It is unthinkable that within a few years, there may be no more new Fords, no more Dodges, no more Chevys to drive to the levee. It is less than a year since the manufacture of Postum was discontinued. Meccano sets are made of plastic. Piece by piece, the American prospect is being dismantled. Will the pulse of teenage boys quicken at the sight of the new Kia or Hyundai? Will they envy their pal because his dad drives a Camaro?
I think that's all over with. There will be a void in our national imagination. Let me tell you about how it used to be.In my opinion, the mourner of Miss American Pie drove a Studebaker. It's simply that "Chevy" was an easier rhyme.
Since the classic 50s Chevy we think of is the '57 Bel Air, it is reasonable to conclude that the ride of Miss Pie's friend on the day the music died was a 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk--the sexiest American car ever manufactured, although there are those who praise the 50s Thunderbirds and Corvettes, however slower than the Hawks they may have been..
But this is not about automobiles. It is about love. They say that when a man reaches 40 and finds some spare change in his pocket, his thoughts turn to the car he desired with all his heart in the years before he got his driver's license. In 1956, I took a part-time job at Johnston's Sport Shop in Champaign-Urbana. I was not a stock boy. I was a sales clerk. I knew nothing about sporting goods but I eavesdropped on old Mate Cuppernell, the sunburned, Camel-smoking fishing specialist. Overnight, I was an expert. "These Johnson motors are the same under the skin as the Evinrudes," I would explain, and, "The big cats are going for these Heddon spinners out at Kaufman's Clear Lake."
I got an hour for lunch. I stopped first at the Shell station across the street, run by a man who operated juke boxes and sold his old 45s for a nickel apiece. Marty Robbins. Elvis. Then I'd walk a block down Neil Street to the Chuck Wagon diner, one of the first restaurants to feature Col. Harland Sanders' chicken on its menu. I met him the day they started serving his chicken, and he asked me how I liked his spices. At six, I was given a penny by old Mr. J. C. Penney , so now I had met two titans of marketing.In between the gas station and the diner was Maxey Motors, a Studebaker-Packard dealer. I didn't pay it much heed. All I knew about Studebakers was that kids joked about how they looked like they were going in both directions at once. Many years later I discovered that Raymond Loewy's design for the 1953 Starliner was proclaimed a work of genius by the Museum of Modern Art.
The '57 Studebaker Golden Hawk. Yes.
But enough about Starliners. One autumn day as I walked bent down into a chill wind, something caught the corner of my eye in the window of Maxey Motors. I turned and stood transfixed. It was the new 1957 Golden Hawk. I forgot the rain. I forgot the chicken. I wanted that car. I walked inside and slowly circled it. My eyes hungered. Before that day, cars were ordinary things like my dad's boxy '50 Plymouth or my mom's '55 Olds, designed along the lines that made a loaf of bread seem inevitable. Now here was a Hawk! that sprang from a lofty crag and circled the firmament with fierce beauty. And it was supercharged and had a grill that breathed great gulps of air.
The next year I got my driver's license, and was able to buy a 1954 Ford for $400. I was not faithful to it. In my heart, I lusted for the Golden Hawk. I became expert at sketching it from memory. In profile, the graceful fenders curving down to the headlights, The windshield raked back in harmonious counterbalance. Then the slant of the roof, leading down to the uprising of the bold fins. Musical. You could sing it.
When I was 40, and had a little change in my pocket, my thoughts turned back to the 1957 Golden Hawk. One day I was in Los Angeles and paging through Hemmings Motor News, and found an ad for a '57 Hawk being restored out in Santa Monica. I went to look at it, and the deal was sealed. Two months later it was dropped off six blocks from my home by an auto carrier. It was gold with white fins and its engine sounded mighty. Driving it home, my left elbow casually on the window sill, I was aware that every male I passed gave it a second look. Not so much the women. Evolution teaches us women are looking for a good provider in a man, not an aesthete. A Volvo driver, not a Hawk driver. Maybe, but the Hawk guy will be more fun in the sack.
The year was 1982. I was a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. I had won a Pulitzer Prize. I was co-host of a national TV show. These credits were pleasing, but...there was something missing. A hollow in my ego, waiting to be filled. I turned the key in the ignition, rolled down the window, turned the radio to rock 'n roll on an oldies station, hooked my elbow out the window, and purred out of the parking lot. I was only six blocks from home, but somehow my route took me through Old Town, and up and down Rush Street, and slowly through Lincoln Park.
Raymond Lowey: "The father of industrial design"
Out of the corner of my eye I saw males of all ages pausing to stare. They didn't recognize me, because they weren't looking at me. They were looking at my car. If they were with women, the women turned to see, not the Hawk, but why their men had paused. Inside of me, intense joy rose. It had nothing do do with what I had accomplished. It was entirely fueled by what I drove. This is a pure joy known to 16-year-old boys from that era, who had nothing else to excite envy except their ride. Even if they were all-state on the football team, it didn't mean as much if they were driving their dad's '40s Oldsmobile.
What pleasure that car gave me. I kept it at our summer place in Michigan. The nearby Red Arrow Highway, the old hard road to Detroit, was built in the 1920s and looked retro. There was a roadhouse used by Capone, with a secret gambling room in the basement. Classic brick Shell stations. Fruit stands. A sign for the annual Milk Bottle Show. There was even a Frank Lloyd Wright lookalike motel. I drove the Golden Hawk around Harbor Country and, reader, I was envied. I frequented Mikey's in Bridgeman because they had car hops and I could roll down my window to balance a tray with a burger and shake, and Chaz could roll down her window and have her own separate tray. Life was easier in the 1950s.
Searching my old movie reviews for the word Studebaker, I found these words from my review of "Heavy Petting" in 1989:
There are a lot of adults around today who will tell you that their peak early sexual experiences took place in cars, and that beds will never be as exciting. Not long ago, for example, I took a woman in her 40s for a drive in my 1957 Studebaker, and after sliding across the vinyl upholstery, inhaling the aroma of gasoline and oil, listening to the tires spinning on the gravel, and waiting for the radio tubes to warm up, she reported that all of these physical associations made her feel exactly as if someone was going to try to take off her bra.That autumn I met Chaz. The following summer, we participated in the annual Ride of LaPorte, Indiana. In its simplicity, this is an auto event superior to any other in Indiana, including the Indy 500. What you do is, you park your pre-1960 automobile in a lot at the county fairgrounds, have Coke and hot dogs, and walk around looking at the other cars. I parked my Golden Hawk next to an immaculate 1949 Hudson of the sort Miss Daisy was driven in. Now there was a car. You could raise a family in the back seat. It had the Step-Down Design, which allowed it to wipe out every Ford and Chevy in stock car races. It had less horsepower, but with such a low center of gravity it would cream them on the turns.
At 1 p.m., "The Stars and Stripes Forever" blared from the loudspeakers, and we pulled into line and paraded out of the fairgrounds. A state cop with a whistle was directing traffic onto the street. As we passed her, she said, "Sharp car!"
"Did you hear that?" I asked Chaz.
"Yeah. Sharp car."
"Sharp car!" I said. "She called it a sharp car!"
"Sharp car, all right," Chaz said. She later told this story about a thousand times, apparently because it meant something special to her.
With the LaPorte Ride, what you do is, you drive up and down the streets of LaPorte and people sit in lawn chairs and look at you. No floats. No marching bands. No Sheriff Sid on his horse. Just beautiful cars. Mostly the citizens of LaPorte sat and nodded pleasantly, waved a little, and poured their iced tea. But the Golden Hawk was greeted with applause. Perhaps there was a sentimental connection. The Studebaker was manufactured in South Bend, 30 miles away. Some of these people or their relatives may have worked there.
One weekend we took the car on a pilgrimage to South Bend, where I expected to see Studebakers lining the streets and backed up at traffic lights, like in a Twilight Zone episode. No luck. But we drove down by the St. Joseph river, turned right, and there before us was the Studebaker National Museum. We pulled the Hawk into a parking space right next to the entrance, posted, "Studebakers Only." My license plate read FAUCON, French for hawk.
The Museum occupied what once had been the largest Studebaker dealership in the world. It was across the street from the original Studebaker plant, now standing forlorn. Inside was a visual sea of vehicles. Cars, fire engines, school buses, troop transports, armored cars. The station wagon with the roof that would slide back so you could bring home a totem pole standing upright. The nifty Lark. Taxis. Ambulances. Touring sedans from the 1930s. Classic Packards like Gatsby drove. Champ trucks. Conestoga wagons, because Studebaker was the only wagon-maker that made the transition to cars, The wagons floated down the river to St. Louis, and then were pulled overland into John Wayne movies.
They had the carriage built by Studebaker in which Abraham Lincoln drove to Ford's Theater and did not drive home. The last Packard ever made, a show car for the year Packard died. And lots and lots of Studebakers. And medallions, postcards, t-shirts, visors, books, scarves, hats, jackets, signs, sweat shirts, scale models, books, mugs, jigsaw puzzles, metal Studebaker medallions, belt buckles, cuff links, videos, jigsaw puzzles, key rings and place mats. I discovered the National Studebaker Drivers' Club is the largest car-owners' club in America, and I could sign up. If there was one place in the nation that understood the Studebaker, it was South Bend, Indiana. They have a university there, too.
Abraham Lincoln's Last Ride. (Studebaker National Museum)
Our guests loved to drive to Mikey's and get the super-thick shakes. One summer our good friends Gillian and Peter Catto and their children visited from London. He drove a Bentley. I took them for a spin in my Studebaker. I startled them by stepping on the gas.
"Now this is something like it," he said from the back seat.
"Now tell the story," Chaz said."When these cars were new," I said. "They weremuch faster than '57 Corvettes or T-Birds. The salesmen would put a client on the back seat, put a $100 bill on the front seat, and tell the client he could keep the money if he could overcome the force of the acceleration, and lean forward and pick it up while the Hawk was doing zero-to-60."
I treasured the Golden Hawk. But I could not give it the care it deserved. I knew nothing about auto mechanics. When it was built, everybody did. When a car stopped and you looked under the hood, you were actually looking for something, not simply performing a roadside pantomime with a car that required computer programmers. I found the honey a good home with Dan Jedlicka, the automobile editor of the Sun-Times, who confessed that he had driven every car in history and the '57 Hawk was the only one he had wanted to own.
We have come to the end of my story. If Studebaker died in 1966, its legacy lived on in the Avanti, also designed by Raymond Loewy, the century's greatest industrial designer, who also designed (are you sitting down?) the Coke bottle, the Shell trademark, the Lucky Strike package, and the underlying lines of most of the postwar Studebakers. He could travel from coast to coast by plane, train, automobile and bus, using only vehicles he had designed. Andy Granatelli designed the Avanti engine, and, Wikipedia says, he drove it to establish or break broke 34 U.S. land speed records. So timeless was this sports car, its manufacture was continued until four year ago, and even now plans have been announced to resume production in Cancun.
All of that is sequel. The past is prologue. I fell in love with the Golden Hawk in 1956, I bought one in 1988, and now all I have is a model car on my desk, and my memories. It may be you have a different car in your dreams. If you have turned 40, and have some spare change in your pocket, buy it. It could cost you a fraction of a new car's price. And if your love is true, that car will be like Benjamin Button, growing younger every year.
¶
Photo at top: "Hot Shot East," by O. Winston Link. (Collection of Roger and Chaz Ebert
Jamie Foxx ties a yellow ribbon 'round his Golden Hawk.
Reply to: Ebert: They say that when a man reaches 40 and finds some spare change in his pocket, his thoughts turn to the car he desired with all his heart in the years before he got his driver's license
I went to high school in a suburb of Detroit, and my memories of this period are full of cars with gaping, rusty holes in the lower doors and fenders. OK, there was one car:
http://www.thecarnut.com/Mistralspyder68/IMG_2432.JPG
And a few decades later, there was another:
http://www.autosportdesigns.com/sales/Salesphotos.aspx?ID=1592
Ten years ago, I thought that cars were going to get boring. But I don't feel that way any more. Last weekend, I drove:
http://www.autogaleria.pl/tapety/img/mercedes-benz/mercedes-benz_cl_65_amg_2007_03_s.jpg
Most people drive boring cars. That's why the special ones stand out.
A friend of mine said he was finally getting his dream car, a Lincoln Navigator. I tried to talk him into a Jaguar instead.
The dream isn't dead. There are still cars that make me feel like a twelve year-old. And for the next fifty years or so, there are going to be a lot of them. Beyond that, my crystal ball gets cloudy.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_0LHv6YA3at4/R1yV4LBHv6I/AAAAAAAAD4Q/SInPpIyEcCM/042.JPG
Should I mention the Firebird Trans Am that Kevin Spacey (Lester Burnham) lusted after in "American Beauty"? Doesn't hold a candle to the Golden Hawk.
The only problem I have with Studebaker... is there's no "e" at the end of "Stud."
Ebert: I dunno. How does driving a Studbaker sound to you?
I drive a 2002 silver Ford Focus. I can’t see myself waxing poetic about it – ever.
By the way, the file name for that last picture is rogerstud. I don’t have a joke here – I just wanted to point that out.
Ebert: For "Roger Studebaker," of course, but I'll take it.
I think it's sad that the US motor industry looks like it's collapsing, just like Britain's did in the 70s. It's pitiful that once great car builders fall like that. The thing is though, Britain still makes such wonderful things as the Rolls Royce Phantom, Bentley Continental, various excellent Jaguars, Range Rovers and the new Mini. It would seem that England's car industry seems to be thriving, but when we take a closer look, we see that all those excellent marques are foreign owned. Jaguar and Range Rover owned by Tata of India, Rolls Royce and MINI owned by BMW and Bentley owned by VW. As it is, the most successful entirely British company is tiny, tiny Morgan. The question is, rather than collapse entirely, could the US motor industry be put into the hands of foreign owners willing to take a very big risk?
I lament the demise of the great car makers. Cars are the stuff of dreams. Driving an E Type (XKE) Jag along the PCH, a '68 Mini Cooper along the Riviera, a Dodge Challenger through Utah ala Vanishing Point. These are all great dreams that intend to make a reality. But notice anything about my selection? These are all cars of the past, made long before I was born so it rules out nostalgia value. I don't think my children will grow up lusting over a Toyota Prius. The current state of design, I reckon, shows that designers have lost their imagination and unless they get their groove back, the future is going to be a dull, dull place.
Ebert: Chrysler had some fun with the PT Cruiser and the 300.
For some reason I kept imagining that Johnny Cash song about smuggling out a car piece by piece from a factory throughout this post. How evocative.
For some reason I kept imagining that Johnny Cash song about smuggling out a car piece by piece from a factory throughout this post. How evocative.
No, the pulse of American boys will definitely not quicken at the sight of a new Kia or Hyundai. And I will forever miss having my windshield washed, my tires and oil checked, and not having to step out of my car to pay, everytime I roll up to buy gas. Among other things I will miss. Feel better, Roger. God bless.
Roger, thought you might like this little tidbit about Raymond Loewy: he also designed the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, the 1954 Greyhound Scenicruiser bus (technically the GM PD-4501), the Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 electric locomotive, and on top of all that, a slew of corporate logos: Lucky Strike cigarettes, US Mail, Canada Dry, Nabisco, and at least three oil companies: BP, Shell and Exxon. The guy was a freaking genius whose work spanned generations.
I've always loved the look of the Hawk, and if I had the finances I'd own one, along with a 1946 deep maroon Buick like my father drove around in the early 1950's, and the 1954 Dodge pickup he had when I was a child (late 1960's) that had what Dad termed "3 speeds forward plus a granny gear". Old pickups had a certain smell in the cab that just doesn't exist anymore. Never have been sure what it was that made old trucks smell that way, although an old friend of mine suggested "old man sweat and spilled Schiltz" contributed. I disagreed; Dad was far from old at that time and Budweiser (in cans) was the only beer permitted on the property.
One other car that's haunted me all these years: the 1967 Chevelle. Grandma drove one up until she gave up driving. Beautiful sounding engine that was completely lost on an 80+ year old lady. Two doors, original interior, original engine. Beautiful car. Grandma would be at a supermarket somewhere and would have guys come up to her and offer her really good amounts of money for the car. Her response was always "But how will I get home?"
When the time came for her to give up her keys, I drove down to Oklahoma City to offer to buy the car off of her, but when I got there the car was already gone.
"I sold it", she told me, and I was heartbroken, but was happy she was okay with her decision to stop driving.
But, she continued. "I sold it for $500.00". Holy crap, I thought, she got ripped off.
I said something like "Grandma, no offense but you got ripped off!"
She smiled and said something like "No I didn't. I sold it to your sister". I couldn't stay upset at that, and besides, now when I go down to Dallas I get to see the old car sitting in the garage, still looking like new.
My sister probably wonders why I spend all my time in the garage when I go to visit her.
Miss American Pie did not drive the Chevty, the narrator, who is saying goodbye to Miss American Pie, did. He did so in 1959, after the plane crash that killd Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and "The Big Bopper."
Minor points, to be sure, but I trust this site for accuracy.
Ebert: I knew that. What makes you think I didn't know that? (Billy Crystal)
I knew I would hear from students of the song, which takes place the day the music died. My only defense is poetic license. And it would have gotten the piece off to a slow start with all the footnotes. But you're correct. When I get home from the screening of "The Spirit," I'll see if I can tinker with it.
I'm not sure why -- well, perhaps I have a pretty good idea -- but lately, as I read your blog, I've been hearing it narrated in Jean Shepherd's voice.
This is no bad thing, and I look forward to being transported by future entries.
Ebert: Just about time to see "A Christmas Story" again. I think they might have had success re-releasing a restored version in theaters for the 25th anniversary.
Down over here in Phoenix, every weekend over in a certain part of town at night (mid-town, I think), the lowriders would park their cars in a large retail parking lot and show them off to eachother--and just to turn heads, which are, as you know, older cars mainly from the seventies, and then probably after not being there very long, the cops would come and tell them to leave. I'm not sure if they still do that or not. I would think yes, but maybe not or maybe not as often, but it doesn't seem like the same thing as what you were saying.
Down in Houston, also, people did the same thing a few years ago, with "The Fast and The Furious" type of cars. I'm pretty sure they stopped because one day the cops came and arrested the whole lot of them one day--278 people! http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/8/20/17504/9831 . Those cops were punished, I think. There were always kind of different ones every weekend, probably a few regulars always there. But I think the women that came with the car were about as equal or more desired than the car, usually-- although the racing, too--like one car had a girl hanging out of the car with a camcorder yelling while filming you. Both of these cars--lowriders and FATF type (no, not the Vin Diesel muscle one)--about half the time have paint jobs on them with certain kinds of street art etc. I suppose that is about the equivalent today in terms of cars...--American, in general, I don't know--, but I think I am one of those kids that does envy the dad with the camaro, except it was an early 90's camaro. Now some kids will say "well, I have this secret engine in my car" and then blow raspberries, not really thinking of the design so much.
