On Feb 13, 6:08*pm, Steve wrote:
On 2010-02-13 11:19:09 -0500, Charlie Self said:

The green Stude looks like a '52 that was our family car n '54-'56 or
so. My father was a mechanic at Mt. Vernon (NY) Studebaker/Packard
back then.

There are three Studes in those shots -- a Black Cherry* Starlight
Coupe, the green car you mention, and a green-over-green convertible in
the "Studebaker Salesroom at Night" shot (and, possibly, a rear-view
shot of that model in one of the parking lots shots).

The green car is also a Starlight. The black cherry coupe is a '51;
most people who remember Studes semm to have fixated on that bullet
nose ("Uncle Ernie had one of those!"). But it only appeared in two
model years, 1950 and 1951. The '50s' bulllet had four vanes; the '51,
just three as with the car on the street. The '52 had two low grilles,
separated by an inverted chrome vee extending from the lip of the hood.
We really can't tell the date of the green car, but let's call it a
'52, anyway.

1953 was Studebaker's stunner -- the long low "Loewy** coupe," with
"European styling."

*Yep, that was the name of the paint color.
**Bob Bourke styled the car; Loewy was his boss and the salesman. Loewy
Associates was a contracted industrial design firm responsible for
Stuebaker's most celebrated design successes -- the 1939 Champion, the
1946 Starlight Coupe which introduced the wrap-around rear windows
which gave birth to the "which way is it going?" joke, the estimable
bullet-nose, the '53, and the 1963-64 Avanti. If that weren't enough,
Bourke (under Loewy) styled the 1949 Studebaker R-series pickup, which
redefined that market, and is echoed (hell, they admitted it!) in
Dodge's modern series of trucks.

Yeah, well...our '52 had no bullet, but my first car, a '50 four door
did have one. Also had a hillholder, a neat little device that was
especially handy when the driving license tester had me pull up to a
stop sign on the incline. When I was 19, I wanted one of the Golden
Hawks, but "settled" for a '57 Chev 283, dual 4s, 10-1 compression
ratio, 3/4 race Duntov cam, close ration stick on the tree. Sumbitch
had a clutch on it that still makes my left knee ache! I went in the
Marines and my mother tried to drive it. She sold it the next day.