Avanti
The Studebaker Avanti was a sports coupe built by the Studebaker Corporation at the direction of its president Sherwood Egbert between June 1962 and December 1963. It has been described as "one of the more significant milestones of the postwar industry", gaining iconic status with enthusiasts and collectors and resulting, after the demise of Studebaker, in ongoing custom production by a succession of entrepreneurs.
Production details: Designed by Raymond Loewy's team of Tom Kellogg, Bob Andrews and John Ebstein on a 40-day crash program, the Avanti featured a radical fiberglass body design mounted on a modified Studebaker Lark Daytona 109-inch convertible chassis with a modified 289 Hawk engine. Only 4,643 Avantis (not including prototypes, some of which were assigned serial numbers at the end of the run) were produced.
Avanti II: After the closure of Studebaker's factory on 20 December 1963, the Avanti model name, tooling and plant space were sold to two South Bend Studebaker dealers, Nate Altman and Leo Newman, who hand-built small numbers of cars. They introduced a slightly modified version of the car in 1965 under the brand name "Avanti II", which initially had a 327 cubic inch (5.4 L) Chevrolet Corvette engine. This evolved to the 350, the 400 and, finally the 305. All Avanti II's were built on leftover Studebaker chassis until 1987. The 1987-89 models were based on GM's G-platform that underpinned the Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
On October 1, 1982, real estate developer Stephen H. Blake bought the rights to the Avanti II. Blake's company declared bankruptcy in 1986, and the company was purchased by Michael Kelly, who relocated production to Youngstown, Ohio. The company claimed that a second-generation automobile was styled by Tom Kellog (Kellogg), one of the original Avanti design team, in the late 1990s. This car was based on GM's "F" platform Camaro/Firebird. Tom Kellogg was fatally injured in a car accident in California on 14 August 2003. In October 2005 an internet report was published that "Avanti Motors" had "recently announced a new relationship with Ford Motor Company and was planning a big comeback".
The new Avantis, very similar in appearance to the Firebird-based cars designed by Kellogg, were to be based on the current-generation Ford Mustang and were available as both coupes and convertibles. A brief report in October 2006 said the company had established a new factory at Cancun, Mexico and planned to produce 400 vehicles per year. A brief chronology of relevant events from 1961-2005 was published but all production of new vehicles has apparently ended. As of 2007 they planned to produce 150 cars per year. An "Avanti Motors" website still exists, which appears not to have been updated since 2006. Michael Eugene Kelly, owner of Avanti Motors Corporation, was arrested by the FBI on Dec 22, 2006 in Florida. Kelly is suspected of running a $400 million Ponzi scheme from 1992-2004 and is in jail without bail facing mail fraud charges.
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Pre-Owned Models