Let's hope that the auto-industry is bailed out because the steel industry and supplying industries to the auto industry. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN1244472420081212?rpc=44&pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0 . The trillions of dollars of bailouts for the banks are also related--the fall of the housing market, which collapsed the mortgage market, which collapsed the banks--to one problem that is worldwide:
Because of oil prices raised at will by OPEC. There is a bill in congress: the Open Fuel Standard Act, making half of all new cars sold here be flex-fueled in a few years, by 2012 or 2013. It only costs 100$ per car. Let your representative know that this bill must be supported or we will go into a depression. Obama has a policy of making a full transition to flex-fuel by the end of his first term, but it won't pass without congress. Let your representative know this should be a standard feature, like seat belts or am/fm radio is from the cold war. All international cars will switch, and alcohol fuels (plural) like ethanol Or methanol, which can be made from any biomass w/out exception (waste, drain clogging sewage, trash, coal (which our friends and allies have the most of--or tropical agriculture), natural gas (which t. boone pickens is much more weakly, albeit very patriotically suggesting for natural gas cars--we could use it for methanol instead), plant residue etc., which will create competition against oil (something it does not have) and create 1.5 million jobs in the U.S. alone, and save starving countries that can't afford 150 dollar barrels per oil as earlier this year. OPEC announced starting Jan. 1st that it will have the biggest oil production cut in history. Don't be expecting these nice gas prices much longer.
As a Briton I find myself compelled to throw an arm around America in general. We've been there for the best part of three decades. At least your car industry might die relatively quickly.
I usually nod in agreement with your more nostalgic passages here, but this is one I don't agree with. I'm 32 and have never pined for a car, nor has anybody I know. I call that progress. The obsession with the automobile has corroded our culture enough, and a move away from that to better public transportation and city planning is what we need now.
Ebert: True. But about pining away. You got your license about 16 years ago. Were there any pine-worthy cars at that time?
Isn't that a strange word? Pine?
ORIGIN Old English pīnian [(cause to) suffer,] of Germanic origin; related to Dutch pijnen, German peinen ‘experience pain,’ also to obsolete pine [punishment] ; ultimately based on Latin poena ‘punishment.’
My family was a Packard/Studebaker family - the cars my Grandfather owned from the end of WWII until the mid sixties were all Packards or Studebakers, a heritage that was transmitted to my Father, who once worked as a mechanic for a prominent Packard collector. When Studebaker died, we had no choice but to make the switch to Oldsmobile for our daily drivers, a tradition that lasted until Oldsmobile's demise in 2004 (a harbinger of the current crisis? Oldsmobile was the oldest surviving American car brand at the time). But we kept the faith with a series of other idiosyncratic cars: Austin, Peugeot, Checker, Citroen. Today, the two cars I most want to own some day are a Citroen DS-21 and a big Studebaker stakebed truck.
I have cars in my blood from my mother's side of the family, too; her grandfather was Abner Doble, creator of the magnificent Doble Steam Car (Jay Leno can tell you all about it).
Ebert: My mom once drove a Kaiser-Frazier. Remember those? And the Nash, which lived on as the Rambler. George Romney was prescient with his ads about Gas-Guzzling Monsters.
I learned to drive on a teal green '69 Ford Fairlane (thanks Pop) nearly 20 years ago and the feeling has never left. That car was MASSIVE. Way too much play in the steering wheel, brakes you had to pump and a blind spot the size of Cleveland but I didn't care, I was in Heaven. When my father got rid of it I was saddened, and I swear, to this day, I haven't driven a car that has given me that kind of emotional jolt since. And with the roads clouded with all the new, eco-friendly, seen-one-you've-seen-em-all vehicles, it's rare to see a car made before 1970. The times they are a changin' but my heart will always be will that Ford.
Great blog, Roger. That Hawk is SWEET! Admit it...you miss it.
My first car was an '81 Ford Escort; it wasn't my choice. I drove it until it died, which wasn't long. I learned to drive a stick on a friend's Triumph, and did the same thing to the Escort that I did to the Triumph. I slipshifted, doubleclutched and slapped that poor thing around until it kicked a rod through the block.
What followed it was a '78 Maverick. Stella. Slippery roads and a telephone pole did her in. Her replacement was a '76 Torino Elite. The Beast. Here she is.
http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr8/MPVorkosigan/Beastie.jpg
She got killed by a woman in a Ford Aerostar who ran a red light while I was turning left. Bitch had a cellphone in her ear and was arguing with her mother and four kids while doing fifty in a thirty-five zone, and I got the ticket.
Beastie was replaced by the Red October, an '81 Olds Delta. She was replaced by a '90 Mercury Tracer.
But none of these are what I've dreamed about for years. See, I hate looking across an intersection and seeing a car just like mine. It's the Kustom Kulture in my bloodstream, I guess. But when I first saw The Black Beauty, I knew that some day I wanted to own it.
http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr8/MPVorkosigan/imperial1966blackbeauty.jpg
I'll be lucky if I even get to touch it, but hey, a guy can dream, right?
Miles
My first car was an '81 Ford Escort; it wasn't my choice. I drove it until it died, which wasn't long. I learned to drive a stick on a friend's Triumph, and did the same thing to the Escort that I did to the Triumph. I slipshifted, doubleclutched and slapped that poor thing around until it kicked a rod through the block.
What followed it was a '78 Maverick. Stella. Slippery roads and a telephone pole did her in. Her replacement was a '76 Torino Elite. The Beast. Here she is.
http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr8/MPVorkosigan/Beastie.jpg
She got killed by a woman in a Ford Aerostar who ran a red light while I was turning left. Bitch had a cellphone in her ear and was arguing with her mother and four kids while doing fifty in a thirty-five zone, and I got the ticket.
Beastie was replaced by the Red October, an '81 Olds Delta. She was replaced by a '90 Mercury Tracer.
But none of these are what I've dreamed about for years. See, I hate looking across an intersection and seeing a car just like mine. It's the Kustom Kulture in my bloodstream, I guess. But when I first saw The Black Beauty, I knew that some day I wanted to own it.
http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr8/MPVorkosigan/imperial1966blackbeauty.jpg
I'll be lucky if I even get to touch it, but hey, a guy can dream, right?
Miles
Pride-of-ownership; that's what it's all about. My brother once had a 40's-ish Studebaker pickup. It was a dull grey, it had several rusty spots, it was noisy and had a strong hot oil smell. In 1972 he and his new bride drove it from New York to Texas on their honeymoon. To this day he insists it was the best vehicle he ever owned!
BTW...with all this car romance, can a Great Movies piece on "American Grafitti" be far behind?
Sadly, the best car I ever had was a 77 Ford Maverick, which was pale yellow and had primer spots. It's name? The Lemon Leopard. It still drove after I flipped it over a ten foot embankment into a creek, but only technically. I replaced it with a Mercury Topaz and it's been all downhill from there.
I would put the national identity in a further state of disrepair, by pointing out other problems with our culture, briefly. How many kids watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special? Not many. Several generations of our family used to watch it, despite wide gaps in musical, social, or political differences. Today's kids couldn't care less about such a poorly animated thing. The true barometer to me, is the staggering number of children today who don't know who Elmer Fudd is. While hardly pivotal, it points out something truly scary in my mind. Every generation I knew up til this one has grown up loving Looney Tunes. The problem with kids today is that they are Fuddless.
A deviation from your topic, but I think it ties in with the 'What kids today are missing them'. Have a Fuddful Friday!
Ebert: Fuddlessness. I have been searching for the right word. That is the right word.
Hey, Rog. I grew up with Studebakers and have always enjoyed your occasional mention of them in your reviews. My dad has what I've always deemed a "Studebaker graveyard" behind the garage on his two-acre lot in Fairbanks, Alaska. I was never a big fan growing up because the family car was a green Wagononaire with a red hood - NOT awesome as a teenager growing up in the early 90s. My dad drove a Studebaker truck and we also had a Cruiser. None of those vehicles were what I would call "classic." My dad does, however, own a Hawk. Now that is a beautiful car. Unfortunately, I've never driven it.
After a lifetime of not understanding my dad's obsession with Studebakers, I chose to research them for a college project and was blown away with what I discovered. I never would have thought that they were so innovative or that they produced such beautiful cars. I'd never even seen the Loewy-designed Starliner and the Commander before this year. To me, Studebakers were just the ugly, rusty cars that my family drove, complete with no air conditioning on our family road trips through the lower 48 and poor heaters for the -60 degree days during the depths of winter (right about this time of year, in fact).
Funny enough, even with my own disinterest in them, I am constantly on the lookout because of my dad. I can't explain why I was so overjoyed to notice the black Hawk in Zodiac (why would they use such a beautiful car for just a few seconds, not even show the entire car, and film it in the rain? You'd think they'd utilize it a bit more if they were going to go to such troubles to get it) or in the numerous other movies where I've seen a Studebaker. I recently pulled over to snap a dozen photos of a Hawk for sale that I found when I took a different route to work.
It's funny how I've allowed my dad's obsession to become one of my own, in a way. I guess it gives me a way to tap into my dad a bit and understand him better. Studebakers are about the only material things that he is really, really passionate about. At least now, I understand why.
Ebert: Why won't he let you drive it? Remember the Hawk driven by Don Johnson in "The Hot Spot" (1980)?
The first car I ever remember riding in was an antique by the time I got to it. It was a 1957 Plymouth Belvadere owned by my grandmother - may she rest in peace. It was, is and ever shall be the most beautiful car I have ever seen in my life. She named the car - appropriatly - "Bella" and it was cobalt blue like the ocean and it shined like a dream.
When I was kid seeing it through eyes just discovering the world, Bella had a personality, those big headlights looked like eyes and at night they lit up not only her yard but several others. It had a bumper that looked a like a big silver mustache that wrapped around her license plate and stretched just around the edges and stopped right in front of those beautiful white wall tires. I remember those tires with those hubcaps shaped like a silver field hat and I could see my face in them - in fact I could see my face in almost every surface of that car.
I remember those stripes on the side that began just behind the front wheels and widened as they went along until they reached the back fins. Yes, it had fins, big ones, which I assumed would allow the car to float in water but was a feature that my grandmother chose not to use -- like the cigarette lighter. The interior OH! that interior was like being in a spacecraft, with that enormous steering wheel, those vinyl seats that she covered with beach towels in the summertime for fear that the vinyl would burn my legs. I remember that four of us kids could fit in the backseat comfortably. When she turned on that engine there was a roar that I could feel in my little chest and a rumble that I could feel under me.
She told me that she and my grandfather bought that car hot off the showroom floor in 1957 and they treated it with loving care. 20 years later when my grandmother was visiting our house, she was inside talking to my mother, while I was in the driveway feeling those lines, looking at my reflection in that surface. By the time I came around, she had stopped driving it on a regular basis, driving her regular car through the week and only driving Bella on Sundays (which is why it still had white walls).
My grandmother sold the car in 1982 after 25 years and I was delighted that she was selling it to a collector, a friend of the family, and I knew it would be taken care of. Yet there was some sadness because I had hoped that someday I would get to drive it, that I would get to feel Bella's rumble under my control. *sigh*
I'm glad to see someone mention Jean Shepherd. That's exactly what I thought as I was reading this, too.
Really, you need only replace "I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!" with "I want a turbo charged zero to sixty in eight seconds Raymond Loewy designed 1957 Golden Hawk Studebaker!" and Ralphie with Roger, and you've got one hell of a movie in the making.
Ebert: I am Ralphie, complete with parents telling me I couldn't have a BB gun because I'd "shoot my eye out." How could I do that while holding the rifle? "Then you'll shoot somebody else's eye out."
Are there statistics on how many kids ever got their eye shot out by a Red Ryder BB gun? I finally got one, however, and per instructions stuffed the box with newspapers and shot at the targets printed on the side.
Directed three English ex-pats to this blog entry. All of them cite classic American cars as one of the reasons they chose to emigrate to America. They're especially into muscle cars, Galaxies and Bonnevilles, but they approve your choices. They all said they had teary eyes reading your essay. How sad it will be if we lose this part of the American Dream -- even beyond the horrible pain of unemployment and lost avenues for the Middle Class.
At 30, I drive a foreign 2001 Suzuki Vitara -- and since I work at a newspaper, I suppose I feel lucky to actually own a paid-off vehicle.
But I grew up in Muenster, Texas. When I was 16, I drove a vaguely red 1987 Camaro with a stick on the floor and front body damage. My father found it parked for sale at the liquor store down the road from his woodshop and promptly bought it for $1,400. As I remember, I worked off some of the cost.
I was pale and chubby but that went away when I gunned around town in this car. To me, anyway. Often I went to a local German restaurant and got two pizza burgers -- a novelty I've seen nowhere else -- and fries and a shake. I drove this food home and sprawled on my bed and ate and read my warped, dog-eared copy of "Roger Ebert's Video Companion." I am sure I spent at least as much time doing that as I did driving around. I should have at least tried harder to look girls in the eye. The next year around, I was spending my time pretty much the same way with your latest edition. Same food, too.
I mention that not to butter you up but to say that while classic cars weighed in during your early development, your written and broadcast works were equally important in my own. This probably goes for countless others.
Ebert: Hey, maybe that youthful self-indulgence helped pave your way to the newspaper job and the Suzuki.
I smiled all the way through your article. I fondly remember that '57 Golden Hawk. I learned to drive on my dad's car, which was a '49 DeSoto sedan with a semi-automatic transmission (Yawn). My first, after I got out of the Navy, was the '57 Bel Air, but it was just a jump point to my dream - a '61 Impala Coupe with stick shift.
Ebert: Learning to drive on a stick shift was heart-stopping. It always sounded like the gears were grinding themselves to pieces. But a skill proudly acquired in life.
Roger,
I always knew you were a man of great intellect and taste, but to find out you also adore Studebaker is, well, astounding.
The first Stude in my life was a 1950 Commander coupe, with the "jet nose". It was my father's commuter in El Paso in the very early '60s. Parked peacefully on the curb, it did in two intemperate Beetles and one unwise MG. My most vivid, if unpleasant memory of it is getting heat stroke in the back while riding through West Texas in the summer heat. On that trip back to Dad's home in Knoxville, TN, we returned with a 1962 Pontiac Catalina my grandfather bought us.
I continued to admire Studebakers through the years, but never took the plunge. In 1994, I married Vicki, the love of my life. The next year, we journeyed back to her hometown, Ottawa, KS, southwest of Kansas City and picked up her 1956 Commander sedan. This car was bought for her grandmother by her grandfather after he sold his Studebaker dealership in Ottawa. She kept and drove the car until her death in 1991. It sits in our garage now, waiting for the time and money to make it new again. By chance, we've acquired another 1956 Commander. It will some day be sold off for a Hawk, if our dreams come true.
The automobile defined America in the 20th century in ways most people never consider. It gave Americans the ability to travel to every corner of this country on their own schedule; it displayed our industrial might and engineering prowess across the globe; and it gave American boys a dream.
There are still exciting cars out there, but I think we can all see that the gasoline powered car has a finite future. I hope it outlives me.
(p.s. You're welcome to come for a ride whenever you're in Colorado)
Dear Mr. Ebert,
I once spoke to an owner of the Packard Hawk version of this car (Studebaker had been owned by Packard since '54)--he said he'd once got one up to 140mph, when a carburetor float collapsed. Studebaker, today, is a more popular brand than it was 50 years ago. Get yourself on down to South Bend for a meet now, and you won't be disappointed.
That was, by the way, a McCullough supercharged (289 V-8) car, not a turbo; the first American production car with turbocharging was the Corvair (or F-85, I won't open that can of worms).
Cheers,
Dave
Ebert: I heard the Packard used a big Packard engine and was almost dangerously overpowered.
In all honesty, I think the people of 100 years ago, bracing themselves for the imminent death of horse riding as a primary means of transportation, had a much stronger argument for 'pining'. No machine has ever or will ever compare to the experience of riding a good horse. And I say this as a person who never even owned a horse of his own.
Roger,
Great idea to post the O. Winston Link photograph in this piece.
Do you own any of his other photos?
His life story and the way he was ripped-off would make a great film.
Ebert: That's it. I obtained it from the Photographer's Gallery in London. He specialized in those elaborate set-ups for night-time flash photos, as you know. I love the one with the locomotive going down the middle of the street and the man in his second-floor window. All real. No digital.
Here is a Google search linking to dozens of his photos:
http://images.google.com/images?ndsp=20&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=o+winston+link&start=0&sa=NUHF
In your response to J. Somers' post, you credit Billy Crystal with the quote, "I know that. What makes you think I didn't know that?"
To give credit where it's due, that is the catchphrase of very defensive defense lawyer Nathan Thurm, the classic Saturday Night Live character created by Martin Short. Here's a YouTube link to Thurm in action with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLBQxk72NY
Ebert: I know that. What makes you think I didn't know that?
If car design isn't dead, it certainly smells funny. There are very many current American cars I admire for their styling, Ford's GT and Mustang, Chrysler's 300C and PT Cruiser, the Dodge Challenger and Chevy Camaro. But I'm sure you noticed, the thing with all these is that they are all pastiches of cars from the 50s, 60s and 70s. The only time stylists seem to be able to create something memorable these days is when they hark back to a time when style was still very much alive. I greatly admire cars from the 30s and 40s too, but what if their designers had decided to style those machines on cars from thirty years before their time? Would we still be driving around in Benz Tricycles?
The same goes for Fiat's 500, BMW's MINI and VW's Beetle. Nice motors, undoubtedly. But people were driving around in Cinquecentos, Minis and VWs thirty years ago. Shouldn't we be designing cars of our own time?
I'm happy to say that I think I've started out on the right foot. I'm seventeen and I drive an old Austin Mini. If that isn't glamourous, I don't know what is. Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Prince Charles, Princess Margaret, Paul Ringo and George, Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, James Garner, even Enzo Ferrari were all proud Mini owners and glamourous people to boot. I can see it now, ambassador's receptions, poolside parties in Monte Carlo, lunch in Carmel-By-The-Sea. I won't be there because I'll be standing at the side of the road in the pouring rain trying to fix my distributor or investigating that disturbing knocking from under the bonnet, my hands caked in grease and oil. Oh joy! Motoring like it was meant to be!
Ebert: I always wanted an original Citroen Deux Chevaux, with the seats you could remove for a picnic. Built substantially unaltered from 1948 to 1990.
I was going to let this one pass, because I have never driven a car in my life. There are reasons for this, mainly of a physical nature, which I won't bother you with. At the same time, however, I am very aware of The Romance Of The Automotive; I saw more than enough of it when my brother and I were teenagers. Sean (who you may recall from the last post I made) was a major car buff in high school; he read Car & Driver as if it were the third source of Revelation. (C&D had a regular columnist, Brock Yates, who despised baseball; as a White Sox fan, I would get his diatribes read to me regularly.) My brother was an absolutist on all things at this point in his life, and I learned at an early age not to argue with him (unless I had proof of where he was wrong - and even then...). Lap dissolve to the late 90s: Sean and I are in our late 40s, serving as co-caregivers for our ailing mother. On TV, the car commercials are coming thick and fast, and with each one, Sean becomes more mocking, more derisive, more cynical. So, just to be a smartass, I ask him, "When did you turn against cars?" And Sean answered, "When I finally had to own one." /*/*/ The point of the foregoing (I think) is taht there are more than a few in this world for whom the car becomes nothing more than that which gets you to work and back every day, or that which you put the kids in the back of to take them to the mall or the beach or (fill in here). /*/*/ Just to avoid making this comment a total downer, this brief appendix: In my collection of ancient TV programs, I have some episodes of the first Ellery Queen series, as presented live on the DuMont network in 1950 - or to give it its official title, "Kaiser-Frazer Adventures In Mystery". A couple of the episodes include the original commercials, as delivered by actor John Larkin (you might remember him from some early 60s movies like "Seven Days In May" or "The Satan Bug"). One ad shows film of an endurance test given to the all-new 1951 Henry J,as it takes on an improvised corduroy road, among other stressors for the 50s driver (it's been a while since I've seen this, so I don't recall all the details; your indulgence is appreciated). In the other ad, Mr. Larkin rhapsodizes about how the all-new 1951 Kaiser's ultra-modern design will look up-to-date for years to come (when I showed this one to my brother, he almost fell on the floor laughing). Also from the collection: An episode of Buster Keaton's live show from KTTV in Los Angeles in 1950, sponsored by The Studebaker Dealers of Greater Los Angeles. The commercials here are pretty straightforward - just the announcer pitching the car - I guess the budget was limited to getting Keaton the props he needed for his comedy bits. Anyway, they're both interesting from the historical view, and in today's context, so I pass it along for whatever it's worth. If you feel like answering this one, take your time; I'm doing this on the office computer (I don't have one at home) and I won't see your answer until Monday at the earliset. Have a nice weekend.
