'56 Packard Man

The most beautiful car ever built is reborn.

Hat tip to “Chris-to-Fear” (a.k.a. “Juan O’Clock”) for sending the link for this good news!

Gull Wing America, which despite the name, is a German company, builds limited edition recreations of some of the world’s most famous cars. For examples, they’ve done the fabulous Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gull Wing coupe and the Porsche 904. I have long been in hopes that someone would offer once again what I consider to be the most beautiful car ever built, the 1953-1954 Studebaker Starliner. My hope has been realized – though I’m sure I’ll never be able to afford one!

From the GWA website:

The 1954 Studebaker is the only car in the history of the Carrera Panamericana to win 20 times the race. GWA has designed a tribute car named “Veinte Victorias” (20 Wins) for all the times the Studebaker Commander has taken the first place in the grueling 7 day race from border to border in Mexico.

The Stude has won over Porsche, Aston, Jaguars, Mercedes and many other European competitors, it has even been in overall first place for 9 consecutive years ( 1993/2001), making it the unbeatable one.

The idea from GWA is to make 19 examples of the Studebaker design in yellow livery to be auctioned, and only 1 black version to be kept as the pace car of the event for the years to come. The black one will be serial # 1/20

The car uses a 6.2L LS9 Supercharged V8 motor from a Corvette with 620 HP and a 6 speed manual gearbox, Brembo HPK brakes, special suspension and a reinforced tubular chassis. Wheels have also been designed by GWA in 19×8 ½ front and 19×11 rear with Bridgestone tires, exhaust system will be manufactured by Fabspeed. The Veinte Victorias is ment to be a a real fun car to drive, as well as a collectors item for those that have competed in, or have been following the Carrera for all these years.

The pricing has not been determined. 

We will feature the original Studebaker Strainer story in a future post. In the meantime, here are some more photos of the re-creation to drool over. That they were so faithful to the original design in producing the modern version speaks to the soundness of stylist Robert Bourke’s work. The few changes GWA made to Bourke’s design are improvements on a design that is difficult to improve upon!