One Sweet Champ!

As promised, here is some more information about the Champ step-side that John found during his travels. As the Studebaker hunt in Texas continues, John saw this wonderful truck next to the freeway at an auto parts store. Swiftly taking the next exit and making a sharp u-turn back down the frontage road, he found what appears to be the find of his trip.

John then went and asked the owner if he could take a few pictures of it. The owner said to him sharply, "Heck, you can buy it if you want to."

As fate would have it, there is no room at the Inn (aka the Smith garage) due to Tracy's midnight Lark purchase, or we might have tried to find a way to get this one back.

Anyway, the owner was very nice and told John that he had put a small block Chevy in it, but the transmission was sitting in the bed. And if I was interested, he would take $5000.00 for it. That pretty much sealed the deal that it wasn't meant to be part of the Smith stable of Studebakers.

If anybody else is interested in this truck, it is located at A-1 Auto Parts, Sweetwater, Texas. Phone number is 325-235-2420.

Studebaker Hunt....TEXAS!

John is on the road again, this time to Texas. He saw this sign on the internet and made it a point to track it down in Weatherford, Texas.

If only he could buy it and bring it home with him. Of course, the HOA might not necessarily go for that idea...

These are just a handful of the shots that John took.

If you click on the pictures to enlarge them, you can get a better view of some of the vehicles present. Among the gathering were a dump truck, a tire truck, and a tow truck.

This Champ was for sale on the side of the road elsewhere in Texas. More details on this truck will follow. John's always had a hankering for a Champ. (Sorry...Tracy got the Lark instead!) Now if we could only figure out a way to enlarge the garage...

Merry Christmas!

All I want for Christmas Is ..........An Oil Filter?

John found this on EBay and decided that it's a "must have" for Tracy, the new Lark owner! He is not sure whether or not it will work on the Lark, but if all else fails she can use it as a rolling pin! (Edited by Tracy...yeah, on John's head!) Studebaker...Different By Design. Gotta love it!

What's Going To Work ? Team Work!

Saturday we had a fellow SDC (Studebaker Drivers Club) member, John Pfingstag, come visit us at the house. He is also working on a Lark project and gave us an awesome deal on some extra parts that he had. The driver's side floor pan will help with the "floor ventilation" situation and the headlight covers will replace the one that is cracked and provide us with a matching set. John also was able to fix the driver's side door and it now latches shut when we close it. He had a lot of great advice for us and was patient and willing to answer our questions. Another example of a great Studebaker person. Thanks, John! We enjoyed visiting with you.

Treasures Of The Trunk Mystery Solved

Well, after removing all of the seats, we were finally able to access the trunk from the inside of the car. What we saw wasn't exactly promising: a blue rolled-up tarp and a large remnant of a pink rug. Visions of mafia movies danced in our heads. We knew what we had to do, but we weren't quite as excited to find out what was in the trunk any more. The only way to solve the mystery was to dive right in...literally! Tracy started removing items from the trunk one by one. Out went the pink carpet...it was an improvised truck liner. Out went the blue tarp...that's all it was, a blue tarp all bunched up. There were bags, boxes, and a plethora of miscellaneous parts (how many locking gas caps can one car need?) Once the debris was cleared, Tracy was able to crawl through the trunk to unscrew the trunk latch and pop the lid open. Thankfully, John refrained from taking pictures of the actual process. This picture is a gathering of the rest of the items we found.

This is what the interior of the car looks like now, with the seats removed. The dash is in great shape and a lot of what you see (minus the holes!) is just surface rust. The door panels will obviously need to be replaced.

A view of the car's interior from the passenger's side.

Now that the Lark has been vacuumed out and mostly decontaminated, it is allowed in the garage with the truck. What a pretty sight!

Tracy Is Now A Bird Lover!

We were happy to make it home safely on Friday with the Lark. All the kids came out to see it, as well as the neighbors (We're sure we contributed to some pretty interesting dinner conversations..."Did you see what the Smiths brought home THIS time?")

Once home, we were finally able to get a look under the hood. We were happy to see that there was, indeed, a motor in there, as well as about ten years worth of dust and grime. John was also encouraged to see that there was still water in the radiator.