Ebert: I've seen those Keaton shows. On one of them, he did a reprise of the silent movie bit where he tried to get the drunken lady into bed--did it live on TV.
Bob Seger's "Makin Thunderbirds" resonated in my mind as I was reading this. I'd print the lyrics but don't want you to have copyright problems.
Chrysler seemd to be the only make even attempting to make cars that looked like something other than a loaf of bread. Unfortunately, with a national belt tightening under way, even the overseas makers are going to hurting in this market. Are you aware that American nameplates are doing very well overseas?
Like yourself, I am from central Illinois, and will bless you with typical midwestern brevity: it's time for you to get another one.
My father was an executive for Ford from 1957 to 1980. My memories were of Labor Day weekend. After watching the Addams Family, my day would take a painting off the wall and set up a movie projector. He would then put in a 16MM film of the all new Fords being introduced. I remember seeing a Candy Apple Red 1965 Galaxie 500 XL convertible in a late night scene. I was hooked. I did not get my first convertible until 1980 when I graduated college, 1969 Olds Cutlass. After it was sold, I started a fifteen year relationship with my 1966 Rambler Classic 770 convt. I owned it from 1987 to 2002. Like you, I know little under the hood. I sold it to the president of the AMC club of Mich. But in 2002, I found my Study, 1962 Lark Cruiser sedan. I know it has no sex to it, but it is such a fun, happy looking car. I always make sure that I park next to a 57 Chevy at car shows. Please get well, I have enjoyed your talent for many years.
Ebert: The Lark was cool. Like a lot of Studebakers, it was way faster than it looked.
I own a Hyundai Elantra. Not because I want to, because I couldn't afford anything else and I needed something dependable. I still wish I had my first car, a 1973 Plymouth Satellite. In many ways, it was a piece of junk, but it had a personality. I named her Candice. I also had a 1986 Chrysler LeBaron that I loved to drive, it was like being in a jet on the highway, but mechanical problems just overwhelmed her. I named her Julia. I can't even imagine naming the car I have now.
It's unfortunate what's happening to the American car companies, but they've brought it on themselves. If they offered a car that I could afford AND put a real honest bumper to bumper 100,000 mile warranty on it, I'd buy one. But they will never do either. So, I'm stuck forever in Hyundai Kia-ville for the foreseeable future.
Two paragraphs into the post I was counting in my head the number of reviews that I can recall in which you have mentioned Studebaker. Then I waited for a reference to Steak 'n Shake. I was stunned not to find the two connected in this post. Did they not offer car service with the window tray and all? The only one I've been to was a modern, traditional, sit-down restaurant.
And there were some quite pine-worthy cars in the '80s! I had one, and still do. Is the top photo of your car?
Ebert: No, but it could be. Steak 'n Shake had curb service for years. Their motto: Four ways to enjoy! Curb, counter, table and TakHomaSak®!" Needless to say, the Golden Hawk conveyed carloads to the Steak ' Shakes in Michigan City and Benton Harbor.
Je suis rempli du regret...
Alas, I am but twenty-seven years of age, and was raised in the soulless nineteen-eighties. The saving grace for me was my mom's 1972 Toyota Land Cruiser, lent attitude by a few factors. It was huge, and my mother is tiny (she called it her Tonka toy); strategically placed rust holes; and, the Corvette engine tucked inside.
I have never owned a "Great Car." I do love my current ride, but she came off the line with no inherent character. The Brian Wilson will (and should) never write a song called "'99 Tacoma."
No, I came into a post-fuel crisis world, where attitude fell victim to fuel economy and Japanese efficiency. I can't complain too loudly about that; I laughed at the owners of Hummers and Excursions as they recently pumped over one hundred dollars into their gas maws at every station they saw. Honestly, with those things it's like David Copperfield is hiding in the gas tank, making it all disappear. Amazing!
It would be worth it, though, to be able to hear a presumably jaded traffic cop exclaim all of the feeling and virtue of your conveyance in two perfectly chosen, dare I say Hemmingway-an words. Sharp car, indeed. "Cruising" was invented for cars of the 1950's. You just can't cruise properly with a car of today. If the designers of those works of art knew what the "Car of Tomorrow" actually looked like, they would have committed mass suicide. No fins?! No chrome?! Compact?! And I haven't even started in on the names. Of course, I know better than to traipse where George Carlin has already made the point. Suffice it to say that we are now living in the corrugated tin age of car attitudes and names.
All of these words to say that your reminiscence of the feeling of finally driving your heart's desire, and having it actually be everything you dreamed it would, brought tears to my eyes. To be satisfied, contented, and then recognize when you needed to let go and give your baby a better home...
Incidentally, I was looking for a quote I vaguely remembered from a James Bond book (I think it was "Dr. No") about most American cars having no character, I discovered that the Avanti was Ian Fleming's last car.
I'll leave you with words by Bruce Springsteen, which, I'll have you know, now have you pictured firmly in the middle, blowing off all the doors with your Golden Hawk.
In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway 9,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin' out over the line
Baby this town rips the bones from your back
Its a death trap, its a suicide rap
We gotta get out while were young
`cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
On that Time cover, Raymond Lowey looks amazingly like Robert Downey as Tony Stark. (Whose look, as well as much of his character, was based on Howard Hughes, Stark/Iron Man being created in 1963 or so.)
Mr. Ebert,
I too love Studebakers but am not mechanically-inclined in the least. Somehow, I've managed to hold onto my '63 Lark Daytona Skytop (Avanti Powered) since 1988!
I was about two feet from you at the Studebaker Museum in South Bend some twenty years ago. My baritone-voiced buffoon buddy said loudly, "There's Roger Ebert", and you (understandably) took off. I'm sorry about that!
This blog brings me to another question I've always wondered about:
Which flick do you think is better? Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? or Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte? I have one strong preference, but I won't say which.
Bill
Ebert: Then neither will I.
Isn't it possible that this cultural desert we're entering - our canteens filled with metaphors - has an other side, and on that other side will be new wonder cars and new youth revolutions and new golden ages piled up on top of each other, all the way down and up?
I'm not saying I put an inordinate amount of money on any new top-notch American epochs coming along in my lifetime... but I suppose its just as possible as anything, right?
And while I have a sense of what kind of tensions and squirming freedoms might have led up to the American design renaissance of the mid-century, I didn't actually live during those years and I don't know how they smelled.
Maybe once young men forget all the blisses that their father and grandfathers foisted on them through deservedly sentimental memories, they'll be able to discover them again as if their own? Maybe the Golden Hawk is not a passing, ethereal thing but rather a constant dream, recurring, ready to be dug up as new the moment it is forgotten? Perhaps they cruise, still, at the bottom of the sea, just out of reach of man's gaze, where strange, fantasy fish are still allowed to exist?
(I am reminded, and this is some serious bird-walking, of the on-camera discovery of the abyssal "Dumbo Squid" by the BBC cameras for their brilliant BLUE PLANET documentary series about the world's oceans. This is a squid that, right down to it's baby blue eye and giant flapping swimming mechanisms, resembles Disney's Dumbo to a frightening - and comforting - degree, as if there was some loophole in reality, a common ground between the undiscovered and the subliminal... Anyway, the Dumbo squid is a sight that can fire the imagination.)
Since I'm only 28, I'm not at the mark yet where I'll be looking for that car from my younger days, and despite trying to purchase the best mileage cars I can get these days (We each drive a hybrid), I still drool over 2 cars these days:
1. The latest Shelby Mustang Convertibles - my uncle owned one when we were kids and loved squealing the tires off a stop sign in the neighborhood. Still brings back great memories...
2. The latest Bentley Continental Convertibles - never knew anyone who owned one, but they always seemed to perfectly define the word "Posh".
Searching through my own memories I have a hard time pinpointing why I drool over convertibles, but I figure it's the same reason so many people's dream cars are convertibles (and why you and Chaz enjoyed the LaPort eRide and others so much). With a convertible, everyone gets to see you in the car, and you get to see them see you in the car. As a young Catholic boy, I knew envy was one of the most common of the deadly sins, but I sure envied anyway...
Ebert: The new Bentleys are beautiful. Start at a quarter of a mil, I think. Notice how noticeably many movies put their characters in classic ragtops? (1) They look like real cars. (2) It's easier to light the actors.
I never have been one to be sucked into America's car culture. I didn't learn to drive until I was about 30 (Not an easy task getting around Denver without a car), and have always said, " Well, if people still primarily rode horses , then I might take an interest in their personal transports." As such, the only time that a car has pierced my consciousness was due to the descriptions of the Pace Arrow by John Dos Passos in his USA Trilogy. Thanks to your evocative essay, I will now have to upgrade my dream house to one with a two car garage.
Ebert: John O'Hara, who always had the details about his characters correct, loved to enumerate their cars.
Roger,
You have experienced the unforgettable feeling of driving a Studebaker.
I've been driving nothing but Studebaker's for the last 20 years and never loose that feeling (stepping into a time machine that brings you back to the good old days).
I am no different than a archeologist finding parts (bones) to assemble and recycle a piece of history.
The difference is when I get to assemble the bones, then bring it all back to life, climb aboard and ride the fire breathing dinosaur down the street!
Unique vehicles create unique memories and stories. It's no wonder that your Studebaker Golden Hawk would swoop down any street like a bird of prey, stirring up everyone along the way!
James Bell in Bellingham, WA.
Ebert: My dad always said, "You won't be able to get parts for them." Today, Studebaker parts are easier to find than those of many other cars.
The earlier Packard and Studebaker both used the Packard 352 V-8; Studebaker supercharged the 289 to keep the same 275 horsepower rating--you tell me if it was overpowered. I'm guessing you didn't think so.
Ebert: Actually, it was.
I've always liked your review for Walter Hill's Streets of Fire, where you seem to be a little disappointed with the movie on the whole, but give it an overall positive review because nearly every car in the film is a Studebaker.
As a child of the eighties, I drive a Chevy that really turns heads. It's hard to look away from a car driving on two spare tires with exhaust fumes billowing from under the hood.
Ebert: On the posters, there's the bullet-nose front end right between Michael Pare's legs.
As a young man, I have no fondness for cars and wish they could all just disappear.
Trains, on the other hand, I am very much enamored with and would like to see more.
Ebert: Does Raymond Loewy ever have a train for you!
http://blog.uncovering.org/en/archives/2008/04/the_wondrous_locomotives_of_raymond_loewy.html
Roger,
You have experienced the unforgettable feeling of driving a Studebaker.
I've been driving nothing but Studebaker's for the last 20 years and never loose that feeling (stepping into a time machine that brings you back to the good old days).
I am no different than a archeologist finding parts (bones) to assemble and recycle a piece of history.
The difference is when I get to assemble the bones, then bring it all back to life, climb aboard and ride the fire breathing dinosaur down the street!
Unique vehicles create unique memories and stories. It's no wonder that your Studebaker Golden Hawk would swoop down any street like a bird of prey, stirring up everyone along the way!
James Bell in Bellingham, WA.
One night my wife and I were watching a television commercial in which the camera was showing loving glances over a 70's era van that had been turned into a love machine. It has shag carpeting, a bed in the back, disco lights and an airbrushed painting of a dragon on the side.
My wife brought the moment back to reality when she said "You know, you can't do that today. You just can't build a love machine out of a minivan. Baby seats kind of kill the romance."
She's right, modern cars are killing the institution of "lover's lane".
Ebert: Those VW buses could become a commune on wheels.
OK, I'll bite. I much-prefer "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte". OK, it's hammy in places, but so is "Psycho"! I only think people remember "..Jane" more because it was first. Bette Davis does so much without speaking a word, those last fifteen or so minutes of the movie. And I think Olivia deHavilland was robbed of an Oscar nomination. I guess evil characters weren't much-rewarded by the Academy back then!
Re.: your comments about 'Christmas Story', above...
Isn't it weird that it was a dud in theaters? I don't ever remember it being in theaters. I saw it on HBO one otherwise-boring night with my rather-serious Dad, and we both thought it was hilarious.
Still love them Studes! You should see the new Studebaker Museum in South Bend some time...great building, and Archives research building right next door.
Bill
Ebert: Give me "A Christmas Story" over "It's a Wonderful Life," frankly. Which do you like best?
Like Karl Loeffler above, my family also had a Packard pedigree. Back in storage in Chicago, I have my grandfather's gold watch, inscribed from Packard Motor Car Co., given to him to mark his ten year anniversary of employment there. Now, you're lucky you get two weeks' notice of a layoff from an employer after ten years.
I would like to point out that there are women who love cars. My father is a collector of old and new cars. As a family, we have attended antique and new auto shows, and there are innumerable photos of me and my siblings sitting in and standing next to gleaming automobiles.
And as an artist, I know a beautiful design when I see it. There are many older cars that are simply gorgeous to look at. I can only imagine what it's like to drive one.
My first car was a VW Jetta, back when VW's were still boxy. It had a standard transmission. It was fire-engine red. I loved driving it on the highway. Fast. That car never let me down. When I sold it, I took it for one last drive and cried the whole time.
I still miss that car.
Ebert: I toyed with going the he/she P.C. route in my piece, but thought, let's face it, this is mostly a guy thing. There are women who love cars and know all about them, but in my experience they usually don't love old cars. Chaz falls between the two categories. When she acquires a car, it becomes a classic. This is because she will not sell it. She still owns her Audi V-8 purchased new 19 years ago. It has given her very little trouble over the years. She explains that although it has now lost its new car value and hit bottom, it is beginning to climb up to collectible status.
I grew up during the Muscle Car era; so many cars worthy of desire. At 18 I almost bought a Camaro with my Summer wages, but opted for a (choke) VW Fastback. When it died 3 years later I got a Nissan station wagon (not something I tend to brag about). However, my favorite is not from the late 60's, but from the 90's to present: the Dodge Viper. I fell in love with it in '92 (age 40), and got one in '04 (it took a while to accumulate the change). Convertible and red, of course.
BTW, when I was 12 I shot my BB gun at a tree in front of our house. It ricocheted back and hit me in the tooth (something else I tend to not brag about).
Nice that you mention the "fun" of Chrysler's PT Cruiser in one of your replies. My wife got a PT Cruiser convertible when she turned 50 a couple of years ago. I'll take it out on a warm summer evening, top down, elbow out the window and I feel like Jake Gittes cruising the streets of L.A. Life does not get much better.
I grew up in Australia. Got my license in the 80s. Learned to drive in a late 60s HK Holden station wagon (not sure what the equivalent is here in the USA). Three on the tree, unsynchronised gears, requiring a weird double clutch maneuver and a bench seat that had lost its locking mechanism, so would lurch back or forward whenever accelerating or braking quickly. It was nicknamed "The Ledge" short for legend. "I'll pick you up in the ledge" I would tell my sister to her intense horror.
I live in the USA now, have for almost 10 years, with (and because of) hubby. During our dating era, he was rapt with my curiosity about old cars, which I think had more to do with me engaging in my big American adventure rather than purely cars, but I would love how animated he became retelling old stories and memories, mostly from his teenage years. It was (and still is) very romantic.
Raymond Lowey = the inspiration for how Tony Stark looks.
Has to be. Look at that picture. Does that not resemble Robert Downey Jr. as the man who is not-so-secretly Iron Man?
One sweet ride Roger.
When I was a kid, my dad had a 1950 Hudson Commodore Six, so the car that I lusted after was a 1950 Hudson. I bought a 1951 Hudson Hornet but it was a "Frankenstein" car that had been assembled from a number of donor cars. It was a huge headache to own and I had to sell it at a loss. Give me a Hudson Step-Down over a 1949-50-51 Mercury any day. I now own a 1955 Packard Clipper Super. It is in need of a complete restoration but I don't care. I'll do most of the work myself and it will be a labor of love. In owning this Clipper I am hoping to instill the appreciation for a "classic" design over that of a late model potato shaped car.
You never stop pining for the car you wanted and couldn't afford when you were 16 and for the girl you wanted but couldn't &c. By the time you turn 40 and have some spare change in your pockets, the car is still what it was. It's a lot less messy, and probably a lot cheaper to buy it than it is to go looking for the present day equivalent of the girl -- and your wife will be much more understanding. You made the right choice.
I still own a 1958 Packard Hawk, a rather low production auto with only 588 built. It was built by Studebaker/Packard in South Bend and has the Studebaker 289 V8 with a McCulloch Supercharger. 1958 was the end of the Packard Badged cars. The only Studebaker to use the Packard V8 was the 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk. It was a rather powerful auto. And much like you relate, I love the attention my car gets when I drive it. I have never had it not function and it even gets better gas mileage than my late model cars. I guess I am making my memories now.
Ebert: Has the scoop intake instead of the Mercedes-like grill, and the continental pack. A very fast car. Priced way above the Hawk. What a lot of people won't know is that Studebaker-Packard was the U.S. rep for Mercedes-Benz, which at the time no one was buying. If they had held on...
Wow, what a great post.
Perhaps it's a sign of the times, but I've never known this kind of wistfulness. There's never been a moment when I wandered by a store window or a magazine ad, and was overcome with conviction that owning something like that will change me. Probably, it has something to do with the number of advertisements I watched growing up. Products aren't allowed to sell themselves anymore, and they haven't been during my lifetime. Surely that's why American design gets so sloppy.
On the other hand, I remember that moment in Napoleon Dynamite when he comments that "ninja skills" could perhaps increase his social standing. Is information finally becoming the only meaningful currency?
Ebert: Nothing can change your life. But isn't it nice to think so.
What do you get for the man who has everything?
Answer: Another Birdcage Maserati.
http://www.velocetoday.com/images/February%2005/cv13.jpg
Sorry, but Studebaker Golden Hawk just doesn't sound like as good an answer to this riddle.
I still have my Meccano set, at age 68. One of the best Christmas presents of all time.
I wish I still had my '58 Corvette, surely the best car of all time. That was a dream come true.
ps Great essay. You sure can write.
Yes you did have the sweetest set of wheels. Rakish and fast. Nothing better than a finned Golden Hawk. I'm just one lottery ticket away from realizing the dream!
