended the occasional home football game there, despite living over four hours' drive away, but had never been to the Studebaker Museum.
SIDE MORAL OF THE STORY: Wear those Studebaker shirts out and about.
Bill Pressler
Kent, OH
'63 Lark Daytona Skytop
I've often wondered why or how the production schedule seemed skewed toward Hawks at the end of South Bend production. Could it be that, even then, people realized their ultimate value, or at least interest, because that proud model was coming to an end? (I realize there are less glamorous explanations, like using up parts!)
BP
We've got to quit saying, 
[V] [8D] BP
Comment