We had competition!

[dean pearson]

WW2 weapons carrier.
Like so many Studebakers of the same era,
Oh what stories this could tell.
A little off beat but I thought you guys would like it.

Dean.

[StudeNewby]

I love military vehicles. Corbitt was a North Carolina-based manufacturer of big trucks up into the 1950s and built many military trucks as well. This weekend I was wearing my Corbitt Preservation Association t-shirt which sported a drawing of one of their troop transports from WW2. I kept getting asked if I restore military vehicles and had to reply that I can hardly restore my standard Studes!

[53k]

Lot's of Studebaker war vehicle stories out there. I can't resist telling a couple.

First story- When I was in Vietnam in 1968 I was in charge of a ramp in DaNang harbor where we loaded all sorts of things on river craft and LSTs. One time we had a bunch of Army vehicles to load on LSTs which were to take them to Taiwan for scrapping. One of the trucks was a 1954 Studebaker 6x6 dual fuel (start on gasoline then run on kerosene). It was in great shape and ran well. My CB equipment operators couldn't see it being scrapped so they latched on to it as sort of a shop truck. One night they decided to "take it to town". On the way back they managed to run over a Vietnamese guard shack- didn't hurt the sentry, but lost the truck. It was barely scratched, but it got too many people's attention to keep it any longer.

Second story- Several years ago we had a chapter weekend tour. We were staying at a WV State Park Lodge. A couple of us had just driven up in our Studebakers when a young woman came over and exclaimed "Studebakers". We asked her if she knew what Studebakers were. She said she was from Russia and many people still talked about Studebaker trucks, In fact, trucks were often referred to as Studebakers whether they were or not. Not only that, but she told us she has seen a Studebaker for sale in Thurmont, MD, about 50 miles from us. I went up to check and sure enough, she had spotted a very decent '61 Lark Cruiser.