In the meantime, there is a 1950 Champion Starlight Coupe sitting in the garage calling my name. The old girl's floors are gone, the engine is seized but she waits patiently for her turn at the spare change. So many memories. Car thieves tried to take her in the seventies. Made it almost to the Kentucky line but they'd cut the wire running to its electric fuel pump while hot wiring the ignition. No chop shop for my baby.
I remember as a kid (maybe 10-11 years old in the late 50's) being able to call out the make model and year of almost any car that went by. It seemed harder to do with Studebakers. Was never quite sure why. I wonder if they followed the standard Detroit practice of introducing new models each year in the fall, all at the same time, and never keeping a model longer than a year? Something makes me think that they were less synchronous than that. But I'm not really sure. Maybe they were just not as common so it just seemed that way. And, oh, the Avanti. What a classic design. The only design as timeless as that as far as I'm concerned was the MGB (which was my first purchase -- talk about a love-hate relationship -- loved it when it was running right, which was sadly not often.) Both of those cars still look "modern". I lived and worked in northern Indiana for a few years in the 70's. I worked with a man who had had a career with Studebaker. Lovely man, but I swear his heart must have broken when they shut down. Kind of like the way I felt upon returning to Champaign for the first time in a long time to realize that the Chuck Wagon was no longer there. Where is a person to go for a break while pulling an all-nighter?
Ebert: The Chuck Wagon was moved lock, stock and salt-shakers to Urbana, and is sort of southeast of the Court House on Race St.
This has nothing to do with Studebakers, but I was excited to see that you've read Gormenghast.
Roger, you're a smart guy. I firmly believe this. But I find it hard to believe that you're going to shed a tear for the demise of the American car industry with this sappy love letter to an appliance.
The automobile has absolutely destroyed America with suburban sprawl and all of the incredible consequences that follow. It's dangerous and suicidal to think that we can just happy motor forever, and getting emotionally attached to an appliance that destroys landscape, economies, and communities is below you. Far, far below you.
The car is on its way out, but we have this stupid attachment to them. It's an American invention, but it's a crappy one. Nearly everyone prefers the classic American, pre-car town which has been obliterated by the automobile. You want to know why most American towns look like garbage? The car.
Ebert: I know, I know. I study Alexander's A Pattern Language, which is so wise. But The Golden Hawk was not an appliance. *Gasp*
My beautiful friend Roger,
I have lived in an age where I have come to assume that cars are simply not to be lusted after any longer. I just honestly don't really have much envy or regret at my inability to afford the shiny new cars they offer. It's a standard pattern. I like to go downtown and enjoy the buildings that came from the same time. These also are better than the buildings they make now. Even the buildings the people with money make, perhaps especially so... The car my parents got for me after my Ford Taurus (wow, that was a shitty car) broke down in college was a '92 honda accord. It may seem a poor replacement for a classic car, but that coupe with automatic transmission gave me something of the feel of what it's like to drive. I left it at home on the coast to get the a/c fixed and as I had an exchange of vehicles Katrina happened and a couple feet of water necessitated a trade in (though it still seemed to run fine and probably would've forever). An slightly newer model accord isn't the same. It wasn't fancy or enviable, but that Accord really was a locus for driving ecstasy. Now, in this age of mediocrity I have finally come by a car to envy and pine for, well it's probably even farther out of reach than the Studebaker. The ev-1. Now I know they're coming out with a new electric vehicle, which I also envy, but watching "Who Killed the Electic Car?" made me both overjoyed and then immediately pissed off all in one experience. The importance is for us as Americans to enter into a new renaissance, perhaps Obama will lead it. The electric car will be a symbol of our rising from the ashes.
Ebert: Can you believe that movie? f there is one surviving EV-1, it's hidden in a garage.
I should've finished reading the review before I posted my last comment. There's a Gormenghast miniseries, put out by the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/gormenghast/
I haven't seen it yet--I'm about halfway through the second book, still so amazed by the language in a passage about birds living in rooftoops that I can't read farther yet--but I've been told it's very good and am planning on watching it once I'm done with the book.
I am only 33 but there are plenty of cars that I would love to drive and many of them are foreign. The Audi TT, BMW 3, RX-8, Mustang, Camaro, Mini and a few others are on the short list for the midlife crisis car. However, there is something more romantic about cars from the 40's through the 60's. I wonder if it has to do with movies or the design? Cars are sexy and objectified in movies today but there are not really places inhabited by gangsters, Hollywood starlets and rebels. There are no drive-thrus featured and there is no machine gun fast witty dialog exchanged. Maybe it's because of the size of modern cars and a design that seems to encapsulate the body - doesn't leave the world inside the cabin open for a proper scene to take place.
It's a shame that American car companies focused on the wrong things at the wrong time in history twice (late 70's and today). I hate to see them fail because of the job-loss and the hit to the economy but they sure seem to have it coming. Good design is good design and even if they are running on electricity or hydrogen there will always be designers who create something awe-inspiring. It would be nice if that future involved American manufacturing and creativity but for now I'll take anyone who knows how to run a company and be conscious of the environment.
Reading replies, I am suddenly reminded of a few things.
The car slogans from Dudley Moore's "Crazy People"
"Volvo. They're boxy, but they're good."
"Jaguar. For men who like handjobs from beautiful women they don't know." With that one, of course, the pads of sweepstakes entries: "Yes! I want a handjob!"
"Porsche. While they're too small to get laid IN, you get laid as soon as you get out!"
"The Ledge" sounds like a freaking great car, one whose name I'll have to use in a movie someday.
Are you familiar with the photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson? I can't think of his photographing trains, but, man, are his images amazing. Also, Frank Hurley's photographs of "Endurance," during Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica. Absolutely stunning.
Looking at the link to Raymond Loewy's inventions, I get the distinct feeling that I'm seeing Ayn Rand's inspiration for Hank Reardon.
Have you read "Eureka" by Jim Lehrer? It's a wonderful book about an insurance exec about to reach retirement age, who suddenly starts to purchase all of the things that he wanted and was denied as a child, culminating in the fateful purchase of a Cushman scooter. Also, "The Phony Marine" by the same author. Excellent character studies, and truly touching stories.
I'm on board for a revival of "A Christmas Story." I don't know why, and I don't believe that it's because of the color/BW factor, but I much prefer it to "It's a Wonderful Life." Let's face it, we can all relate to wanting that perfect gift on Christmas morning. And, while many can also relate to wanting to jump off a bridge during the holidays, well... I'd rather pine (there's that word again) for the gift to end all gifts, Ralphie's own Golden Hawk, if you will. And the Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred Shot Range Model Air Rifle it turned out to be overpowered too, didn't it?
Two weeks ago, I drove my first convertible. I was working on a little documentary in LA, and got to drive the picture car when it wasn't being used; a sporty black BMW 3 series hardtop. Hoo boy, was that fun! Driving down 101 late in the night with the top down and the radio blaring. It was a bit of a letdown when I took it back to the rental house and got back into my pickup.
Frah-gee-lay!
http://angryalien.com/aa/xmas_storybuns.asp
I have now realized that for everyone's sanity, I must stop.
Good night, and good luck.
Ebert: Still sane. Come back.
Roger,
I'm a 21 year-old female, and although I've appreciated cars for their aesthetic value, I have never (like most females) been anything close to a gear-head. In fact, my opinions about automobiles in general had been more in line with Bob K. up there - that is until earlier this year when I came across Brough Superior Motorcycles. Before I had seen one, I had always associated motorcycles to burly men with shaved heads, fu manchu moustaches, and formidable beer bellies protruding from their leather vests. Now I pine for one of these bikes although chances of obtaining one are ridiculously slim. But I can always dream, right?
http://www.broughsuperiorclub.com/home.htm
Oh-and it doesn't hurt that it was the bike of choice for T.E. Lawrence either. :)
The Fuddlessness has been driving me crazy for years. I used to wake up every sunday morning excited to watch the "Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show", along with countless other pretty good cartoons that seemed to fill up time slots on television. Now, I don't even think there are even cartoons on after school for kids. I see some of them on cartoon channels every now and then, but most of them have disappeared, and the classic ones not being shown is a tragedy. "Duck Dodgers" is the only thing left of Fudd. I feel like Tommy Lee Jones and that ranger on "No Country For Old Men" now, but, once the classic cartoons go away, it all goes down hill from there.
For my generation, we marvel at laptops, iPods, and TVs. Kind of warped, really. I've always thought of cars as simply things to be in to go from Point A to Point B... I guess you are right, Mr. Ebert, in that my generation will never appreciate the art of cars. We just like it going fast, or how much noise it makes. Then again, looking at the design gurus of our generation, it seems the only mind-blowing designs are coming out of the tech industry. I was only twelve when the first iMacs came out, but even I had a sense of how different this was from the computers before, that this somehow was art.
Thank you for the amazing journal article Mr. Ebert, and thanks to the readers for the equally indelible comments and web links.
I'm 36 years-old and our 1950 Studebaker Champion binds my Dad and me. It's a joint project that has clear outcomes; you fix it and it purrs; you drive it and see the world; you care for it and the car smiles. It moves you whilst parked (metaphorically).
A Studebaker automobile is unmistakable, and in mind, unrivaled. Once you drive a Studebaker and take in the sounds, the mix of fresh air and American innovation, you can't shake it... you've been had.
http://www.studebakerguide.com
By Miles Vorkosigan on December 19, 2008 9:40 AM
My first car was an '81 Ford Escort;
My first car was also an 80-ish Ford Escort, and it was the best car I ever had. It ran for years, it beat the hell out of my friends' pick-ups in the snow, and all you needed to start it on a sub-zero February morning in Ottawa was pair of screwdrivers to prop open the carb.
I'm a girl, so I never really got the whole car thing (my dream car is a ZENN), but the closest I ever came was through Stephen King's "Christine".
That, and his 1 3/4 page description of precisely what it feels like to get a good shot to the nuts.
Ebert: I am not quite sure I understand the connection between a dream car, "Christine," and a shot to the nuts. You've been reading too much Hunter S. Thompson.
I have to admit to never seeing "It's a Wonderful Life" in its entirety...shameful since good friends of mine live in Jimmy Stewart's hometown of Indiana, PA and the town considers itself "Bedford Falls" at Christmastime!
Like most people, I thoroughly enjoy "A Christmas Story". I think with a wittier title, it may have done better in the theaters.
Bill
Great piece; thanks for writing it. Thoroughly enjoyable.
I love the movie Hoosiers, and part of it was even filmed here in our town of Brownsburg IN, but have long lamented that no Studebakers appear in it. That's a serious oversight when the setting was early 50s, rural-town Indiana; there were many Studebakers in use then and there!
(To be fair, a friend of mine had a Studebaker pickup truck that was used in the filming, but the scenes in which it appeared were not used. He likes to refer to his truck as "The Star of The Cutting Room Floor!") BP
My dream car in high school was an MG. My father bought me one when I graduated from college and I kept it for almost 20 years. I wish I still had it. Those were the days, though. In the late 1960's I would sit in my fathers store in the downtown of a Chicago suburb on Saturdays and watch the guys "do the loop" with their hot cars before high school football games. If only I knew then that I was watching the end of an era. Kids to day just dont know what they are missing because they are so status conscious and money conscious they can't enjoy the pure feeling of owning your own car for the first time unless it is a "status" car.
Good Morning Roger,
I was just forwarded a copy of this article and all I can say is THANKS for writing about three of my most favorite subjects. First of all as soon as I looked at the very first picture, I knew it was one of the most famous O. Winston Link photos taken. I have studied his work, viewed his work in the museum in Roanoke Virginia’s former N&W train station which by the way was designed by none other than Raymond Loewy another one of my heroes. His first involvement with automobiles in the US was designing interiors for Hupmobile and then it went from there. You guessed it, my third favorite subject is Studebaker not only the cars they built but the family itself as they have a fascinating history from the original arrival in the colonies in 1736.
Those that know me know I am passionate about the things I love and these three fall in that realm. I drive Studebakers constantly from a Lark and Champ Pickup to a powerful R-2 Avanti. These vehicles are as good as and better in lots of ways than the cars of today and always draw attention anywhere I go.
Thanks for the tremendous article.
Ebert: As you know, the Tippecanoe Restaurant in South Bend occupies the former Studebaker Mansion. Good food. They let you walk around. Made me think of "The Magnificent Ambersons."
Cars and Christmas movies...
For me, part of the joy of any car has been the Cool Factor. Reliable is nice, paid off is great, but cool is wonderful. And, sadly, cool is becoming scarce. Like the guy said farther uptopic, all the cool cars now are based on design elements from the Fifties and Sixties. Sad. I like the new Challenger, but it's only a slight improvement over the original. Same for the new Camaro and Mustang. The new Charger is both right and wrong; four doors? And please, for the sake of your own mental health, try not to get me going about those hideous Cadillacs.
When I had Beastie's front end rebuilt in 1990, I took her to Stigler's on Highland. Memphis had a number of good garages, but Stigler's had been around for decades, and knew what they were doing. While I was waiting, I looked over and saw an awesome sight; an early Sixties Chrysler Imperial LeBaron, black, with the ring and flame taillights that look like they're too delicate to survive fifty miles an hour.
And climbing out of it is punk rocker extraordinaire Gustavo Falco, who I'd known for about ten years at that point. And a pretty car pegged out the Coolness meter.
Kinda like seeing you leaning on Le Faucon d'Or. A lovely car becomes even cooler knowing that you own it.
Christmas movies. I've got "A Christmas Story", and watch it every year. But I also watch "The Lion In Winter", which is my pick for a great, unsentimental holiday film. I may piss some folks off, but I have little use for most of the classic holiday fare. "It's A Wonderful Life" is dark and creepy for a fair chunk of it, "Miracle on 34th Street" is cute but wears out after a bit, and the others... sorry, but most holiday movies and tv shows conform to Sturgeon's Law. They're crap. The one version of "A Christmas Carol" that I'll watch is the George Scott, because they got it right.
Now I need to go get some more coffee. And then I need to get to the library. Interlibrary Loan has sent me Jon Pertwee's autobiography, and I've got to pick it up. While I'm at it, I may just snag a copy of Chris Moore's "The Stupidest Angel", a nice warped little tale of Christmas with zombies and an inept heavenly messenger who thinks it'd be cooler to be Spider-Man.
My love to Chaz.
Miles
Roger,
I share my love for the 50's Studebakers with you. When I was a young boy of 16, I was looking for a car. I saw a 60 Corvair Spyder that I really thought I wanted. Then I saw it. At the local Studebaker dealership. A cool, black 1955 Studebaker President Speedster Hawk. Oh my! A V-8 engine, all yellow leather interior(oh the smell!) Steward Warner gauges, 0-160 speedometer, man this thing must fly! How much, I asked the owner of the dealership. "$350, but I have a 57 with a supercharger for only $500." Vinyl interior, no special gauges, ahhh, no, I'll take the '55. I was sooo proud of that car! Turned out many years later that this was a special edition, only 5 built, a predecessor to the 56 Golden Hawk. It actually had a 352 engine, Carter Carb with solid lifters. I never made it to 160, but I did see 145 one fine day. I love the 1950's Studebakers. I still hurt thinking about the day I sold it, 15 years later. I hope it is still around and will see it again someday. It was originally yellow and green. I painted two large white stripes down the center. Cool skunk look!
God bless you Mr.Ebert. You have brought back fond memories. Mustang Mike
Roger,
Here's a NYT article titled "Wonderful? Sorry, George, It's a Pitiful, Dreadful Life," a somewhat unsugary take on It's A Wonderful Life, written by Wendell Jamieson.
My personal sweet set of wheels was an Austin Healy Bug Eye Sprite (1961), starter button, so unreliable but immensely fun to drive. Had one, have no more, but have a cookie jar that looks just like it, and I still have the gear shift knob. I just saw one for sale for $28.5K. I bought mine for $600 back in the day.
My father had a 1948 Studebaker Commander with suicide doors. After he died, we sold it to someone who leases cars to movie production companies. You can see it in "Inventing the Abbotts".
"I knew nothing about auto mechanics. When it was built, everybody did. When a car stopped and you looked under the hood, you were actually looking for something, not simply performing a roadside pantomime with a car that required computer programmers."
Isn't that the truth? I've performed that pantomime a few times myself, mostly because males are required by nature to do so in the event of car trouble.
In the same vein, you used to be able to fix TV sets by pounding them with your fist.
The thing I've always found funny about beautiful cars is that it doesn't matter if the driver doesn't actually own the car, people will admire him just because he's behind the wheel.
Just got back from watching "It's A Wonderful Life" at the newly restored State Theater in Traverse City, Michigan (thank-you Michael Moore!) I certainly wouldn't have taken the Christmas Story over it any day.
My husband went to the movie for free (he counted as "peace worker") and a bucket of popcorn was only three dollars! It was the best cinematic experience ever! Tickets 5 dollars, Popcorn 3 dollars, watching my five year old cry when old Clarence got his wings--priceless.
Also, priceless: leaving the theatre and saying "damn, a snowy Traverse City looks quite a bit like Bedford Falls!"
My first set of wheels was a $50 '66 Dodge Coronet clunker. It taught me the basics of auto repair by requiring such repair
if I wished to arrive at my destination. I've since learned more than enough to handle casual maintenance and repairs on modern cars, but I doubt the same could be said of the generations that can expertly blast away at Metal Gear Whatever but probably can't handle anything beyond calling Mommy, Daddy or the AAA when the car "won't go".
The demise of the US car industry may be upon us, but certainly not the end of the car as transportation. Unlike most other western countries, the US population is rising, due mainly to (legal and illegal) immigration. This will serve to expand suburbia, not contract it.
But what may be lost is the romantic relationship that we had with the automobile. Detroit, from wings to V8's to gaudy SUV's has built what Americans wanted, in spite of what made better sense. They are now paying the price for indulging us. Of course, along the way the executives also indulged themselves, and they caved to union demands which now make building such cars uncompetitive. Add even more layers of regulation, imposed by ill-conceived bail-out loans, and what results will be generic vehicles that nobody will ever even remember, let alone love. But that's the nature of a maturing technology. People used to flock to train stations and airports to see the latest marvels of transportation come and go.
As cars displaced those forms of transportation, the attraction deepened because the customer participated in their "ride". Early automobiles came without bodies so the buyer had to arrange for a carriage maker to build a body for it. Later, Detroit offered countless options to new car buyers. And this led to the now defunct customization craze. From hot rods to custom vans, there was an active subculture dedicated to the trend (and more than a few movies: American Graffiti being foremost.) But now, safety and smog regulations prevent the casual fan from doing much of anything other than pasting on a hideous selection of stick-on junk, or an overpriced set of "rims". True car customizers cater only to the rich and super-rich, and even then their bag of tricks is usually limited to engine swaps, fancy stereos, and superficial cosmetic changes.
Regrettably, car lovers (and lovable cars) will fade away, but not due to any single factor. Sad.
A little over a year ago I bought a '55 Studebaker Commander Coupe, I have never enjoyed an automobile as much. Sliding behind the wheel takes me back to a time when things were much simpler. Since I was a kid back in the 60's reading Hot Rod and building model cars I had "pined" for a '53 Commander then a friend told me about a '55 for sale nearby. The minute the garage door rolled up I knew I was taking it home. The '55 has a slightly different grille and some minor interior differences but otherwise is visually identical to the '53. Just for the record an employee of the Loewy Studios, Robert Bourke, did most of the actual Studebaker designs not Raymond Loewy. Just want to make sure credit is given where credit is due.
