Who made the engines in Studebakers?

[clarkwd]

At yesterdays local show they needed a trivia question to give away tickets to the NE Classic Car Museum. I told the announcer to ask who made the engine in my 53 Studebaker. It is a Passmaster 259 from a friends Speedster. They made the announcement and people flocked around my car checking out the engine and shouting out their answer. What a riot! They went through almost every car brand before someone got it right.
Bill

[bjackameit]

http://billstudepage.homestead.com/files/engine.htm

[tsenecal]

That was a great idea, and it generated some extra interest in our Studebaker brand. Car shows can get a little boring at times, so something like that would get people wound up.

[dpson]

Well of course, it's the same engine Ford used in the Mustangs.

[Avantidon]

I've gotten that question many times about the engine in my R-2 Avanti. Most tell me it is a Ford V-8. When I open the hood and show them I always ask was Ford's 289 that wide? The stutters start and then I tell them it is a Studebaker built engine and that Studebaker had a 289 while Ford was trying to make one out of their 260. Most just shake their heads, smile, say they learned something today and walk away. Others get angry, mumble and walk away. I guess that's the life of car shows today.

[53k]

At yesterdays local show they needed a trivia question to give away tickets to the NE Classic Car Museum. I told the announcer to ask who made the engine in my 53 Studebaker. It is a Passmaster 259 from a friends Speedster. They made the announcement and people flocked around my car checking out the engine and shouting out their answer. What a riot! They went through almost every car brand before someone got it right.
Bill

When you get the old "it's a Ford 289" comment, tell them to look where the distributor is on a Ford 289 then look at where the distributor is on a Studebaker V-8.

Some years ago I saw an auction ad for an old salvage yard that was closing. The listing had a '53 Studebaker Commander Starliner with a Ford 289. I went just to see that car and straighten them out on engines. When I opened the hood, there sat a Ford 289.

[jclary]

If you really want to puzzle the "self appointed know it all's" ...after setting them straight about the Studebaker 289...follow that up with..."YOU DO KNOW THAT STUDEBAKER HAD BEEN MANUFACTURING VEHICLES FOR A HALF CENTURY BEFORE FORD BECAME A CORPORATION ?!?!

Then watch the reactions, disbelief, bewilderment, vacant look, as they wander away from the crazy Studebaker guy.

As long as you use the word "vehicle," and not "automobile, or car," you are technically correct!

[Gunslinger]

If you really want to puzzle the "self appointed know it all's" ...after setting them straight about the Studebaker 289...follow that up with..."YOU DO KNOW THAT STUDEBAKER HAD BEEN MANUFACTURING VEHICLES FOR A HALF CENTURY BEFORE FORD BECAME A CORPORATION ?!?!

Then watch the reactions, disbelief, bewilderment, vacant look, as they wander away from the crazy Studebaker guy.

As long as you use the word "vehicle," and not "automobile, or car," you are technically correct!

Actually...Studebaker had been making vehicles before Henry Ford was even born.

I remember once at a car show an old timer was adamant that Chevrolet made everyone's engines...they just changed the heads to make them look different. He said when he was younger he worked in a service station and saw that to be a fact.

[Noxnabaker]

Such fun; once I met a guy who told me & a friend that Chevrolet made the first overhead V8 as my pal just said he's -53 Studebaker had a V8, so I said my -53 New Yorker wagon had a Hemi & did he know what that was...?
& that it came in -51, 2 years after Oldsmobile & Cadillac's V8's & that Studebaker introdused their V8 the same year as Chrysler...
He said we were full of ****!
I said "ok, so what year did Ford get their overhead V8? & Buick? & then even Plymouth?"
"After Chevy!" he said...
I would be really surprised if he STILL thinks that today thou...

[brngarage]

I don't remember whether it was 1914 or 1918, but Chevrolet had a V8 back then (and I THINK it had overhead valves)!

I just checked Jalopnik: First Chevy V8 made in 1918. It was 288 cubic inches, with overhead valves and crossflow heads. WOW!

[Noxnabaker]

Surprised I stand!

[Mike Van Veghten]

One MUST be careful...

Back in 1969 a high school friend bought a nice (black) Golden Hawk. The talk of the school. At that point in time, I didn't know that much about the Studebaker as a whole...BUT when he opened the hood, not only did it have the blower, it ALSO had the distributor in the "front" of the engine..!!
He said that the guy he bought it from had removed the blower engine from a T-Bird and put into the Stude.

So yea...not all may be as it seems...all the time.

Mike

[Jett289]

I remember many years ago stopping at a car museum in Virden Manitoba and on display there is an early 1900's Chevrolet v8 engine car . It had a brief right up on it and said it was an original car .. I have driven by that museum many times since and will have to revisit again for sure .

[HOXXOH]

When the Ford vs Studebaker question comes up, I usually mention that Studebaker celebrated their 100th anniversary the year before Ford celebrated their 50th. I follow it up with Lincoln rode to the Ford theater in a Studebaker carriage. That always gets them shaking their heads in disbelief.

[Indyted]

I read on this forum a couple years back that an Avanti owner took his car to car show. There, he ran into some 'car experts' who where 100% adamant that the 289's in Avantis were the Ford 289. I really want to run into people like that so I can laugh in their faces.

Seriously, there is one sure way to silence all this Ford 289 talk. The Ford 289 was introduced in April 1963. By the end March 1963, 2,979 or 64% of all Studebaker Avantis were already built. How could almost 3,000 Avantis, be equipped with an Ford engine that had not been developed yet? Furthermore, why would Ford immediately sell its newly developed next generation engine to one of its competitors??