- With otherworldly styling and supercharged V-8 power, the Avanti was a 1950s masterpiece.
- Raymond Loewy was a prolific industrial designer whose sketchbook continues to shape the modern world.
- This Studebaker was purchased by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) over ten years ago, but has now been recently restored.
It is difficult to judge when a car qualifies as a work of art. A pre-war Alfa Romeo with handmade bodywork? That’s a yes. A mass-produced Lexus LC500? Nice, but probably not. There are cases, however, where an overlap between great design and industrial production produces art, and it helps if the car in question has the provenance of being owned by one of the greatest designers to shape mid-century America.
In April, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) will open its new David Geffen Galleries, and among the thousands of sculptures, paintings and other art installations will be one special car. It is one of two personal Studebaker Avantis owned by Raymond Loewy, a designer whose work is so prolific that he has shaped everything from beautiful Art Deco locomotives to the iconic silhouette of the Coca-Cola bottle.
The new space is intended to showcase LACMA’s permanent collection, and the Avanti is part of a gallery themed around car culture. It’s an unusual focus for an art museum.
“It looks at the car, and especially the car in Southern California, through the lens of many different media: photography, paintings, sculpture,” said curator Bobbye Tigerman.
“And then we thought this was the perfect opportunity to show off our Studebaker Avanti.”
If you don’t know Loewy’s name, you are already familiar with his work. Born in France in 1893, he is responsible for the Shell logo, the packaging for Lucky Strike, the paint scheme of Air Force One and the Goodyear hot air balloon. He even surpasses the title of one of the best industrial designers in the world, as he also designed large parts of Skylab, the predecessor to the International Space Station.
Like him, Loewy worked during the post-war boom of the 1950s, doing a lot of automotive work, including for Lincoln and International Harvester. However, he is perhaps best known for his efforts at Studebaker, particularly the forward-looking Starlight Coupe. Best of all was the Avanti, a car that should never have been built, but which would go on to claim the title of fastest production car in the world.
If you’re not familiar with Studebaker’s history, the Avanti was created at a time when the company was in trouble. The board had hired businessman Sherwood Egbert to take Studebaker out of auto production entirely and focus on building trucks and diversifying into other industries. Egbert’s background was working for a chainsaw manufacturer that Studebaker had acquired.
Unfortunately for the Studebaker administration, Egbert’s background also included service during World War II as a U.S. Marine Corps major fighting in the South Pacific Campaign. He may have gone to work in a suit and tie, but underneath the company uniform was some tough stuff.
Under Egbert’s guidance, roughly sketched on a napkin during a cross-country flight, Loewy was commissioned to design a new flagship for Studebaker. The latter’s condition was that the car be styled in California rather than Indiana, specifically in Palm Springs. A small design team produced a scale model in clay in less than 40 days. The youngest of them, California-educated Tom Kellogg, would go on to create the original Star Trek shuttle.
Similarly, in 1962, the Avanti landed like a spaceship landing. Underneath it was just a modified Studebaker Lark, but it had a 289 cubic inch V-8 for power and had a fiberglass body built by the same supplier GM had used for previous Corvettes. Thanks to one of the smaller companies that Studebaker bought, it could also be equipped with a supercharger.
The Avanti came in several variants, the most powerful of which was called the R3. With a bored engine (304.5 cubic inches) and supercharger, this V-8 made over 300 horsepower and set a speed record of 170 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Egbert personally driven an Avanti R3 over the flying mile to 168 mph.
The LACMA car is a 1963 R2, one of two that Loewy personally owned. It was modified by him during that period, with the help of a French coachbuilder with whom he had previously worked. The paint has a very subtle three-tone effect, there are aluminum accents and the car carries plaques noting Loewy’s involvement and the speed records. It also features cable-operated exhaust cutouts, indicating that Loewy liked things beautiful, but also fast and loud.
The museum has owned this car for over a decade and a recent restoration has returned it to its original glory. LACMA’s exhibit will highlight California’s contribution to car culture, with this Studebaker taking center stage. Since the museum is just a five-minute walk from the nearby Petersen Automotive Museum, anyone making that particular pilgrimage should also check out how the largest art museum in the western US treats the car as an art object.
A unique feature of LACMA is that it places all its art on one level, with curators doing their best not to weigh it down by its culture of origin. The idea is to present each object equally, so that, for example, a photo and a painting are perceived as having equal value as art. Here, a mid-century Studebaker sits on the same level as some of the museum’s better-known works of art, works by names like Magritte and Picasso.
It deserved it. Moreover, not even the Mona Lisa has exhaust cutouts.
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Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, BC, Canada. He grew up on British cars, came of age in the golden age of Japanese sports compact performance, and started writing about cars and people in 2008. His special interest is in the intersection between man and machine, whether it concerns the racing career of Walter Cronkite or the half-century-long obsession of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to constantly buy Hot Wheels.
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