Bob K... Never pined for an automobile? How sad. Just a little tidbit for you to consider, out here in the boondocks public transportation doesn't work so well. We tried it but the cattle never had the correct change and the pigs kept eating the bus seats.
What a great story! I've been a car nut for as long as I can remember, developing the ability to identify every car on the road by about age 5 (not all that difficult in the mid '50s). One of our neighbors bought two new Golden Hawks. I can still remember watching him drive by our house and lusting over the sexy lines and the sound of the engine. But it wasn't those Hawks that really "got my motor running," as it were. It was the Cadillac convertibles that the daughter of another neighbor drove. I loved those cars, so big, so powerful, so classy...... But when it came time for my first car a Cadillac, much less a convertible Cadillac, was out of the question. I had to make do with a 1964 Fiat 600D. Wow. 0-60 time measured with a calendar. Through the years I managed to move up somewhat, and by the time I turned 40 I rewarded myself with a brand new Lincoln Mark VII. That was a great car, but that Cadillac thing still lingered in the back of my head. So, with a little extra cash in the bank, I bought and restored a 1950 Cadillac Series 62 2-door hardtop. What a cruiser! But not a convertible. So a couple of years later, I brought a near-mint 1966 Cadillac Eldorado convertible home to keep the '50 company. Now THAT's a car! Loaded to the gills with every contraption known to GM that year. And every one of them still works to this day. But, dear Roger, now you've awakened a long-forgotten memory: the Golden Hawk that used to pass our house every day. Drat. Where's my Hemmings? Thanks, Roger. I may need some bailout money for myself shortly.
Roger, your great article is making it's way through the Studebaker Drivers Club. Our next International Meet is July 2009 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We'll be there with our '57 Golden Hawk. Please come by and check out the Studebakers.
Sharon
Twenty-one years out from forty, and I doubt there will be change when I arrive.
I am impressed that you own a print of "Hotshot Eastbound." Did you know it was visually quoted in an episode of The Simpsons? I believe I was the first person to notice the reference. The story is here, along with a comparative screenshot:
Obscurest. Reference. Ever.
Speaking of classic American cars, in 1966 my grandfather bought a new Dodge Charger Fastback. It was painted in copper flake and was a real head-turner. The interior was as visually impressive as the body: an awesome nightime dashboard display, four bucket seats, with the rear seats able to fold down (a new innovation), and best of all a divider running all the way down the middle of the passenger compartment. Every time I rode in that beauty it felt like flying a spaceship. Sadly, I never got to drive it, although my mother inherited it and kept it running until her death a few years ago. She couldn't go anywhere without somebody cornering her in the parking lot wanting to buy it.
Mr. Ebert,
All these mentions of A Christmas Story, yet no one has mentioned that Jean Shepherd was also a car guy. He wrote a monthly column for Car and Driver magazine in the 1970s.
Ian Fleming's James Bond encountered a Studillac (as driven by CIA Agent Felix Leiter) in Diamonds Are Forever:
"Well, I'll be damned." said Bond increduously. "But what sort of car is this anyway? Isn't it a Studebaker?" "Studillac," said Leiter. "Studebaker with a Cadillac engine. Special transmission and brakes and rear axle. Conversion job. a small firm near New York turns them out. Only a few, but they're a damn sight better sports car than those Corvettes and Thunderbirds."
These cars really did exist, and were originally built by Bill Frick in Rockville Center, NY.
Once Studebaker started making high-performance versions of its V8 engines the conversion became less popular.
Great column, by the way...
Ebert: Everything connects. Of course Felix preferred the Studebaker body.
You've made me care about something I previously could not have possibly cared less about. Your ability as a writer is something I look forward to studying with each new post. Thank you!
When my father was in his 40s, not long after watching Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman drive cross-country in a Buick Roadmaster, he decided to do exactly what Mr. Ebert describes in this column. His car of choice was a '56 Cadillac, if I recall correctly.
For good or for bad, that first car opened the floodgates and over the last twenty years, he has amassed quite a collection of classic cars, including a couple of Studebakers (at least one of which was a Hawk, though I don't know the year and one was the convertible they used in that awful Mr. Magoo movie from 1997).
For certain, those were not boring cars.
Yes, a thousand times yes. Listen, I wasn't even born or raised in this country, but I've made it my own, and it really drives me crazy to see a nation that went from conquering the wild West and winning WWII to needing warning labels on coffee cups, so they don't burn themselves; reminders on every plastic bag not to let their children suffocate inside. I don't know whose fault this is, if anyone's, and I don't have any particular attachment to cars specifically, but I played with Meccano sets as a kid - smooth, shiny metal parts, nuts and bolts and a thousand weird gears and reductors. I didn't care that the sets weren't painted day-glo colors, or that a few of the parts had sharp corners - I felt like I was actually building something. I still have my chidhood scars on my hands, and I can tell you the stories behind most of them. One from the shooting range when I was 5, when I loaded an air dart gun and locked it on my wrist. One from when I ran full-tilt into a glass door. A half-dozen from my obsession with carving kung-fu weapons out of tongue depressors. One on the bridge of my nose - I hung from the edge of a table to try and get a soccer ball from underneath. And nobody got sued over any of this. My parents scrambled for first aid, but it was never seen as a tragedy or an opportunity to blame someone. We just learned life's lessons and moved on. Nowadays, I see so many people my age and younger who are completely removed from pain, discomfort and experience in general... what will they ever accomplish? Older residents in my college town keep telling me how crazy, creative and brave students used to be in the 80s - under Reagan, of all people! Your phrase about the dismantling the American prospect, isn't it really about the dilution and taming of the American spirit?
After A Christmas Story, I think that one of the best Christmas movies/specials is the Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. It's a musical version. Jule Styne wrote the songs and they are first rate. It's wonderful. It's not very well known, but I'd rank that before It's A Wonderful Life. It's worth checking out if you are sick of the standard holiday material. I don't watch many of the Carol adaptations, but this one is a staple at my house.
Ebert: I really enjoyed the new "Nothing Like the Holidays."
The sweet set of wheels that you write so elegantly about helped create our dependency on oil and contributed to global warming. The American love affair with the automobile was part of a wasteful, short sighted era of consumerism that is crashing down around us and will hopefully never come back. My generation, my children, and my children's children will probably be paying for that romance with the automobile for decades as our society struggles to find a replacement for fossil fuels, struggles to rebuild from climate change, and rebuild the gaping holes in the economy left by the demise of the greedy Big Three automakers.
Ebert: I know. We drive a hybrid. But what did I know in 1956?
Cars have always been the perfect embodiment of the era they were built in. You want to understand the sixties? Take an unmodified and unmolested 1969 Dodge Charger R/T out for a spin. It’ll open your eyes to the spirit of the decade better than time travel. The vinyl interior might have been wavy-gravy with flower patterns on the upholstery and a back seat made for lovin’, but the powerful roar of the engine was angry and aggressive, and the handling and braking were terrifyingly unpredictable. This was a car that would be equally at home taking the commune to Woodstock or spontaneously murdering you on a curvy road while you were trying to run away from the cops. That alone will do more to explain riots in the age of peace and love than a dozen history books.
I suspect that denizens of the future will likewise learn about the current sterile money grubbing corporate herd mentality affecting today by examining the 2009 Toyota Prius, a car I believe was probably designed by robots that were programmed by people grown in test tubes who have never seen the world outside their laboratory maze. It’s not that it’s a bad car or that it’s unreliable, far from it. The problem is that it has no soul. It is a means of transportation. It is a bus pass with wheels. I know how I sound saying this, but I have to be honest. I hate it. It’s the equivalent of a low expectation Hollywood Christmas movie. Yes it seems to be very popular, but I feel like washing my hands after touching it because it doesn’t feel organic. It was thought up by people who haven’t got the first clue about cars and have probably only read about them in books, once. It’s got no passion, no spark. It doesn’t even have the simple decency to be bad in a charming or quirky way. It’s like a refrigerator, faceless and competent and dull.
Yes, one reason that gearheads such as me like old cars is because we’re nostalgic, but another reason is simply that they’re better. When I look at most of the cars in showrooms today I can’t help but get the feeling that we’ve gone backwards. They try so hard to insulate the driver from the act of driving that they’ve made going anywhere a chore, which is not exactly good for business if you think about it.
In contrast, a 1957 Studebaker must have been a great car indeed to drive. I’ve never had the pleasure, but I’ve driven my share of vintage iron and I can tell you with absolute certainty that old cars are like people. They develop character with age, but if they were born or bred with character then they become nothing short of legendary.
Note: The ultimate tragedy with Studebaker is that I believe that it went in the wrong direction. It was too innovative and ahead of it’s time to be a mass producer of cars. It should have focused on small runs of uber-expensive Hawks and Avantis and re-invented itself as an American alternative to Rolls-Royce, as opposed to trying to take on the big four with the Lark. Either that or merge with the then fledging, and surprisingly successful American Motors, to boost both company’s stock.
EBERT: You got your license about 16 years ago. Were there any pine-worthy cars at that time?
Being around the same age as Bob K. I can say that yes there were. The 1979-93 Mustang was very nice. It’s boxy and clumsy but full of charm and fun. I should know, I owned one:
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u303/worldcomongdawn/mustang.jpg
The speedometer didn’t work, shocks were shot to hell, exhaust was so loud that I’d set off a series of alarms driving past a row of parked cars, the clutch never worked right, the power windows wouldn’t go down and you had to shake it to see if there was still gas in the thing because the gauge was stuck on full.
God it was great!
Sure it was a hunk of junk, but it had personality. You couldn’t go anywhere without coming back with a funny story. Driving it always made me smile, and when it finally gave out and I had to take it to the scrap heap, I had a moment of silence and reflected on all the good times it gave me. Yeah, it wasn’t the easiest thing to live with, but it made you feel alive; and for all the mechanical problems the old girl never let me down when I really needed her.
As for the car I’ll buy when I’m forty? I’m not sure, but a 1973 Plymouth ‘Cuda would be nice. The car was made the same year I was born and is a beautiful and timeless design. Also, being the same age, it and I would sort of grow old together. I’d keep it clean and well maintained, but would allow it to acquire a few grey hairs along the way. Nothing is truly alive if it doesn’t have the scars to prove it, and you don’t own something unless you use it.
Ebert: Engrave on the engine block: Grow old with me. The best is yet to be.
For me it was the 1977 Trans-Am. The Smokey and the Bandit Special. The 400 Pontiac - Pontiac, mind you, not one of those durned Chevy engines they started sneaking in during the 80s - retrofitted with the Ram Air III heads and a proper Holley carb. And of course, the black-and-gold screaming chicken with the shaker hood poking through.
I loved that car. I wrenched on it as much as I drove it, and loved doing both.
But then something odd happened. First, I went to work for Chrysler in Detroit, and I needed a car to commute with - so I bought a 1997 Eagle Talon AWD Turbo (using the argument that with all wheel drive, it would be good in the snow)
Secondly, I took the Talon to the dragstrip in a moment of morbid curiosity, and it outran my warmed-over Trans Am by a good second, right as the factory delivered it.
That night, in the garage, I took a really good hard look at the Talon, really for the first time since I bought it, and did a mental inventory of what was there. Electronic fuel injection. Independant suspension on all four corners. All wheel drive. An aluminum radiator, fer crissakes!
It made my Trans Am look like a locomotive, or maybe a tractor.
By the end of the week, I had sold the Trans Am to my brother in law, and I had started wrenching the daily driver. The results can be seen on http://farnorthracing.com
Amazingly, I eventually sold that car too. It had been transformed into a full-bore race car, specific to the rules of the series in which I raced, and converting it back to street use would be too much work and too expensive. Now I own a 1993 Dodge Stealth Twin Turbo that I rescued from an abusive relationship, and while it is a cranky enough beast, it goes like stink but yet is too big and heavy to make a good race car - call it "marriage insurance".
The dancers change, but the dance goes on. Some day, gearheads will be stuffing overwound motors and superconducting magnets into their Volts.
But hey - I gots to own me that "speedy car".
DG
Roger your piece is so true.
Someone needs to revive the American dream and wash these dull Asiatic motorized white goods back from whence they came!
I too have a Hawk on my desk - well 15 actually!
Nice to know I'm not alone!
Andrew
Roger,
I mentioned my '55 President Speedster Hawk in a past post. I would like to invite you to visit my blog: http://mikes-show-n-shine.blogspot.com to see what I am up to now. I love car shows, classic cars of all kinds, preferably pre-1970, but many of the newer cars get me excited, too! I currently own a 1964 1/2 Mustang, July made, 289 4 bbl, custom dual exhaust, headers, real spoke wheels, and this horse runs like a new car. Red (of course) and fun, fun, fun to drive. Not a "show car" but a driver. Never a trailer queen.
My blog is about local car shows, show-n-shines, parades etc. Please visit. You may leave a comment and that would make my day!!
And, to add this: to those whose first car was an Escort or some other piece of crap car, I feel very sorry for you that you never knew the wonder cars. I had a 29 Model "A", 46 Chevy Pickup hot rod, 55 Studebaker Hawk, 57 Chevy, and some not so glamorous cars! Roger,
best wishes for a great Christmas holiday. Mustang Mike
Wow, the rampant-consumerism take on car culture is just a little depressing. Things that are not good for us can still be enjoyable, and memorable, and anyway it seems like a really sophomore-in-college view of history to make so straight and shallow a connection as that.
That said, I'm 21 now and growing up I felt this way about... Oldsmobile Auroras. Gorgeous cars, not that I get a lot of agreement on that. The second generation Cadillac CTSes are beautiful, too.
I own a 57' goldie stoodbrucker, brand new, never driven, serviced once a month, purrrfect condition. wanna swap for ALL your assets? chuckle chuckle.
Sounds like Chaz and I are pretty close when it comes to cars. I'm 59 years old, have been a car owner for the past 40 years, but have owned only 5 cars in all. I'm still driving two of them. My '88 Civic's front bumper is about to fall off, because there isn't enough body left for it to attach to.
What was the moody 80s movie with all Studebakers? It was Alan Rudolph's "Trouble in Mind" or "Choose Me" methinks.
Ebert: Or Walter Hill's "Streets of Fire?"
Wonderful post, Roger,
As a kid growing up, I was always fascinated by images of concept cars heralding a bright Jetsons-styled future. I used to say "A car isn't a car unless it has tailfins." The great Harley Earl rolled out incredible dream cars every year, but rarely were any of them manufactured for the public, except the Corvette. How I would love to drive his 1956 Pontiac Club De Mer - a real space-age streamlined wonder. Well, as the years went by I grew more and more disappointed by the lack of imagination and timidity in the design of cars. I felt teased by the the year-end car magazines, promising stylish original designs and futuristic features. We were promised personal rocket packs as well and look how long that's taking!
As a result I lost interest in cars altogether, as I see nothing promised coming to fruition, only slight improvements on last year's model. It still amazes me that the car manufacturers think we can still get excited by the designs of new models. The fact that none of us today can name an actual industrial designer of the likes of Raymond Loewy, Harley Earl or Brooks Stevens confirms my suspicions that all cars today are deigned by committee rather than visionaries.
Greetings from a South Bend native now teaching at the University of Montana. I am currently snuggled up in my old bedroom at my parents house in South Bend trying to beat the holiday cold. Born in 1982, I spent the better part of my childhood trying to understand why so many vacant factories littered my city and why no one tore them down. Today many are being converted to high-end loft apartments owned by yuppies who drive foreign cars (I'll admit I drive a Subaru). In fact, when I lived in Richmond, Virginia I had a friend who lived in the old Lucky Strike factory. Getting to the point...
I know derelict buildings are dangerous, but... Is it strange that I miss the empty shells of long gone industry? They were like the remains of battlefields allowed to reverently pass into history.
Sometimes it seems like you are writing just for me. First the intelligent design thing, then on the wonders of great novels, and now this. I teach in South Bend, IN, and I was a student there until my family moved across the state line to Niles, MI.
My grandmother's first pair of Sunday shoes was given to her by Mr. Studebaker, at the footsteps of what is now Tippecanoe Place. Tippecanoe Place is under new management, if you didn't know.
When we were kids, every other field trip we took was to the Kreamo bread factory or to the Studebaker Museum. It wasn't until I reached adulthood that I realized what an important exhibit the museum held in Lincoln's last carraige. You have been to the new building, I assume?
Our band plays there every once in a while. It feels right to play American rock and roll next to the Avantis. The people posting here (especially the guys of my generation, I'm 37) who have written they never pined for cars are full of it, by the way.
-David
PS So strange that Bob Clark made such god-awful movies after A Christmas Story.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned it here, but Raymond Loewy also designed the dark blue, light blue, polished aluminum and white color scheme of Air Force One (at the request of, legend has it, Jacqueline Kennedy). While the original Air Force One colors were applied to a 707 (VC-137 in military speak) back in 1962, when the Presidential jet was upgraded to the 747 (VC-25) in 1989 no one even dared contemplate changing the design significantly. And Air Force One is as much a symbol of the country today as the White House or Capitol.
I can't imagine that whatever eventually takes the place of the 747 as Air Force One won't be similarly decorated.
By the way, sorry to burst anyone's bubble (Dave Mackey above in particular), but Loewy had nothing to do with the design of the 1957 Chevrolet. That car is a product of the GM Design Studio under the direction Harley Earl, with a lot of influence from Bill Mitchell who would succeed Earl in 1958. While I'm not personally that much of a fan of the '57 Chevy, it is a product of GM's golden age of design which produced such slick pieces of work as the '63 Buick Riviera, '63 Corvette Sting Ray, '65 Chevy Impala, '67 Chevy Camaro, '69 Chevy Camaro, '67 Pontiac Firebird and a slew of undeniably beautiful cars. You know, the cars that have left so many people believing there's something worth saving in today's General Motors.
"Piece by piece, the American prospect is being dismantled. Will the pulse of teenage boys quicken at the sight of the new Kia or Hyundai? Will they envy their pal because his dad drives a Camaro? I think that's all over with. There will be a void in our national imagination."
Being a 19 year-old American boy, I understand this statement more than I would like. I drive my parent's Honda Pilot, and each time I turn the key in the ignition, I feel a stab of guilt--not because I am driving a foreign car, but because of my nagging, unpleasant awareness of the global crisis caused at least in part by suburban gas-guzzlers like myself. Yes, the sexy myth of the good ol' American car has died, and not just because the Big Three are going under. My little slice of the national imagination has been flimsy at best ever since elementary school, when the Clinton sex scandal taught me what it really meant to be presidential. 9/11 almost injected some much needed patriotism into my peers and I, but our brief hope that we could actually stand up and salute something meaningful, the way our parents seemed to. But that hope was quickly dashed by the disastrous decisions of Bush, who cast a long, unwelcome shadow on my already unstable sense of national pride for the rest of my teenage years, which I spent as an agnostic in a Catholic high school, trying to wade through all the insensitive jokes about pedophilia to catch some glimpse of what exactly my father meant when he would tell me that, growing up as an Irish kid on the streets of South Boston, everything felt different than it does today.
