Who Driving The Kids Now?

Friday night, we took George to his first cruise-in. This time, Tracy was the one driving the Studebaker and John took on the job of following along with the kids. Here, Tracy calls John to see how George's speedometer compares to his "actual" speed.

John appeared to relish his role as the "keeper of the kids" while Tracy got the chance to show off George.

George stood out proudly among his peers.

John thought this car looked like one his dad might be interested in. It IS for sale, but John didn't even ask the price, seeing as he was not particularly excited about the thought of adding it to the family...

George in a sea of red Chevys...dare to be different, George!

The One That Wasn't Meant To Be

When Tracy first started looking for a new Studebaker, she almost ended up with this President instead of George.

This is a '56 President, and we are amazed as much by the similarities between this '56 and our '57 (George) as we are by the differences. Since we are still learning about this model and these years, we are not sure which features were standard and which were options (and better yet, which were just modifications over time?). We especially like the horn button on this '56.

The floor mats were pretty awesome, too. John was convinced for awhile that this had to be a REAL presidential vehicle (as in, "Can someone take Mr. Eisenhower to the store, please?"). Well, not really, but he was all set to attach flags to the front of the car and join a motorcade!

Here's the outside of the car. This President was awesome, but had some title issues that we were afraid to take on. Hopefully it has moved on to a suitably appreciative home.

Studebakers Gone Wild!

Yesterday was the All-Arizona Studebaker Gathering, "March Madness," which was hosted by our very own Grand Canyon Chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club. The event was held at South Mountain Park in Phoenix and drew in 75+ Studebakers and hundreds of enthusiasts. We were proud to bring both our truck and George to the meet. George had the luxury of riding most of the way on a trailer, since we don't know him well enough to trust that he'd make it the whole way.

Thayer got to visit with his favorite orange truck from Tucson.

This Cruiser was built on Thayer's birthday, just 41 years earlier!

Jilly LOVED this pink '50 Champion and matching golf cart! The owners were very sweet and let the kids pose in the golf cart for pictures.

We've been a fan of this truck for awhile, and now there's another addition to admire. The owner has motorized this bicycle and further customized it to match the truck.

This '60 Lark wagon was restored in 2002 in celebration of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum's 50th anniversary. The Desert Ark was used throughout the years by the museum as an outreach program in the community. Many different wagons were used over the years, so it was exciting that they chose a Lark for this project!

For more pictures of the event, visit the SDC forum thread at

http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=27591 .

Hail To The Chief!

After months of searching for our next family Studebaker, we were getting a little discouraged. We had a lot of help and some fantastic leads, but we always seemed to be a day (or a week) too late, or the great pictures and descriptions got our hopes up and we were crushed when we either saw the car in person or were brave enough to take it for a test drive (for a full description of John's test drive of the Provincial wagon featured in our poll, visit http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=26339). Needless to say, we were a little afraid to get our hopes up when we answered the ad for this '57 President Classic. Not only has Tracy loved Presidents since she first entered into the Studebaker world, but this one was actually SHINY! After many discussions with the very patient owner (whose last name is Packard...what kind of coincidence is THAT?), we packed up the family and took a little road trip to Laguna Beach, California. John was brave enough after his last adventure to take it for a test drive, and it successfully stopped, started and turned (which was a good thing, considering the size of the hills in the neighborhood!).

A short time later and we had the car loaded on the trailer...we are now the proud owners of George, our first President! He even got to take a trip with us down to the beach, where, due to his length (he hung off the back of the trailer), we had to pay three separate parking meters while we took the kids for a walk on the pier.

Looks pretty good as a beach cruiser!

We even took a little detour down to San Diego and met StudeDave (a fellow member of the Studebaker Drivers Club) and his '65 Cruiser, Sweet Pea.

Of course, when it comes to cleaning up our Studebakers, we have the best slave labor out there. Nothing like a 3 year old, a 4 year old, and a bucket of bubbles to clean all those hard-to-reach spots!

Thayer doing a little detail work.

We'll be getting the Arizona classic car plates (and probably leaving the one off the front), but were loving the previous owner's vanity plates, especially for the photos! They'll join the "Stutius" plates that came off John's truck up on the garage wall.

Jillian working to make the hubcaps shine.

Plenty of room for the whole family...and six sets of seatbelts, too!

The trunk is in great shape and is nice and roomy.

A look at the dash. It appears from what we can tell that the car was originally Glendale green and turquoise. Have to say that we prefer the blue and white! It may not be original, but it sure is attractive and the vinyl seats will be great with the kids.

We've taken a few drives around the neighborhood, but the radiator is now leaking and there is a pretty significant oil leak, so we'll have to do a little tweaking before we drive him any more. We've both driven the car and really enjoyed the ride (the kids even got to take a ride and we could barely get them out!), so we are looking forward to getting him road-worthy and out to some events as a family.

Like A Rock

This old picture shows a working Studebaker dealership in Denver (year and location unknown).

This old Studebaker dealership building currently stands proud as can be just outside what is called the Golden Triangle of downtown Denver. (Could this be the same building shown in the old photo above, with just a different facade? Hmm...) Its elusive location (no address to be found on the net) did not keep John from visiting what some may call just an old building, but what most people in the circle that we hang out with would find pretty cool. Piece of advice: if you choose to visit this location of Studebaker History, do not park at the nearby Arby's restaurant. There is a young lady who works there who takes her job very seriously and will tell you that if you don't leave the parking lot, she will call the cops and have them give you a @%*&$&* ticket. (Thankfully, John can take pictures rather quickly!) John's next search should take him to a furniture store in Oregon that also used to be a Studebaker dealership.

Put A Lid On It!

John was talking to a Studebaker friend of ours last week and something he said stuck with him a little. The friend said, "The easiest way to make a car not look like a piece of junk is to put the headlights back on it and put a set of hubcaps on it." Now, first of all, our truck was not the topic of conversation at the time, nor do we consider it a piece of junk. Neverthless, after a few days of thinking about this (who are we kidding, he talked about it in his sleep) John made the call to see how much these new pieces of the truck puzzle would cost him. Well, that started a whole other set of converstions with the pit crew in his head before he decided to purchase them (Why so much mental discussion? Let's just say that if we need to make next month's house payment, we could sell the hubcaps and get close! Well, maybe they weren't QUITE that bad, but they certainly were more than the used ones at the flea market). As seen here, the new polished stainless steel hubcaps give a little more dignified look to our beautiful truck. Now if we could only get John to stop checking them to see if they are loose when he wakes up, at lunch and before bed!

Who is this person and what has she done with my wife?

As we searched the internet looking for Tracy's new Studebaker love connection, I pointed out this pretty little '65 to Tracy, who responded with, "Um, that's not a '65....that would be a '56." This by itself would be pretty funny if she didn't already know more about years and trim levels than I would ever care to know. You'd think the car lot would do a little more research prior to selling the car.