A few months back, one Dennis Hommel of Grass Valley, CA (formerly of Menlo Park, CA) passed on. He's survived by 3 sons. I never knew Dennis personally. In fact I'd never heard of him until a fellow SDC'er and me became participants in the liquidation of Dennis' estate.
After Dennis' passing, his sons set about clearing out properties their late father had accumulated. On some of those properties were physical evidence of a pointed interest in Studebakers. More specifically, the 1953 - 1954 Studebaker C-K offerings.
Dennis Hommel had obviously gone to great lenghts to establish quite a library of reference and history regarding these specific models. The pursuit of this reference collection led him to have personal correspondence with Bob Bourke, John Bridges, and many others who's names are associated with these works of art. Also amongst this compilation are fabric samples, paint chips, photographs and pages of specifications regarding the early C-K cars.
Further than that, Dennis established a roster for these cars. Since we have not gone completely through his files, we have yet to lay hands on what there was of this roster. We do have a bunch of note pads that Dennis had printed where the front side features line drawings of C-Ks and the backside of each leaf carries an application to log one's car with the roster. There's no telling, at this point, how many folks had registered their Studes with Dennis but there IS a note on the applications that saysin essence) Mail in the app. along with a self-addressed buisness sized envelope and 2 stamps for a free copy of the "20-page" roster.
Of course, not having seen any of those "pages" yet, one can only speculate how many C-K cars are to be found logged thereupon. I'll post more on this as we have time to peruse the boxes of related Stude papers and books.
Dennis Hommel was also actively restoring a 1953 Champion hardtop through the mid-to-late 90s. It can't be said with conviction yet, but it seems that work stopped on this project along about 1999 or so. This project car was one of the aquisitions of my fellow SDCer along with another 53 Champion hardtop that's totally original, unrestored and complete.
The car Dennis was restoring is on track to be a First Place car if and when it ever gets finished. The other Champion is certainly worthy of a restoration simply because it's survived practically 100% intact and fairly solid. The resto project sports it's original type 170 flathead 6 & 3-spdOD tranny. The difference of the other car is that it's got the Studebaker DG-150 automatic trans.
As I said before, I never knew Dennis Hommel and I'm not sure I ever would have known of him had I not gotten involved in this aftermath facet of his life. I know not what long-time association Dennis might have had with the world of Studebakers or the 53-54 models in particular. His son's could be no more specific when I pressed them on that point.
The fate of the 2 cars Dennis had has yet to be decided at this point. Quite a bit of expense had been lavished upon the resto example. The other one has had virtually nothing done to it other than having a door acquired to replace the passengers's door that was severely dented.
Dennis' fate was a passing of natural causes - at age 59. I've taken time to write this because certainly some folks in SDC-land have had contact with him by and by.
Having seen some of the things Dennis had interest in other than Studebakers, I feel safe in charaterizing him as an artist. I guess it's only natural that he had fallen under the spell that emanates from the masterpiece of Bourke & Studebaker Co..
Miscreant at large.
After Dennis' passing, his sons set about clearing out properties their late father had accumulated. On some of those properties were physical evidence of a pointed interest in Studebakers. More specifically, the 1953 - 1954 Studebaker C-K offerings.
Dennis Hommel had obviously gone to great lenghts to establish quite a library of reference and history regarding these specific models. The pursuit of this reference collection led him to have personal correspondence with Bob Bourke, John Bridges, and many others who's names are associated with these works of art. Also amongst this compilation are fabric samples, paint chips, photographs and pages of specifications regarding the early C-K cars.
Further than that, Dennis established a roster for these cars. Since we have not gone completely through his files, we have yet to lay hands on what there was of this roster. We do have a bunch of note pads that Dennis had printed where the front side features line drawings of C-Ks and the backside of each leaf carries an application to log one's car with the roster. There's no telling, at this point, how many folks had registered their Studes with Dennis but there IS a note on the applications that saysin essence) Mail in the app. along with a self-addressed buisness sized envelope and 2 stamps for a free copy of the "20-page" roster.
Of course, not having seen any of those "pages" yet, one can only speculate how many C-K cars are to be found logged thereupon. I'll post more on this as we have time to peruse the boxes of related Stude papers and books.
Dennis Hommel was also actively restoring a 1953 Champion hardtop through the mid-to-late 90s. It can't be said with conviction yet, but it seems that work stopped on this project along about 1999 or so. This project car was one of the aquisitions of my fellow SDCer along with another 53 Champion hardtop that's totally original, unrestored and complete.
The car Dennis was restoring is on track to be a First Place car if and when it ever gets finished. The other Champion is certainly worthy of a restoration simply because it's survived practically 100% intact and fairly solid. The resto project sports it's original type 170 flathead 6 & 3-spdOD tranny. The difference of the other car is that it's got the Studebaker DG-150 automatic trans.
As I said before, I never knew Dennis Hommel and I'm not sure I ever would have known of him had I not gotten involved in this aftermath facet of his life. I know not what long-time association Dennis might have had with the world of Studebakers or the 53-54 models in particular. His son's could be no more specific when I pressed them on that point.
The fate of the 2 cars Dennis had has yet to be decided at this point. Quite a bit of expense had been lavished upon the resto example. The other one has had virtually nothing done to it other than having a door acquired to replace the passengers's door that was severely dented.
Dennis' fate was a passing of natural causes - at age 59. I've taken time to write this because certainly some folks in SDC-land have had contact with him by and by.
Having seen some of the things Dennis had interest in other than Studebakers, I feel safe in charaterizing him as an artist. I guess it's only natural that he had fallen under the spell that emanates from the masterpiece of Bourke & Studebaker Co..
Miscreant at large.
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