We have grown up with global warming and quantum physics, too young for Nirvana and too old for the Jonas brothers, lamenting the fact that we missed the 1960s but treasuring our innate, almost personal understanding of computers and the internet, and when you get down to it, the national imagination just isn't really all that relevant to us anymore. Relativism, globalism, and uncertainty about basically everything people used to be able to take for granted (even teenage rebellion itself) has shaped us into hyperinformed, faux-worldly technological wizards for whom Americana is a matter of caricature and speculation, not nostalgia. I missed the birth of rock 'n' roll, I missed the hippies, I missed Star Wars and the Cold War, and now my national identity has become nothing but a handicap, even an embarrassment, when there are neither good guys nor bad guys and even our economy as a whole seems to be dying.
So what do we do about it? Well, I guess we all voted for Obama. And westerns seem to be coming back again. I hope both of them can last. I really do.
Ebert: Hey, you really can write!
What will young people in 20 years regret having missed in the 2000s? I'm thinking, I'm thinking.
Very interesting dialogue about the car and your thoughts and the contributions of others. As a kid my dad only had Studebakers and in 1956 he bought a Sky Hawk. After two heart attacks he was told to uy a car with power steering. Supposedly less of a chance of having another hearta ttack buy using power steering. That was medicine back then. SO he turned in a four month old 56 Sky Hawk for a 56 Golden Hawk. In 1959 he died, even though his car had power steering.
I learned to drive on the 56 Golden Hawk and it finally rusted away in 1962. In 1986 I bought a 1956 Golden Hawk. I knew nothing about cars and decided to restore it myself. I took two years of adult ed cclasses in autobody and from 1987 till 1993 I worked on the car. My wwife and my 4 year old daughter also spent hours with me in the garage helping me. In 1994 it was on the road. Now at 64 I relive part of my youth and know that I am driving a car that most have no idea what they are looking at. I believe we have putover 30,000 miles on the car since it was road worthy.
Strangest thing is I never had a good loving relationship with my father, but for some reason I built this car to replicate his. I guess it is my only way to get close to him after all these years.
Studebaker was always a dollar short and a day late when it came to makeing their cars, but the workers back then had pride and they produced a car that 50 plus years later is still capable of keeping up with modern cars. Grabted tahey were aheadof their time, but they had little to work with, but look what they produced on pocket change.
I consider it the father of the muscle car / pony car era. five passneger, high horsepower and one of the best instrument panels to be found on any American car.
If you enjoy your car half as much as I enjoy mine, you are indeed a very lucky man.
My car was an early production South Bend product, so there is no word Studebaker on the car other than the two medallions on the grille and trunk. I just love it when people try an guess what it is.
Best regards and take care.
BG
Ebert: And yet the Hawk is so distinctive! Let me guess. They don't know what it is, but they like it.
I grew up in Boulder Colorado and my father was an aerospace engineer. As with many of his generation and career, his choice of "change in the pocket" car was a corvette. Oh, we kids had heard about this car for years & believed it was just another pony-story (as in "one day I'll get you kids a pony"). But the summer before I was to enter high school, my uncle drove up in a 1967, cherry red, rag roofed 'vette and my father fell in love. All summer long, every weekend was devoted to the washing and the waxing and the admiring of The Vet. He would drive it onto my mom's lush and perfect lawn, put on his Levis, take off his shirt, and wash and wax the car. We would stand at the upstairs picture window and look down at the red corvette against the green lawn and marvel at my dad and the joy he got from tending the car -- and the kick my mom got from watching him.
During the year my dad drove The Vet every where and made two-finger salutes to every other corvette driver on the road. And they would salute back. He would park and men would gather and they'd all stand and admire the car. A man/adult/something that a teenage girl can warm to, but not really be a part of.
In the spring, when I approached the age to learn to drive, my dad (with a crazy happiness I can only admire) took me out to a country road and had me drive The Vet. I only drove it a couple of miles, and was scared to death the whole time, but it was the first car I ever drove. Later, it was the first car my sister and brother ever drove as well. Come to
think of it, it was the first car I got a speeding ticket in -- on my 17th birthday, going 10 miles over the speed limit on a country road. My dad was very forgiving.
As time went by, The Vet became a bit of a family car. Dad was always willing to let the kids drive it, to the store, to school, and so forth. One summer I had an early evening class at the University of Colorado. Dad would come home & toss me the keys. I would drive The Vet across town, a blonde girl in a classic convertible vet with the top down and the music rocking. Boy, did I get asked out a lot that summer!
As time went by, The Vet needed more than general maintenance. The car began to show it's wear and tear, and you had to baby the engine to get around. But the "change in the pocket" now funded kids in college, some health issues and retirement planning, Spending on The Vet just wasn't in the budget. Finally, only my dad could drive it (he knew all it's quirks). Then came the period when my mom would have to drive across town to rescue dad when The Vet refused to run. Oh, he would return in the morning and get it going again, but then it would sit in the garage waiting for a greater level of repair.
Eventually, all kids graduated, moved out, found jobs, & created independent lives. The Vet moldered in the garage, and my dad neared retirement.
One summer 20 years after the first summer of The Vet, I was in town for work and was able to stay over the weekend to visit the folks. My mom had a cold, so my dad decreed that I should go with him to his company's picnic and see all the old crowd of friends. To my dismay, he tossed me the keys to The Vet. Don't worry, he told me. I've had it worked on. Well, the top was down and it looked alright in the dark of the garage. The door didn't creak when I got in. I turned the car over and, instead of the ragged roar I remembered, there was the deep, smooth rumble I had forgotten. We both agreed it sounded great. I carefully backed the car out, drove it across town and out onto the country road where I had received the ticket on my birthday. My god, it handled beautifully. My dad burbled on about how he had been having the car repaired over the past couple of years and how it recently had some final tuneup. Once we hit the country we both shut up and drove along with big grins on our faces. I reminded him about the ticket. He looked at me and laughed. "Hit it kid," he said. And I did.
Ebert: Now that's a Dad for you.
I have to admit, at first your post seemed just another auto-nostalgia piece. But it started to seep in, and I remembered my Dad's own after-40 impulse, a '61 Corvair. Only five at the time, my clearest memories are of the rear-seat heaters, and the time Dad convinced a neighbor lady that the windshield-washer reservoir was the engine. We went from NJ to Niagra Falls in that car, a little silver thing Dad managed to hang onto until '66, when over the next decade he bought two Dodge Monacos in a row. Boring solid suburban boxes--all right, with AC. Me, I reserved all auto-lust for the Jaguar XKE--I still have my Matchbox model. When I married in 1981, I lucked into not only a wonderful woman but her metallic-blue '68 Cougar. Light and floaty as hell, but still pretty boss. Gone by 1985, and since then I haven't had a car I give a tinker's damn for.
Bill Cosby says somewhere that he loves cars but doesn't know anything about them--except that when they don't run, they're broken. And I'll add that cool American cars may have ruined everything, but when they're gone, I'll miss them.
By the way, there seems to be a Christmas Story vs. Wonderful Life thread in these comments--and that's just plain silly. Let's just agree that every time a bell rings an angel gets his eye shot out, and enjoy the Season.
p.s. I hit "submit" and my screen went blank. I'm re-submitting, and apologize if this appears twice.
I am of course reminded of a quote by the great Fozzie bear in The Muppet Movie:
"A Bear in his natural habitat ... a Studebaker"
"What will young people in 20 years regret having missed in the 2000s? I'm thinking, I'm thinking."
The birth of blogging? The iPod? YouTube? Yeesh.
Let's hope we make some breakthroughs regarding energy independence before the decade is over.
Car or not ? I have decided on the latter ,at the cost of not being able to stop at a place of your choice say ,in the lower Himalayas and conversing with a breeze.
"Things" have life and ofcourse places. One could fall in love with a pen, a watch, a room....I'm sure a car has "life" just like "a dog, a horse, a rat"....oh, ignoble dispensability !!
To quote A Night Among The Pines by R L Stevenson,after he contracted TB.
"I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle the steep ascent that lay before me, but I had something on my mind. It was only a fancy; yet a fancy will sometimes be importunate. I had been most hospitably received and punctually served in my green caravanserai. The room was airy, the water excellent, and the dawn had called me to a moment. I say nothing of the tapestries or the inimitable ceiling, nor yet of the view which I commanded from the windows; but I felt I was in some one's debt for all this liberal entertainment. And so it pleased me, in a half-laughing way, to leave pieces of money on the turf as I went along, until I had left enough for my night's lodging. I trust they did not fall to some rich and churlish drover."
and further
"I wish to die in my boots; no more Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from a horse — ay, to be hanged, rather than pass again through that slow dissolution."
and his self intended Requiem
"This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."
As I sit here, waiting for the cakes to bake so I can put the bread in the oven, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only Christopher Moore fan who reads you, Roger. I hope that Miles Vorkosigan will precede reading "The Stupidest Angel: A Tale of Christmas Terror" with Moore's "Lamb; The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal." Moore really does have some of the funnest titles out there.
Cartier-Bresson does have at least one train photo! You'll have to wait for it, though, but, well, he's worth it! I think that his are probably the most cinematic photographs I have ever seen. http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.PhotographerDetail_VPage&l1=0&pid=2K7O3R14T1LX&nm=Henri%20Cartier%20-%20Bresson
Also, because I'm in a B&W mood, the father of American fine art photography, brainchild of "Camera Work," and husband to Georgia O'Keefe, Alfred Stieglitz! http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/stieglitz/stieglitz_from_the_shelton_full.html
History that I've lived through: MTV was born a few months after me. It's grown to be a crushing disappointment, completely failing to live up to its potential. Challenger. I was only five, so I don't remember it happening, per se, but every year I get to see it happen again. Baby Jessica. No real historical significance, but it did scar my childhood; I was raised in Texas. Berlin Wall going down. It didn't strike me as important until four years ago, when I read a book (admittedly, fictional, but well researched) which gave me some perspective on what it took to put the damned thing up. Fall of communism in Russia, also didn't seem like a big deal until later.
Rabin's assassination struck me deeply. So did Oklahoma city. Those were my first two "Where Were You When...?" places that I remember. Upon graduation from a military high school, I contemplated signing up, but decided to wait the election out. I distinctly remember telling a friend that if Bush was elected, we'd be at war with Iraq within two years. It sucked to be right. Leading to, of course, the "Defining Moment Of This Generation!" Where was I? On the corner of 48th and 8th, NY, NY. Remember that scene in "Vanilla Sky" where Time's Square was completely empty? I saw that. The only sound that day was the occasional siren running up and down Seventh. And now, finally, some history that I can proudly say I was a small part of, President-Elect Obama's victory. All this to put out a few guesses as to children born today, or slightly after today are going to wish that they experienced:
the iPod, Electric Scooters, the first images from the surface of Mars, Obama's election, 9/11, two-dollar gasoline, "The Lord of the Rings," Michael Phelps, Kobe and LeBron, the "Harry Potter" books and, I hope, Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series. If I'm at all lucky, at least one of those choices will be envied in the hereafter.
Cakes are out, bread is in.
What makes a car truly classic in your own mind? I've said before that my white 1999 Toyota Tacoma, with four wheel drive, an extended cab and TRD suspension (all stock, no mods) isn't ever going to have songs written about it, but the memories make her a classic for me. I offroaded my best friend to his wedding in that truck. Hell, I drove the head of foreign programming from a world-renowned TV studio drunk in the bed, along with a dozen other people, bundled up, passing a bottle of wine, with Allison Krauss blaring from my speakers in Jackson, Wyoming. I've necked with girlfriends, driven whilst injured (a manual transmission and a severely sprained left ankle don't mix), gone cross-country with a load that would have made Jed Clampett nervous. Hauled water, manure, cement, a deer carcass, impressed a girl I was interested in by dismantling and re-assembling a broken tailgate. I can't think of a reason yet to trade her in. Incidentally, Sam Raimi can't get rid of his first car, either. It's called "The Classic" and has been in every movie that he's made, except "The Quick and the Dead." Unless he stripped the chassis and made it a wagon... I think your engraving suggestion to Jeremy Knox would fit very well on my ride's engine block.
Somebody waaaay up in the line of responders mentioned a Johnny Cash song about smuggling out a Cadillac one piece at a time. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1-zzJnKtDg
A youtube search yielded this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-sl3f0V1bs
Jazzy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI3ZxO9Tcqc
Last one, I promise.
I don't think she would have slapped that cop if she were still driving this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqgBwnwsIZ0
It's a beautiful thing to see a 19 year-old writing so beautifully. I know I'm only a few years older, but it seems that the standards of quality for basic communications are decreasing with every generation, and it's refreshing to see a few trend-buckers.
Ebert: Every time despair, I hear from a brilliant teen-ager. It is time to stand up against those who consider the word "intellectual" an insult.
What a nice article. I strolled onto here looking for movie reviews and found my way here, to one of the clearest explanations of why we are so in love with our cars. I'm only thirty years old now, but I vividly remember in my childhood having posters, photos, and calendars of different cars, most of which I dreamed of owning someday. I idolized everything from Corvettes and Porsches to unusual makes like TVR and DeTomaso. At the time I was obsessed with speed and power, but now that I've gotten older I've come to appreciate the aspects of beauty that go into car design. They're not just machines... they're machines that also happen to be works of art.
I also happen to have spent a significant portion of my youth in South Bend. I loved reading your impression of the Studebaker museum, but I'm ashamed of myself for never visiting despite living there for years. Amazing how that happens, that we absentmindedly ignore the amazing things that are right next to us, simply because we figure we can go anytime. Next time I'm there, I'll be sure to visit.
I've also remembered my own Studebaker Golden Hawk, which is a 1967 Corvette Stingray Convertible, preferably red with side exhaust and the 427 engine. (I'd love the L88 model, but apparently they only made four of those, so I'd say my chances are limited unless I win the lottery) To be honest, I decided this years ago, but had forgotten my love of this car in the business of college, jobs, and marriage. I actually saw this exact car during my teenage years at the car show in Auburn, Indiana, which my parents tried to visit every year. This is when I really fell in love. It was for sale at the time, for a price which would never be found now, even in our depressed economy.
Thank you for your compliment, I suppose, although I just noticed a glaring mistake in what I posted (an incomplete sentence that I forgot to delete). But oh well--proofreading is not always my forte.
Now that you mention it, there are a lot of things that people will miss about the 2000s. The internet has changed the entire world of communication, we've witnessed the real birth of the mainstream green movement, we've elected the first black president,and we've already taken down the major record labels (at least a little, now that Radiohead has made it popular not to ask for money). Still though, in a strange way, I feel like there's some fundamental subconscious sensation missing in myself and a lot of my friends. Maybe it's just the fact that we need something more to be ironic about after everyone from Gen-X got real jobs, but somehow it feels like we're trying to make up for lost time.
I go to Wesleyan University, one of the most notoriously political campuses in the nation (and home to many radical, traditionally "un-American" schools of thought, whatever that means), and on election night a strange thing happened. A mob of several hundred drunk students gathered on our quad, chanting "Yes we can!" and setting off fireworks. This was not just Obama's night, however--this was our night. About a half hour into the celebration, a few people started singing The Star Spangled Banner. By the time the "For the la-and of the free-ee" part came, the entire mob was drunkenly belting it out at the top of their lungs. In the beginning, it felt like a lot of us voted for him almost as a sort of protest, like a big "Fuck you!" to the right-wing lunatics that have controlled this country for too long, but on that night, it felt like we did it for the flag itself. We weren't just embracing change; we were embracing our country, and everything it was supposed to symbolize, for the first time. To be truthful, my friend and I were the ones that started the singing in the first place, and yes, we were both drunk and high, but something felt different that night. Maybe we were all just really desperate to find something to cheer for, but we definitely found it, at least for a few minutes.
I suppose it's just kind of strange to grow up in America these days. We're waning as a superpower. The traditional values don't have the same currency they used to. Basically, I think most of us are thirsting for that mysterious, red-white-and-blue exhilaration whose existence we've only been able to hypothesize from movies and TV. This year was an important one for obvious reasons, both negative and positive, but I suppose that's the nature of national identity. If it always stayed the same, it wouldn't really useful. Obama really feels like OUR first president--not just the first one we like, but the first one that, in some strange way, really seems to represent us. Maybe it's just sugary propaganda and unrealistic promises, and maybe he's just our JFK (my apologies if you do not think JFK was overrated), but we're clinging to him in a way that I'm not sure anyone else can understand. Right now, at least in my experience, he is the new voice of a generation. This whole post might sound bombastic, but it's the first time in nineteen years that I've been genuinely proud of my country. He feels like the "new" America. And like I said in my earlier post, I hope this feeling lasts.
Ah, the great Raymond Loewy. If there was a car I lusted after when I was a kid, it was the Avanti. My cousin owned one for a while, but the poor thing was in pretty sad shape. When it ran, though, it could pin you back in your seat. My late Uncle Larry was a Studebaker fan, and restored a pickup which ran like a top.
By the way, did you know Raymond Loewy designed Skylab? Along with the interior colors, private areas for the crew, etc. he also suggested something that the NASA people overlooked. Something that should have been obvious: a window. Yes, Von Braun and his people were going to seal those astronauts in a giant tomato can without so much as a peephole, for up to three months.
When it fell to Earth, Skylab was still in pretty good shape. Typical Loewy design, I guess.
Patrick, as Roger said "You can write." As someone who was your age at the end of the Viet Nam War, Watergate and the Fuel Crisis thank you for sharing your perspective on today's America, I enjoyed it as much as the origianl subject. It reminded me that in many respects we're reliving the 70's. History really does repeat itself.
Gee whiz, all those great things I put in my comment, and all you respond to is Buster Keaton's live TV show? Well, as long as YOU brought it up... /*/*/ In your "Great Movies" piece on "The General", you wrote how Keaton was "reduced to appearing on local live television" in the late 40s (I hope I at least came close on the quote). It seems to me that your sense of history deserted you momentarily on that one. /*/*/ A Keaton biography tells the story of the first time Buster Keaton saw television, while visiting one of his sons. The son was the first on his street to own a set, and when Buster saw the strange little box in his son's house, his brain went into warp drive. As the story goes, Keaton would say to anyone who spoke to him, "This is the future of show business," or words to that effect. At that point, he resolved to get into the new medium as soon as possible. /*/*/ After testing the waters on some of the few shows that were being done on the west coast, such as Ed Wynn's, Keaton got some old cronies together, found a sponsor (the Studebaker Dealers), and hooked up with KTTV, which I believe was the DuMont station in Los Angeles (I could be wrong about that; correction welcomed). The coast-to-coast coaxial cable wasn't hooked up yet, so the Keaton show was only seen locally; still, national syndication was at least a possibility. That didn't quite work out, nor did an attempt to film a series a couple of years later, but Keaton established himself as a television pioneer, working in the medium steadily right up to the end of his life: variety appearances, comic and even dramatic acting, and of course his lengthy and lucrative career in commercials (I remember seeing his silent comedy commercials for Ford Trucks on "The FBI" in the year of his passing).(Hey, see how I got back to cars? Cle-VER.) /*/*/ Anyway, the point (I think) is this: what you called "reduced circumstances" was in fact prescience; to try to get in on the ground floor of a new business, especially in one's fifties, takes some daring and more than a little nerve. Buster Keaton had those qualities in spades. /*/*/ OK, it was off-topic, but who knows? One of these days you might do a Keaton blog, and this digression will be right there waiting for you...
