My wife, Sarah, is an interior decorator in Sacramento, CA.
Thanks to a friend at Silk Screen Ink, our 3R has magnets that advertise her business when we're making furniture deliveries. Check out the pics below.
Click here to visit the Sarah Michaels Interiors website.
I need my fellow Studebaker owners help on this one. My newly acquired 1954 Studebaker 3R 6-12 pickup came with an air unit that I don't know how to operate.
There are no controls on the dash for this unit, but it looks wired and should be operational. It says "Harrison" on the front, but there's no other identifiable information.
Can anyone help me out? Thank you, as always.
For those that follow along, here's the update on our new 3R Studebaker pickup:
Firstly, my kids want to name the truck "Mater," as in "Tow-Mater," as in the Pixar "Cars" movie. I'm cool with this, though I was considering "Curtis," as in Curtis Park.
Next up: tires. I bought four new radial tires - 225 70R 16s - for Mater, which have improved the ride 100 percent.
Next in line for repair is the brake master cylinder, a new voltage regulator (so that the battery will hold its charge with the headlights running), and all of the bits and pieces related to new glass for the doors and the back window. Those parts are on order from http://www.Studebaker-Intl.com.
I've also been researching basic seat covers for the bench seat, but the fellow that made the seat covers for "Doc" (the 1950 Studebaker Champion) went out of business (despite having a live website). So, it's back to the drawing board there. Any referals are welcomed.
Despite the small fixes here and there, I continue to drive the truck to work daily. I've learned:
- In the absence of a defroster and windshield scraper, a Costco membership card removes morning frost very well.
- A choke is a magical piece of equipment.
- Don't look behind the seat unless you have an hour to kill. The former owner left many things behind the seat, which took some sorting through.
- If you need to pop the clutch, you need to be in high gear (not 1st) with a good runway ahead of you.
There's a lot of discussion about which tires fit and ride best on classic cars. Some people swear by bias ply tires for an authentic look and feel, while others prefer modern radials. Coker Tire and others make radials that look like white wall bias ply tires, but they come at a moderate premium.
Our Studebaker 3R is and will be a daily driver, so we went with a practical light duty truck tire that has a decent profile - just agressive enough to be a truck tire, but with good highway performance.
We settled on 225 70 R16 tires from Falken Tire. They were $116 per tire plus balancing, etc.
We've +1 our Studebaker collection. "The 3R-series trucks remained in full production for only eight months: January to August 1954. 1954 production was much lower than in previous years: South Bend B/U: 6148 (plus the six built in 1953); South Bend CKD: 2796; and Hamilton: 263, for a total of 9213 units (9219 with the six built in 1953). The company reported that only 4160 3R-series trucks were built for domestic sale in the U.S."
"Frye has certainly earned the right to enjoy his truck. After buying the battered machine in 2003, he realized he had so many things to fix that he wound up buying a second Studebaker pickup as a donor truck. From that point, he combed the country tracking down parts and networking with Studebaker enthusiasts to figure out how to put an authentic M-5 back together."
Read the full article here.
A true to form, beautiful "driver" resto. I love the Studebakers West reference, too.
"Eventually I had the 259-cubic inch V8 rebuilt by the Thom brothers, who own Studebakers West in Redwood City. Visiting their shop is a hoot. It's a warehouse full of Studebaker parts and a computer system that looks like it came out a time warp."
50 years later, South Bend aims to respect the past while building anew.
"When Studebaker closed in 1963, it left a gaping hole in the town, where unemployment is at 10.4 percent, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now, the city is working hard to create a second act for the commercial life of South Bend."
Hear the full article on NPR.org.
"While the Avanti didn't save Studebaker in the 1960s, its design and life-saving technology lives on in current automobiles."
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