Sketched by Sherwood Egbert himself (who had an aircraft background) and designed by the already legendary Raymond Loewy, the sporty Avanti came together on paper and as a scale model in early 1961 after a secret, five-week design session outside Palm Springs, California. Those records were important, because the Avanti was conceived as the halo car that just might enable Studebaker–which was teetering on the edge of collapse-to hang on. I took four people for a ride at speeds from 166.6 to 172.5 mph, and in each instance I let go of the steering wheel for several thousand feet to prove how stable the Avanti really is.”Ī year after he set the production car marks, Granatelli returned to Bonneville with an experimental, twin-supercharged Avanti and ran a blazing 196 mph.
In a letter to Studebaker President Sherwood Egbert, Granatelli wrote, “The thing that never ceases to amaze me is the ease in handling the Avanti. Hotshoe Andy Granatelli, who knew a thing or two about driving fast–and even more about promoting merchandise-was president of Paxton Products at the time, and one of his superchargers wailed under the Avanti’s hood. They also certified the Avanti R-3 as completely stock and fueled with Mobil premium pump gas. Was it a publicity stunt? Sure, but the United States Auto Club sanctioned each of these records. Fast indeed for a barely dry model that only 16 months earlier had been on the drawing board. The slippery Studebaker shattered record after record, blowing through the previous American Class C benchmark (held by a Dodge) by more than 50 mph. On the return leg of the 20-mile record run, the Avanti reached 178.5 mph. Although it’s best known today for its distinctive styling, back in the fall of 1962 Studebaker advertised its Avanti as “The World’s Fastest Production Car.” They backed up the claim with 29 new American national stock car records from the Bonneville Salt Flats, including the flying mile at 168.15 mph and 10 miles at 163.9 mph–and these were two-way averages.
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