Ebert: I should have guessed.
After reading your review of "Cars", I knew you couldn't resist to do a blog like this. Bravo!
I really liked Patrick's account of November 4-5, 2008.
Here is my own:
I got up early on election day and wrote this:
4:47 a.m. Election Day 2008
The last week or so, Republican pundits have been recalling the famous photo of Harry Truman holding the Chicago Tribune's headline reading "Dewey Defeats Truman." You know who else held that photograph, urging people to go to the polls?
Walter Mondale.
Michael Dukakis.
Bob Dole.
And can you guess which traditionally conservative newspaper (that endorsed Bush four years ago) endorsed Barack Obama for President of the United States?
At the school where I teach, the atmosphere was electrified. Indiana had not gone blue in a Presidential election since 1964, and the polls were showing that it might just happen for us.
Kids were walking around with Obama buttons and T-shirts.
When I made a coffee run, I saw a woman dressed like Sarah Palin standing on a street corner holding a sign reading some dittohead talking point. At Starbucks, another woman had pinned a sign to her sweater that read "Trouble voting? Talk to me." I found out she was a lawyer from Notre Dame.
Contrasting the two campaign headquarters was like watching an episode of The Celebrity Apprentice. Thousands and thousands of happy people in my favorite city, contrasted with a single guitar player in Arizona.
At about 12:30 a.m., I was watching CNN with my wife and...it happened. Both Dawn and I cried real, open tears of joy. I got online and re-watched President Elect Barack Obama walk out onto that stage with flashbulbs popping over and over again.
The following day I rejoiced with just about everybody at work.
Almost everybody I know in South Bend has suffered in one way or another because of the last disastrous eight years. I told my students to save their newspapers. God, what a great moment.
I got home and made the following comment on Roger Ebert's blog about Obama's election:
"I'm so damned proud of my country."
In Chile, way South of Santiago, there is also a Studebaker museum with two 'Hawks and a Studebaker hoisted up as a sign out front. Que sorpresa!
I grew up in Mishawaka- the city next to South Bend- and while I didn't see many Studebakers there in the '70s and '80s, there sure were a lot of Avantis tooling around even into the 1980s. What TV miniseries was it? "Wild Palms"? Anyway, one of them had a lot of people (the police maybe?) driving around in Avantis and it made me remember that when I saw it. Not sure I've seen one in person anywhere else.
OK, Roger, I give up. /*/*/ "I should have guessed," .... guessed WHAT? Show a little mercy here. Not having had the benefit of a college education, I find your replies are just a tad cryptic. If you find my little ramblings somehow off-putting, just say so. Heaven only knows I have no desire to offend (unless you write something here that really bugs me, but that won't happen...maybe).
Ebert: Can't you guess?
So we tool on, wheels against the current....
My father had a '57 Olds 98 convertible, black with red leather upholstery. I was too young to take proper advantage of it. However, when I was finishing my Freshman year in the city of Studebaker, my parents picked me up to drive back to Massachusetts in a '64 kelly green Cadillac convertible. That summer was a summer.My Daisy was named.... um...
Roger,
I read you voraciously but could not let this one pass without comment.
I am a bit younger than you, so my object of love is slightly newer then yours, but no less cool, ahead of it's time or, even studebaker-y.
Next door to my house when i was an impressionable kid was the most amazing looking car i had ever seen. It was a sky blue metallic Studebaker Avanti.
This car inspired me in many ways in my life but unlike you i never owned one. Instead i owned many mustangs (turns out we're the exact same age, what with me boing born in may of 64).
I did follow them, though, even during a renaissance of the car as and Avanti America in the 80's or so.
I'm sure you know what it looks like, but out in California, San Francisco to be exact, i was father than you were from motown and the entire midwest. To my eyes this car was straight from the future anyhow.
They could sell them like hotcakes today, made in a hybrid or electric version.
love your articles, reviews, soul, and as we say "Neve Give Up, Never Surrender".
Rick Serna, 44
San Francisco, CA
here's a site of many dedicated to ANOTHER great Raymond Loewy Design.
http://www.theavanti.com/
When I was a teenager in the 60's I had 2 dream cars: A Z-28 Camaro and/or Corvette. I was a lucky boy and my parents bought me my first car. However, my father would not purchase anything he could not insure and back then - neither of my dream cars could be insured with me as primary driver.
Right after my 50th birthday in 2000, I left work to go to a local car dealership just to pass the time. I drove back with a slightly used 1999 Chevy Camaro Z-28. Six Speed, Corvette LS-1 engine, T-tops. I could not have been happier. I could produce almost all the gravity Einstein could imagine. My poodle didn't like it, he spent most of his time pasted to the back of the passenger seat.
I had the car over 2 years. Two of the best driving years of my life. In a fit of madness, I sold it and bought a Honda Civic. It's actually a great car. It's a little limp, but it gets me from point A to point B with a certain efficiency and reliability which cannot be denied.
I missed the Camaro however. I missed passing other cars. I missed interstate onramps and tight turns. I no longer found long stretches of highway entertaining. Three weeks ago I decided to grab a flight of fancy (before it winked-out against the horizon) and bought a 1993 Corvette. Roger, sometimes I think there is a Santa Claus and God exists. I'm as happy as a young boy with good looks and cheerleaders. What really makes it special is that I've told no one but you..... For some reason I just want to keep this to myself. Perhaps I'm afraid I'll wake up to hear my deceased mom
scolding me for spending the money, or having my deceased father tell me he's not going to work on it for me. Anyway - it's a great car.
Ebert: So now you have driven both your dreams. Don't have to tell anyone else. You know.
When I was in middle school in 1989, I began reading "Archie" comics. I dreamt of being like Archie in high school, with a Veronica and a Betty in the backseat of my convertible. I was going to blast Billy Joel songs from a cassette player in the car as I drove around town. You may not think he can compare with the Beatles, but give me credit for listening to him while others at my school were listening to Vanilla Ice.
When I actually entered high school, I was ridiculed by "cool" people, and I ended up sitting in an alleyway behind Baskin Robbins at lunch. While the other guys were driving friends to McDonalds, I was feeding crows from my lunch bag. I refused to buy a car, because, I guess, it meant that I would either be driving it alone, or I'd turn into one of those "other" guys.
Due to that, along with other possible fears, I have never truly learned to drive a car. Your piece on the glory of the old days, and the beauty of those old cars, reminds me of my "Archie" dreams.
By the way, with all of this "A Christmas Story" talk, have you seen any of its prequels or sequels? In "The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters," Matt Dillon played Ralph.
My family used to drive from New Mexico to New York every summer. One night, in a motel, we turned to PBS. "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" was on, in which Jerry O'Connell plays Ralph, whose family takes their annual trip to the lake. My family couldn't have asked for a better treat that night.
And then there was "My Summer Story" with Kieran Culkin as Ralph, Mary Steenburgen and Charles Grodin as the parents. Haven't seen it yet. Bob Clark, director of "A Christmas Story" directed it.
They are all narrated by Jean Shepard.
Ebert: I don't believe I've seen them.
This is something that has been long coming. I notice that a 32 year old reader says that he never pined for a car. I'm 44 and I feel much the same way. I believe it's a generational thing, though. My brother is 10 years older than I and he has always had a much deeper interest in cool cars. I can admire a cool car, but I generally think of them as a way to get from point a to point b. I believe that Boomers will be the last generation to have that visceral connection to cars.
I recently bought an old car...1995 Solectria Force. There's some speculation that some day this car will be collectible.
What is a Solectria Force? I think the car must have been named by geek fans of Star Wars. It's a Geo Metro (some say the Metro will be a collectible) that has been gutted and re-made into an electric vehicle. I had some problems getting it fixed when I had a problem with the charger, but EV people are a funny lot. A guy selling cheap Chinese-made green batteries, Eric Fisher of Silicone Batteries USA, came down and installed both batteries and a new charger. That was just before the price of gas dropped.
For $1 a day, I can drive 40 miles but the battery level gauge doesn't work so that's a bit iffy.
The Solectria Force was my second choice, so I settled instead of getting my true love. There is nothing cool or head-turning about the design of the Geo Metro. The car that sold the day before I secured a personal loan was a Henney Kilowatt (purple). That's a late 1950s to early 1960s Renault Dauphine that a vacuum cleaner company took and remade into an electric vehicle.
Perhaps not as big and impressive as the Hawk, but the Henney Kilowatt was a car with character and eco foresight. Much better and more practical than the 1904 Baker or a 1919 Rauch and Lang (I can't remember which) that I got a short ride in--both early EVs. I have ridden in the t-zero, but not the Tesla. I hope to some day own a plug-in Prius.
Otherwise, being the kind of person I am, I also toyed with the thought of a AMC Metropolitan. Cute as a button and we have a museum in the Los Angeles area devoted to them. They don't have the cult following of the original VW bug, but they have that kind of personality.
I also would love to have a Nissan S-Cargo or a Figaro--limited edition, sold in Japan only and now available for export to Canada, UK and Australia. The US has importation restrictions that make it too difficult to bring used Japanese cars here--ones no longer able to pass the Japanese emissions and other standards. I think the S-Cargo and the Figaro might be pine-worthy, in different ways. The Figaro being retro cool and the S-Cargo being sort of quirky cute.
If you, Mr. Ebert, has passed me in a Hawk, I assure you my head would have turned. I haven't had my dream car yet nor have I driven in it, but I've been able to experience a bit of EV history, so I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with that.
Ebert: I've always liked that little car. Didn't it carry the Nash nameplate?
From "Seven Days In May": Col. Casey (Kirk Douglas) is telling President Lyman (Fredric March) what little he's been able to discover about Gen. Scott's (Burt Lancaster) plan, talking around Scott's involvement. Lyman interrupts him: "Colonel, do you have something against the English language? Then speak it plainly, if you please." /*/*/ "Can't you Guess?" /*/*/ No, dunce that I am, I can't. That's why I asked. The reason I started sending these comments in the first place was in the hope that I could be a little informative, a little opinionated (safely of course), and perhaps a little funny (very little, I know). But cold type does a lousy job with nuance, and I truly can't tell if you're being teasing, sarcastic, or outrightly dismissive, or maybe even all three. /*/*/ Just to be clear on what I had in mind, the following is for Peter Fawthorp, in re the Jean Shepherd films he mentioned above: To begin, there were three Shepherd films made for PBS in the late 70s-early 80s: "The Phantom Of The Open Hearth", "The Great American Fourth Of July", and "The Star-crossed Romance Of Josephine Cosnowski". In the first two, the Old Man was played by James Broderick; he died before production started on the third one and was replaced by George Coe (Shepherd is on record somewhere that of all the actors who played the Old Man, Broderick was his favorite). Bob Clark's "Christmas Story" feature came shortly after the PBS shows,having no direct connection to them. "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven Of Bliss" was made a number of years later for cable-tv (the Disney Channel,if memory serves; it might have been intended as a series pilot, I'm not certain). Clark's "Summer Story", aka "It Runs In The Family", came a few years after that (again, I'm calling on memory, but I believe it went straight to cable, with no wide (or even narrow)theatrical release). As noted, four of these six films were made for television, which explains why Roger didn't see them. /*/*/ That last remark of mine was just a bit snide, wasn't it? Yes, I suppose it was, but if I were in the room with you, speaking aloud, you probably could have told by the tone of my voice that I was teasing. That's my point about cold print, and it explains (at least to me) why so much "humorous writing" these days is so woefully ineffective. If my little blast at the start of this offended you, I apologize. If there's a form I should follow for my "Mr. Know-It-All" flights, just let me know. Meanwhile, I'll close with a quote from my favorite Christmas movie, "Stalag 17": von Scherbach (Otto Preminger): "Now ve are all frenss again." And a Froliche Weinachten to you too.
Ebert: I hope one of my replies didn't seem rude. They're all intended positively, if sometimes ironically. Please don't ever take offense. What did I say?
Mr Ebert--
Many thanks for this piece. Fascinating thread of comments in its wake, too...much of it, as you say, heartening. I'm 43, so an early "buster" rather than a "boomer". Been crazy for cars nearly the whole of those 43 years. Living in Hamilton, Ontario, final home of the Studebaker automotive division, the entire time, I have a soft spot for Studes, and a year and a half ago indulged myself and bought a humble little rolling nostalgia machine...a Hamilton-built 1962 Lark VI.
Joined SDC, and found to my delight that I wasn't one of the youngest folks at the meets and cruises...far from it...in fact there's another local SDCer who won't actually be able to drive his Studebaker until this coming year, because it's registered as a classic and he's a year too young to take the wheel! Generally, the passion for cars may wane somewhat...or change out of recognition. But there will, I'm sure, always be wistful wackos like myself who "pine" for The Way Things Used To Be. Here's a vignette: myself and a buddy are heading to a cruise last May in my Lark; we pass a black early-oughts Honda Accord sedan, I glance across...and there's the 12-or-so-year-old kid in the Accord's front passenger seat, grinning and waving...and photographing my Lark with his celphone! I think things are gonna be OK.
And, since it's been referred to multiple times above...I too, though a born-and-bred "Hoser", raptly watched the American election results roll in on television. Sure, it was only TV; but rarely have I felt so certainly that I was watching history unfold. That night I was (vicariously) proud of the USA, too.
Cheers
Steve Tournay
Thank you, Mike.
Now how do we go about getting those other films on dvd?
I don't know how the others fare, but "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss"... I smile just thinking about it.
Roger, if you happen to see any of the other films in the future, please give us a quick opinion of them.
I am suddenly inspired to start reading Jean Shepard's books.
I turned 26 a week ago, and I have already owned 7 cars. The first one I bought from a friend for 175$...none of them classic though--all late eighties or 90's.
To Frank B. Chavez
Response to:
By Frank B. Chavez III on December 21, 2008 2:42 AM
The sweet set of wheels that you write so elegantly about helped create our dependency on oil and contributed to global warming. The American love affair with the automobile was part of a wasteful, short sighted era of consumerism that is crashing down around us and will hopefully never come back. My generation, my children, and my children's children will probably be paying for that romance with the automobile for decades as our society struggles to find a replacement for fossil fuels, struggles to rebuild from climate change, and rebuild the gaping holes in the economy left by the demise of the greedy Big Three automakers.
Ebert: I know. We drive a hybrid. But what did I know in 1956?
In the 50's we were only about 15% dependent on foreign oil. Today, we are about 65%. During the oil embargo of 1973, we were 30% dependent on foreign oil, and there was chaos. Imagine if they did that today--in this economy--and speaking of that:
The big three is not responsible for the gaping holes in our economy--actually the worldwide economy--its a global recession (japan, germany, spain, etc.). OPEC is responsible--raising the prices of oil at will--, headed by Saudi Arabia because they have the most, and the cheapest, easiest fuel to use (if any of the rest of the countries cheat their quotas, Saudi can just lower the price of oil and it hurts other countries more than themselves--its like a speeding ticket; the flip side of that coin is why the world is in a financial crisis or going into one--when they raise the price of oil). Since oil is a global commodity, when they raise the price of oil, the world gets taxed--we were taxed 33%-I'll get to that. They are also the largest financiers of terrorism worldwide (including 9-11; 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudi), and are using their their money to take over the world by using their wealth to peddle influence for power...not money, but Bin Laden doesn't mind (he thought the price oil should be 144$ per barrel, it exceeded that this year). They are doing it Washington and have been for many years. No wonder we don't have an energy policy. And we are funding their side more than our side. In 1972, we spent 4 billion on foreign oil, which was 4.5% of our defense budget. In 1999, we spent 40 billion on foreign oil, which was 15% of our defense budget... In 2007, 347 billion--69%...In 2008 600 billion, 10% of our national defense budget! In less than 10 years, we went from paying 40 billion in 1999, to paying 600 billion this year on foreign oil. Combine that 600 with our domestic oil bill, 300 billion, and we are paying 900 billion dollars this year on oil (up from 80 billion in 1999), which is 33% of what we are paying the IRS, which is like a 33% tax increase (3,000$ per head-man, woman and child), the highest increase in American history. This is what crashed the housing market, which crashed the mortgage market, which crashed the banks. And there you have the same domino effect in many other countries worldwide, all starting with the high price of oil, which is also what raised the price of food, and well, everything else. That is where you go when you follow the money. In one year, I mean, we went from 347 billion (in 2007) to 600 billion this year, and trust me, we didn't double our driving that year.
And there is a solution, and a bill in congress that needs to be co-sponsored as much as possible called The Open Fuel Standard Act, or Obama's energy policy mandating all cars be flex-fueled by the end of his first term. Set up a meeting with your representative, they have one day a week for it--the Open Fuel Standard Act, making half the cars be flex-fueled by 2013...just to get it on the radar of Obama and the world.
The reason the big three haven't invested more in them is not really their fault. It is also because there are not very many pumps at all at the stations that use the preferred fuel of the consumers, so it was seemingly a gimmick to sell the cars, and also it was at first pushed for by methanol and then ethanol ( it was enough of a challenge to get methanol at the pumps, now we have this ethanol thing, which Hilary Clinton wanted to subsidize as her policy--I'll get back to that), which is what the FFVs (flex-fuel vehicles) are not primarily used for. We need to make it for the methanol standard, which is only 30$ more...its a 100$ per car, then 30 for the mehtanol fuel injector. This will only cost the auto-makers 150 million dollars to convert their cars to FFVs, which is what we spend on foreign oil in a matter of hours, and we ahve already given them about 17 billion in bail-out money...150 mil is nothing. This will open up the market to get the pumps out there, subsidizing them only if they don't get out there fast enough--it's the best minimal intervening way--and this is a case of where the government does need to "tell us" how to use the free market---it's only 150 million dollars to set up a methanol and ethanol economy going--once again, what we spent in about 5 hours on foreign oil this year--(or any other alcohol based fuel of higher quality) which will create 1.5 million jobs here (from biomass and coal--and our friends and allies--not allies and enemies, like Saudi Arabian tyrants, who don't have those things in the desert)and many others worldwide--hundreds of millions of cars worldwide in 3 years (50 million here) as well. We could then tax them, in favor of alcohol fuels, because what they are doing is illegal, being part of the WTO, and it is perfectly legal to punish them, and even the oil companies as being part of it--knowingly taking profits that were ill-gotten as a result of OPEC's price hikes. Miners and farmers around the world, including third world countries that have been discriminated against by Japan and Europe from world war 2 for agricultural protective measures, will grow as the trade barriers come down in favor of agriculture (or then, manufactured goods) and take trillions of dollars out of Saudi terrorists fundings and world power mongerers to countries that need to develop.
We could be on an alcohol fuel economy for 60-80 years, before population growth catches up. During this time cellulosic ethanol may have turned the tide a bit. We could by that time develop solar, wind, nuclear, or coal( which we are the Saudi Arabia of, and our friends India and China) electricity for hybrids cars, which should be rather substantially cheaper (about 5,000 more expensive now, or 10,000 for exotic hybrids), or maybe even much more cheaper with the invention of a revolutionary battery. But even without that revolutionary battery, we could set up plug-in hybrids that could take our cars and drive them for 40 miles before the flex-fuel alcohol/gas gets going which would mean driving about 500 miles per gallon of gas. How often do you drive more than 40 miles a day, and then having only about 15% of your fuel being gasoline? Your car could never even use gasoline in its whole lifetime if you don't drive more than 40 miles during its use. You'd have two competitors against oil (which it doesn't even have one right now): electricity and alcohol fuels.