A great deal of this morning was dedicated to cleaning off the top layers of grime. Gone are the moss gardens, rat presents, and dried leaves. We did find a metal Jaguar emblem under the leaves in the engine compartment that was quite the little surprise. The next step was to get the car off of the trailer. Tracy got elected to sit in the driver's seat for the event, more so because she was the only one who could fit through the door (we could only partially open it due to the placement of the trailer's fender.) Thus, Tracy was the first person to discover that the car has no brakes. No, we don't have video evidence of the event (thank heavens), but John's last words to her before she rolled down the ramp were something like, "If the brakes don't work, just keep the wheel straight and it will eventually stop." Being a science teacher previously, Tracy knew this to be true....but it didn't make her feel any better when she went flying down the ramp backwards. It also didn't make the three bushes that helped stop her feel much better, either...

John showed off his sheer man strength as he wrestled the beast up the driveway. (Tracy thought she'd give him a little credit before she jumped in and we both put our backs into it. We swear it feels like it weighs more than the truck!)

The newly cleaned Lark at the top of the driveway. If we get the interior cleaned out tomorrow, he'll graduate to the garage!

For Christmas My True Love Gave To Me, A Lark and a Bread Bowl Filled With Peas...

We left at 4:30 AM on Wednesday and drove through Arizona and California until we were ready to drop. We made it as far as Pleasanton, California (about 30 miles away from our destination) and found a place to spend the night. We had the address of Bob Peterson's shop in our GPS, so on Thursday morning we started to head over to where we could meet him and he could lead us over to the yard. Driving down the road in Hayward, John spotted a familiar-looking sign up ahead. It is official: the man has Studevision! It took Tracy a little longer to see the sign.

Once we met up with Bob and followed him to his yard, we checked out a few of the other cars that were waiting to head off to their new homes. This one is going all the way to Australia!

Bob and his grandson have obviously done this a few times before! They had quite the system down to load the Lark: Bob used his truck to tow the Lark onto the trailer while his grandson sat in the car and steered. John helped out where he could, and Tracy took pictures and enjoyed the illusion that her car was actually running!

More of the cars awaiting their future.

Some of the cars of the past who have donated their lives to another purpose.

John really wanted this boat, too, but Tracy has to draw the line somewhere (Bob probably would have let him take it). Um, John, exactly how far away from our house is the nearest large body of water?

Bob and his grandson securing the straps to the Lark and the trailer.

He's got to be looking forward to a good bath at this point!

Obviously, the Castro Valley climate is much damper than Arizona's! Tracy loved the mini gardens than came with the car, but they were pretty much dried out by the time we reached the state line (at least we didn't have to declare any agricultural products for inspection.)

Tracy with Bob and her new Lark.

Unfortunately, not all the vehicles in the yard found homes. Some how to go to the scrap yard as an even trade for their removal.

On way home, we stopped at the split pea soup capital of the world...Pea Soup Andersen's Restaurant. It was cold outside and the soup was fabulous! We can only recommend stopping at the giant windmill along I-5 in California.

The Lark Adventure Continues...

We enjoyed taking pictures of the Lark on the way home at some of the areas of interest along the way. Here we are Friday morning at the windmills near Indio, California.

This is one of the other Larks at Bob's yard that is waiting to go home. The gentleman whom it belongs to happened to show up while we were there and we had the pleasure of meeting him. As Tracy was taking pictures, she was surprised to see the dealership emblem on the back of his car. Evidently, the car was from Beaudry's in Tucson, Arizona, which is the town that both John and Tracy grew up in! To make a long story short, the gentleman was kind enough to give us the emblem, which was just icing on the cake to us as far as we were concerned. We couldn't believe our good fortune and we really appreciate his generosity!

As John pondered the work he had ahead of him, he decided that he needed a drink. JUST KIDDING! (Well, he was going to be driving, after all... HaHa!) Actually, we spotted this little bar on the way out of town after picking up the car and couldn't resist the photo op!

After we finished our lunch, we came out to find this hearse parked next to us. We were a little concerned that it was a bad omen (It was more that it wasn't something that we exactly see every day next to our car.) Leaving the parking lot, though, we ran into our first Studebaker fan. A gentleman stopped us to tell us how much he liked our car, which just made our day even brighter. Even more special was the fact that when we stopped the car down the road to check the straps, this same man and his wife stopped to make sure we didn't need any help. Once again, they just don't make them any nicer than Studebaker folks!

