No Studebaker talk in San Diego July 19th (or ever)

With your long time association with SDC plus your curating experience I'm surprised you don't give some sort of talk at International Meets.

I blame Slate:

IIRC, the last time I spoke at an IM, George Hamlin threw a tightly rolled-up cloth napkin at me!

(But, maybe his pitching arm isn't what it waas thirty years ago.)

Seriously, that's sort of what I had in mind, very non-technical for the folks who would enjoy background on the firm and those who guided it. It would be light and informative, and more about people that valve trains.

When I, or Marilyn and I, give tours at the museum, we tend to talk more about the peole than the cars - they can read the display info for that stuff. DeLorean and his women, Mrs benz (1st woman driver, first to drive between cities, first auto thief and first t be stuck in a distant city waiting for a part from the anufacturer.) James dean (We have a relicar "Lil Bastard"), how Mercedes got its name, Marilyns dad coming over the "plank road" and so on. Even the 'techies' like it.

Karl

I sent the author an email as I'm the prez of the local aoai chapter in his area ( northern cal). He'll probably reply about the time I get on the plane for South Bend! Maybe I should take my wife's 2006 Avanti over to S.F. and give him an alternate viewpoint !!

snipped-for-privacy@bex.net wrote:

--Good luck with that; I think you're aiming at a moving (read: "slithering") target. At least it will be wife to wife: in his personal web page, he claims the car is his wife's, and that he's "happily married" to both of them. You have to consider how things must be working out with the wife and her wind-noise headache.

Don't you wonder what kind of crush zones he expected on a fiberglass car? Or whether he ever noticed the disc brakes, roll bar, vertical gas tank ahead of the axle, or cross-braced full frame? Let's see, he doesn't know about rodding out the block, how to set an automatic choke, or use the handbrake, apparently has removed the fan shroud, drives in traffic at 90, and his idea of a "daily" is twice a week. And lives in SF, where the "chilly" weather is a real challenge. Does aoai really want him? Offer him a couple hundred, and Sal and John can flip it.

You should have rolled a lead ball in the napkin and thrown it back. Paul Johnson

In all candor, I agree with most of what he said. Just yesterday I needed to make a 10 mile round trip parts run and thought about driving Christine. My thought process went something like this :

It's in the mid 80's and Christine does not have AC. I won't have my XM radio and I'll need my cell phone just in case. I ended up driving the LHS. I applaud those that use Studebakers as there only driver, but I could never make a Avanti mine. 63-64 Avanti's are by far the worst choice for a daily driver.

snipped-for-privacy@bex.net wrote:

On a piece of paper that I put in the drivers side rear window when I parking my '64 CRD at the musuem I point out all the problems of having an ld car as a DD, but finish by saying, "I drove Toyotas for twenty years but not once did anyone ccome up to me ant talk about the Toyota his Uncle used to have. Hearing discussing all the Stuebakers in the life of straangers is what makes this car, and hobby, so damn rewarding!

You've just become a spoiled child, (think Paris here), that has no durability of sense of adventure coupled with a true appreciation for a design so far ahead of its time that everyone copied it to this day.

So, you drive you guv'ment regulated, complex with questionable unneeded technology made of materials mostly derived from crude oil.

OK, I'm done!

JT

John Poulos wrote:

Aw, Paul, don't be that way.

IIRC, it was the IM in Dallas / Ft Worth, in 1975 or so. CP Smith, North Texas Chapter President, was MC and was trying tio get the lecturn lamp to work. I was sitting beside the lecturn as either incoming of departing President. After a while he found and fixed the problem. IIFC, Here's how I started my talk. "You've all seen Smitty messing about up here trying to get the light to work. It was qiite a job trouble-shooting it due to a mess of wires behind this platform. I wish he had asked me to help as the solution would have been quite easy and fast." Smitty looked up with what may have been bewilderment - or anger, at this point. "He should have asked you to all clap your hands once, in unison. After all, we all know that many hands make light work." Shortly after that, George's missle arrived.

Karl