We're about the same age, and I also have admired the Hawk's lines, but for some reason only little British four-banger roadsters turned my ignition on. My first ride was a 1962 Austin-Healey Sprite Mk II, which my dad found in a barn outside Shiner, Texas. I bought it for $450, trailered it home to Houston and had the broken right rear axle replaced. It had plastic side curtains, not windows, a 4-cylinder engine about the size of an old Singer sewing machine, weird elbow-action shocks, and a heater that could just barely manage to keep the driver's side of the windshield defrosted on a cold Texas winter night. I loved it. There were others that almost got to me, but for years that old Sprite was the standard all other cars could never manage to meet. Then, a couple years ago in a barn outside Montgomery, Texas, I found a 1981 Lafer TI. It's Brazilian, of all things, built for 15 years at a factory in Sao Paolo and nearly legendary in South America. Has styling reminiscent of the MG-T series and the early '50s Morgans, but has a beautiful fiberglass body and VW Type 1 mechanicals. Your description of the looks you got while cruising in the Hawk is exactly how it feels to motor this little beauty around -- with one exception. Even women are drawn to the Lafer. I never leave it in a parking lot without returning to find two or more caressing the fenders or just smiling at it. Once, outside Lowe's, a Latin beauty of a certain age even proposed marriage if she could get the Lafer in a divorce! (My wife got a laugh out of that.) All in all, that was a beautiful and evocative piece, and I think you for sharing it.
by the way plants cool the planet through evapotranspiration, which increases the surface area in CO2 through tranpiration, half of the co2 goes into outer space.
I was saying that we spent more on foreign oil this year than our national defense. Our national defense budget this year was 500 billion, and we spent 650 billion on foreign oil. So, we are subsidizing a war against ourselves, and are even funding the other side more than our side. Opec, in an open free market, should only have made about 500 billion dollars, but will be making about 4 trillion this year. Thats a 3.5 trillion tax worldwide.
I am younger, but have always admired the Hawk. It looks so streamlined, it doesn't fit in with the other cars of its era. Both my grandfather and my uncle had Hawks when I was a kid (I'm from Toledo, Ohio, which is Studebaker country), but I was too young so I hardly remember them.
Now, I have a Mazda RX7 with a 475hp V8. It looks good, is very fun to drive (if a bit scary), and I feel exceptional when I drive it.
I have always looked first to you for movie opinions. I guess I should expand that to cars, also.
What a great story - thank you for sharing it! I never knew I was a car girl until 1992 when I met my future husband. On our second date we took a motorcycle ride to the Auburn-Cord-Duesenburg museum in Auburn IN. There was a 1953 Studebaker that caught my heart. That summer we visited the Studebaker Museum in South Bend and I was hooked. My husband is a lifelong Hudson guy but can appreciate the lure of the Studes. A few years later I purchased a 1956 Golden Hawk (yellow and white, with yellow and white interior -don't you just love 2 tone?) I enjoyed it for a few years then let it go thinking this Studebaker thing was out of my system. HAH! Now I have a 1960 Lark VIII convertible with the continental kit. (black with red interior) I'm usually the only one with a Studebaker when I go to car shows and the public really enjoys seeing a Stude there. So now I'm "Lark8girl". Keep enjoying the old cars there are plenty of people out there having fun with them!
Roger: Thanks for the clarification. Upon further review, I've come to believe that your "should have guessed" remark referred to my unfortunate habit of taking a casual comment and answering it with a barrage of nickel knowledge from my vast storehouse thereof. If I'm wrong.... oh, just let it pass - until next time. /*/*/ Meanwhile, for Peter Fawthorp: You're welcome. However, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on DVDs. With all the different production entities involved in the various films, just clearing the rights must be the legal tie-up of the new century. My only suggestion: if you happen to know someone who taped any of these shows off-the-air.... that would a friendship worth cultivating (not that I'm suggesting you do anything, you know, illegal, like making a bootleg DVD.... that would be wrong). But while you're tracking down Jean Shepherd's books (and please note the spelling), try to find the book version of "the Phantom Of The Open Hearth" - Shepherd's script for the film, with a "making of" introduction that will knock you out (note in particular the acting note Shepherd gives to James Broderick for a key scene). Also, you can find some LPs Shepherd made in the 50s and 60s on CD, along withh some barely salvaged radio shows in the same format. Regrettably I can't recall the name of the company that's putting them out, but there must a website somewhere.... /*/*/ As I look back at my prior post, I note (to my distress) that I misspelled "Frohliche Weihnachten." Four years of high school German down the drain - may Herr Gahala forgive me. I'll quit while I'm behind - if you need me I'll be back in the delousing tent.
I want to talk about global warming:
Global warming is very slow. The measurements indicate a warming rate of .2 degrees per decade--2 degrees a century, which would bring us back to a climate of the middle ages which would be favorable--we're not in a climate emergency at all right now. And Nasa has been taking pictures since 1958 (315 parts per million of C02) of Earth, and it is a fact that plant growth has increased--not just agriculture, but wild plants--because the growing season has increased, which thrive on CO2. The growing season has lengthened--the first killing frost in the spring occurs later, the last killing frost of the fall occurs later. It has increased rainfall, which has increased vegetation at faster rate of growth. Early in the age of mammals, 60 million years ago, the amount of CO2 per million was 2,000 per million and the evolution of grasses, which are more efficient in their use of CO2 than trees and other plants, have forced a shortage of CO2 pre-industrial revolution down at 280 parts per million that created literally a shortage for plant growth, but now the amount of CO2 has increased 19% (about 375 part per million CO2)and the rate of plant growth has increased 14%. In the 70's there was a brief period cooling of the earth and people were talking about an ice age, which would be bad and would not increase the productivity, and a lot of the same people that are now writing books about global warming were once writing books about an ice age, which was a little more sound in their thinking because an ice age would kill billions (there is supposed to be one in 10, 00years), while global warming is actually benefiting humanity--increasing production with a longer farm cycle etc.--, but of course, too much of a good thing would be bad and with a flex-fuel standard,having plants or coal fuels, we could control whether or not we want to emit CO2--coal--warm the planet, bio mass--cool the planet--, and sea levels are only rising at a rate of one inch a decade, as well, which would mean 10 inches in a century, not a flood at all--venice is sinking into the mud, which has nothing to do with global warming--but we would have control of our CO2 emissions, which could cool the planet when needed, and warm it when needed. With Al Gore saying we need to cut our CO2 by 80% in ten years is impossible. We got 20% of our nuclear power and 10% of electricity from hydroelectric power, all the rest is fossil fuels (coal or 15% oil). All the cars on the road, with the exception of a few trains, use oil, with about 6% of it ethanol, it may go up to 10-12%,--not enough for energy independence--but there's no way we can do what Al Gore has said, and he is just plain wrong. The reason it has been so embraced by a large section of the political class is because it offers an oppurtunity to exert power. There is nothing that is produced that doesn't emit CO2. Every facet of humanity emits CO2--when you breath it emits CO2. But we could control our CO2 up or down as needed with a flex-fuel mandate because it will create agriculture worldwide, which will cool the planet a bit, and coal use (which can be clean), which will warm it if we need to--take your pick.
I also want to say that methanol and ethanol are less toxic than gasoline and are not carcinogenic. Gasoline is heavily carcinogenic. So, pollution will be reduced. If there was an alcohol spill, within a week it would dissolve into the ocean and be gone, and be undetectable. Methanol from trash or flared natural gas takes zero CO2 to produce, which will help global warming. And once again, plants use CO2 to thrive, so that also helps global warming. But I was saying that global warming has done a lot of good,--but pollution has not--, but this will be the way to help global warming, and if we need to emit CO2 to warm the planet if an ice age should come, we could do either. But we have enough plant residue, the stocks and leaves that get thrown out, to replace the oil of OPEC for 60-80 years, with just that. And we already have clean coal technology to emit CO2 should we need to warm the planet.
Hey! I just turned on TBS. They're showing 'A Christmas Story'!
Ebert: The family thanks you.
I wish American cars were still worthy of the adulation of teenage boys, who knew their machines. In my lifetime, I've owned two brand-new American vehicles - a Ford Ranger and a GM Saturn. The Ranger was meant to be the "car of my dreams."
Unfortunately, the Ranger had a clutch that went bad very quickly, so that at times shifting out of first gear was impossible. It was fixed twice under warranty, then the company announced it was a "design flaw" and would no longer be fixing it. It always felt nervewrackingly tippy in tight curves, too, and quickly began to rust. The Saturn had everything wrong with it from leaky window seals to substandard brakes that had to be completely and expensively replaced within 2 years, to a gas gauge(!) that broke and numerous other problems. I finally dumped it when told it would need its THIRD engine rebuild at 120k miles. And yes, I always was and am a fanatic about maintenance. I don't care what Ford and GM do in the future: I will NEVER buy another car from either.
I am now the second owner of a 14-year-old Nissan pickup that has never had so much as an oil leak, that I can count on even after its being rear-ended twice in a month and totaled (the cost to fix it was so close to its value I went ahead and had the bodywork done, because I feel a reliable engine is worth its weight in gold). The only thing I've replaced on it has been brake pads and tires, and a new windshield when my old one got too many nicks and sandblastings from desert roads. It's been stolen once and I get offers on it pretty often. I don't know if it is the "car of my dreams" but I love it and can depend on it, and I love throwing my gear in the back and driving it on road trips with my dog.
Hey Roger,
You may be interested in viewing some raw footage I shot a few years ago outside the last Studebaker plant, located in Hamilton, Canada!
I arranged a reunion of 5 former employees plus a couple of owners who brought their restored vehicles to the old plant for some interviews and shots of the cars.
I never ended up doing anything with this footage (yet), but I'd be happy to send you a DVD of this stuff...just send me an email...
Cheers!
Rob
Toronto
Roger,
I loved reading this entry. It was beautifully nostalgic, and I have to admit I'm a bit jealous. When I was growing up, in the 80's and 90's, the vehicles that were being produced were nowhere near as stylish as the brand new ones you were yearning for in your youth. Like you, I've always wanted a car like the '57 Studebaker, '55 T-Bird, '59 Cadillac, etc., not the ones I grew up with.
I think there's something timeless about that classic era of automobiles; an elegant, unashamed style that showed in the clothing, appliances, buildings, surely everything that was produced. It's romanticized all the time in films, depicted with captivating clarity in paintings by Jack Vettriano, and it pops up occasionally in brief fashion trends.
We may never experience such a stunning evolution of form and function again, but we will always have record of that beautiful time, and we will always be nostalgic for it.
Ebert: Jack Vettriano. Now there is an artist I like. Well, of course I would.
My Dad grew up in South Bend. He was not a big car enthusist, but he certainly admired the Studebaker. We went to the museum once while visiting my Grandmother. My uncle, on the other hand, DID buy a Studebaker, the Hawk no less.
Incidently, since Studenbaker made carriges before they made cars, they had a building in Times Square. Before Times Square was a theater district, it was known as Longacre Square, and horses and carriges were sold in the area. The building stood at Broadway and 49th street until just a few years ago. It was tourn down to build a high rise apartment building. The new M&M's store is located on the ground level.
1957 Imperial Crown convertible. 'Nuff said.
I actually love our new Cadillac CTS. It's fast and exciting to drive. For years, we always had BMWs. This year after test-driving a new BMW, we couldn't wait to go back to the Cadillac dealer to buy. The CTS is beautifully engineered. The managers at GM may not know what they're doing, but the engineers most certainly do.
I enjoyed the film clip of Held Up so I went to Netflix to see if it is available. The blurb by Netflix says "Michael (Jamie Foxx) gets in hot water with his girlfriend (Nia Long) when she learns he spent their nest egg on an Edsel -- a real lemon of a classic car".
Ebert: First of all, it wasn't a lemon. Second of all, it wasn't an Edsel.
I stumbled on your article about your Stude while idly surfing. I also once owned a '57 GH; it is one of a very few that I wish I still had in a long line of vehicles I've owned. The year was 1967. I was fresh out of Air force tech school and stationed at Matagorda Island Bombing and Gunnery Range on the Texas Gulf coast. I needed a car so I caught a ride to Victoria, TX with one of my buddies. We were driving around perusing the local offerings when I spotted the Stude sitting forlornly at the back of of the VW dealer's lot. Being a lifelong car guy I knew immediately what I had found. I walked around inspecting it a bit; not bad. A couple of small rust spots but no crash damage. I took it out for a test drive and fell in love then and there. A little haggling got the price down from $500 to $350. Sounds very cheap by today's standards but this was 40+ years ago when you could buy a decent used car for $100. I drove her for about a year and a half but had to sell when I was transferred overseas. It was by far the fastest car I've ever owned but she kept me broke. She'd pass anything but a gas station and of course the 20 year old owner just couldn't keep his foot out of the supercharger. ;D The fuel cost was killing me at maybe 15 mpg tops, even at the $.65 to $.75 a gallon we paid for premium back then.
A car like that is truly a mistress. Thanks for the memories!
Ebert: Faster that the 'Vette and the T-Bird, they always said.
The Stude might be due for a comeback! The Studebaker National Museum just issued a contest calling for designs for a new Studebaker. Of course, it's mostly for the young'uns, but there is a 21+ category, so it should be interesting to see what develops.
In the late 50s one of the janitors, Cecil Tigar, at Shull Junior High in South Easton, Pa. had a white and green Golden Hawk. The Corvette bug had yet to bite we young teenagers at the time and we thought Cecil's car was cat's Meow.
1956 Golden Hawk-I snagged one with 56,000 original miles in 1973 in Astoria, Queens. The power was real! It would burn rubber non-stop. Highway cruising at 80mph++ was effortless. Nail the throttle at 80 and the car seemed to have limitless power reserve. This was very mis-guided behavior for a 24 yr. old, especially one who didn't know how much an ultramatic trans. would cost. I owned a 67 Vette, 442s, 5.0s but the Goldenhawk had real personality, unlike the others. It was a unforgettable treat.
Hello again Mr. Ebert,
I just submitted a brief story about my 56 Golden Hawk. I failed to mention that my mom had a 62 Gran Turismo Hawk. That was a lovely well balanced beauty. Handled much better than 56 Goldie. It had a 289 v8 4 barrel carb. 225hp-sweet. The dual exhaust note was a nice rumble at idle. A black beauty with red interior and bucket seats-very handsome auto. It was the start of my love of Studebakers. My first car was a 55 President (Lowey coupe-need I say more?). Not as clean looking as the 53, but with its 259-v8 and dual exhausts, it was good for an indicated 110 mph. Bought the car for 25 bucks in 1968 from Monahan Ford in Manhattan. Took all the chrome off and primed it black-impetuous youth that I was. Hope you are feeling well!!!!!
Roger, in your thread about the Studebaker museum, you failed to mention that Studebaker also made wheelbarrows, the Weasel, and owned Pierce Arrow until its demise in 1938, when they shifted to producing fire engines. By the way, despite that the name Edsel is synomonous with disaster, the name is actually of Hebrew origin (honest!)
Ebert: And of course Studebaker began by making the Conestoga Wagon, and manufactured the last Packards.
The true barometer to me, is the staggering number of children today who don't know who Elmer Fudd is. While hardly pivotal, it points out something truly scary in my mind.
I know this is all a little tongue in cheek, but don't judge later generations by their recognition of your cultural touchstones. Judge them by their perseverance, their tolerance, their ingenuity, and their foresight - judge them by the things that will vault our society and our species higher and better. Not by Elmer Fudd.
Ebert: I tweeted something by Will Rogers the other day and people didn't know who he was. When I hear his name I even think immediately of Wiley Post.
I am younger, but have always admired the Hawk. It looks so streamlined, it doesn't fit in with the other cars of its era. Both my grandfather and my uncle had Hawks when I was a kid (I'm from Toledo, Ohio, which is Studebaker country), but I was too young so I hardly remember them.
I have a quibble with your opening statements: I can see how someone can be pessimistic about GM and Chrysler-Fiat, but Ford is one of the healthiest car companies around, thanks to Alan Mulally.
Other than that, awesome editorial...at 28 (rather young I know) I do pine for some cars of my youth, namely the Fiero GT (especially ones that have the little four or six replaced with the DOHC Z34 V6 or the Northstar V8), but mostly I pine for cars of other people's youths. For some reason, the era between the twenties to the seventies exuded so much optimism, so much dash and audax that it makes everything that came after seem like an appliance (with a few exceptions of course, the Corvette being a major one). For that reason my first car was a 1939 Chevrolet, my third a 1966 Oldsmobile, my fourth a 1957 Ford F100, and soon to be my next is a 1969 AMC AMX (just need to finish the motor). It'll be a little odd in thirty years if I continue to lust after cars that will then be a century old, but perhaps by then I'll desire one of the more recent exceptions.
To kill the American Dream, you must first kill the dreams of Americans. This is why Obama has killed the US auto industry. Stand up and refuse to become a pod person! Obama is personally responsible for no more Pontiac GTO's or Firebirds. His idea of a good time is forcing Americans to do as he damn well orders them to do!
Mr Ebert, is your serial number on that Golden Hawk 6102184 if so I have the original bill of sale, the oweners manual, the jacket from Frank Afton Studebaker. My dad purchased it on March 8, 1957
I came here via the Wikipedia article, but I can't remember how I found myself on the Wikipedia article. Old age is fading... Oh, that's right... I read your review of Cars 2 (quite surprised how low it is on Rotten Tomatoes), and you mentioned this car.
I think everyone should drive, at least for a few months, a car as old as they are, one built or sold in the year of their birth.
My family was a Volkswagen household, thanks to my mother, from Hannover, not too far from Wolfenbeutel. We owned a hatchback, a Super Beetle with an 8-track tape player, a Rabbit, and with a VW bus, my mother was the prototypical soccer mom, driving my brothers all over Omaha in the late 70s, early 80s. We even owned, for a year, a "Thing", which, while marvelously simple and a great car for teens, was not suited for Midwestern winters. We sold it to friends in California, who modded it into a beach car. It's happier there.
I do miss that VW bug... eventually, it had so many rust primer spots it became a ladybug... and then the floor pan fell off while my brother was driving... yup, just like the Flinstones. So it was sold. Such a classic, functional car.
But later, in the early 1990s, my father bought a '68 Mercedes from a farmer we knew... 250,000 miles on it (there was a badge on the radiator). Nothing fancy, just well built, utilitarian German design, and I drove it that summer. No, I didn't turn any heads, but I was driving a classic Mercedes, one which didn't cost a fortune!
Another Summer, my brother went on a long vacation, and I drove his Fiat X 1/9 for a few weeks. My first manual transmission... and how I loved downshifting as I turned into our suburban street!
If I did not live in New York City, where it only costs me $104 a month to commute (24/7 service! Stained glass windows in the subway stations!), I would buy a car with function and class. Perhaps one of the 1990s VW bugs from Mexico or Brazil, or a PT Cruiser. Or I'd go back to my German heritage and buy a Karmann Ghia Type 14 cabriolet, c.1957 (VW bug mechanicals, Italian styling).