John looks in through the window, holding tight to his wallet as he imagines all that Tracy is going to want to do to her new car... (Or was he just checking out the dash?)

The Lark poses in front of Pea Soup Andersen's Restaurant.

We stopped in Beaumont, CA, to rest on Thursday night. Friday morning we were ready to complete our trip and get back home. For more pictures of the car after we arrived, visit the Studebaker forum at http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24689

How To Load A Lark On A Trailer

Bob Peterson and his grandson helped us get the Lark on the trailer. Without them, we might still be there trying to load it.

Update From the Road

We left home this morning at 4:30 AM, determined to try to get as close to our destination as possible before collapsing from sheer exhaustion. We managed to get through Arizona pretty quickly, but things slowed down considerably once we reached California. For those of you who don't know, the speed limit for trucks/vehicles towing trailers is a strict 55 MPH. Everyone else gets to go 70 MPH. Well, this put a little bit of a cramp in someone's driving style, but we managed to get within 30 miles of our destination (Castro Valley, which is a little west of Sacramento) after about 16 hours on the road. We're holed up in a little motel for the night and are relaxed and happy after an excellent Mexican dinner of margaritas and chiles rellenos burritos at a neighboring restaurant. The next stop tomorrow morning: on to the Lark's nest where we will try not to make fools of ourselves getting the thing on the trailer. Wish us luck!

$137.50 Lark, aka "Murray," "Smurfette," "Blue Hawaii..."

For those of you those you who don't know, a certain somebody purchased a 1960 Studebaker Lark off of eBay. It is now time to retrieve it from Castro Valley, California, where it sits patiently waiting for its new home. Stay tuned for the adventure from the road. We plan on adding pics throughout the trip. By the way, does anybody know how to tie down a car to a trailer? Oh well ,we will have to just wing it, I guess. (Get it?...wing it...Lark? Get it?)

This Was Fun To Find On A Late Sunday Night

We have been following the "My Cool Car" segment in the Sunday edition of The Arizona Republic for some time now and really liked the concept. A few weeks ago, we submitted our information along with our picture. Since most of the vehicles we had seen featured were in pretty prime condition, we weren't sure whether our old guy would make the cut. We try to buy a paper every Sunday to check the auto section, but forgot about it this weekend in the midst of Studebaker partying and putting up the tree. A late night run to the grocery store for more candy canes placed us in line next to the Sunday stack of papers. Imagine our surprise when we opened one up and found this article! It was the perfect way to end the weekend! (If you click on the article, it should enlarge so you can read it.)

The Legend of the Last Block

We heard a rather interesting story today that sounded a little bit familiar to us. In Matthew's article in the November issue of Turning Wheels, he mentioned hearing stories of a never-machined Studebaker V8 block that someone found in the sand at the foundry. Imagine our delight to hear the same story today, from the people who found it! Could it be a hoax? Yet another elaborate tale...the Studebaker equivalent of Bigfoot? We'll let the names of the those who supposedly sneaked into the foundry (wearing flip-flops, no less) remain a mystery, but we have to ask: Is seeing believing? It appears that Bigfoot really does exist... to read more on this go here:http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24533

Let the Holiday Spirit Begin!

I think this image speaks for itself. But I will say that I hope they don't hurt that 1950 Champion when it's time to cut that Charlie Brown tree down! Yes, I had to look that up, Dad. Tracy wasn't home to tell me what year it was.

Ever Forget Your Studebaker Wasn't A Jeep?

If you find yourself with nothing to do on a Monday night (after 6 PM Pacific time) and you're interested in Studebakers or just a few laughs, you should stop by the Studebaker Chat site, found at http://1962gthawk.homestead.com/chat.html. One of the people in the chat room tonight was Matthew Burnette, who happened to mention in conversation that he has been known to drive his Studebaker like a Jeep. Well, being the curious types that we are, we asked him for a photo. Sure enough, here is his car covered with mud! According to Matthew, "This was after a weekend at the river, and it had rained the previous week. And here in Georgia, red clay is everywhere..." Oh, to be young again! Reminds John of all the trips he took in GD's cars, trucks, etc. through the San Cruz Riverbed (aka "S**t Creek"). Think he's figured out by now why 2nd gear in the Toyota station wagon never worked?