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1991 BMW 318i convertible.
A left-hand drive import registered in August 1998. Last taxed and last MoT test expired in June 2011.
All-British Car Day 2018
Olympus XA2 + Kodak UltraMax 400 + Nikon Coolscan V/LS-50 + Nikon Scan 4.03
Custom made Avanti convertible seen at the Studebaker Drivers Club 2017 International Meet
St Joseph County 4H Fair Grounds
5117 Ironwood Road
South Bend, Indiana. USA.
Studebaker Avanti
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Studebaker Avanti is a personal luxury coupe manufactured and marketed by Studebaker Corporationbetween June 1962 and December 1963. The automaker marketed the Avanti as "America's Only 4 Passenger High-Performance Personal Car."
Described as "one of the more significant milestones of the postwar industry", the car offered combined safety and high-speed performance. The Avanti broke 29 records at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Subsequent to Studebaker's discontinuation of the model, a series of five owner arrangements continued manufacture and marketing of the Avanti model.
Subsequent to Studebaker's discontinuation of the model, a series of five owner arrangements continued manufacture and marketing of the Avanti model.
Design
The Avanti was developed at the direction of Studebaker president, Sherwood Egbert. "The car's design theme is the result of sketches Egbert "doodled" on a jet-plane flight west from Chicago 37 days after becoming president of Studebaker in February 1961." Designed by Raymond Loewy's team of Tom Kellogg, Bob Andrews, and John Ebstein on a 40-day crash program, the Avanti featured a radical fiberglass body mounted on a modified Studebaker Lark Daytona 109-inch convertible chassis and powered by a modified 289 Hawk engine.
1,200 Avanti Coupes were produced for 1962 and fewer than 4,600 for 1963.
In eight days the stylists finished a "clay scale model with two different sides: one a two-place sports car, the other a four-seat GT coupe." Tom Kellogg, a young California stylist hired for this project by Loewy, "felt it should be a four-seat coupe." "Loewy envisioned a low-slung, long-hood/short-deck semi-fastback coupe with a grille-less nose and a wasp-waisted curvature to the rear fenders, suggesting a supersonic aircraft."
The Avanti's complex body shape "would have been both challenging and prohibitively expensive to build in steel" with Studebaker electing to mold the exterior panels in glass-reinforced plastic (fiberglass), outsourcing the work to Molded Fiberglass Body (MPG) in Ashtabula, Ohio — the same company that built the fiberglass panels for the Chevrolet Corvette in 1953.
The Avanti featured front disc-brakes that were British Dunlop designed units, made under license by Bendix, "the first American production model to offer them." It was one of the first bottom breather designs where air enters from under the front of the vehicle rather than via a conventional grille, a design feature much more common after the 1980s. A Paxton supercharger was offered as an option.
Launch
The Avanti was publicly introduced on April 26, 1962, "simultaneously at the New York International Automobile Show and at the Annual Shareholders' Meeting." Rodger Ward, winner of the 1962 Indianapolis 500, received a Studebaker Avanti as part of his prize package, "thus becoming the first private owner of an Avanti." A Studebaker Lark convertible was the Indianapolis pace car that year and the Avanti was named the honorary pace car.
In December 1962 the Los Angeles Times reported: "Launching of operations at Studebaker's own fiber-glass body works to increase production of Avantis." Many production problems concerning the supplier, fit, and finish resulted in delays and cancelled orders.
Egbert planned to sell 20,000 Avantis in 1962, but could build only 1,200.
Closing
After the closure of Studebaker's factory on December 20, 1963, Competition Press reported: "Avantis will no longer be manufactured and contrary to the report that there are thousands gathering dust in South Bend warehouses, Studebaker has only five Avantis left. Dealers have about 2,500, and 1600 have been sold since its introduction." This contrasted with Chevrolet which produced 23,631 Corvette sports cars in 1963.
According to the book My Father The Car written about Stu Chapman, Studebaker Corporation's Advertising & Public Relations Department head in Canada, Studebaker seriously considered re-introducing the Avanti into Studebaker showrooms in 1965/66 after production resumed in 1965 via Studebaker-Packard dealership owners Newman & Altman.
Succession
The Avanti name, tooling and plant space were sold to two South Bend, Indiana, Studebaker dealers, Nate Altman and Leo Newman, the first of a succession of entrepreneurs to manufacture small numbers of Avanti replica and new design cars through 2006.
The Avanti Owners Association International (AOAI) is an active association with nearly 2,000 members worldwide and meeting yearly in various cities the United States and in Switzerland. Members to the not-for-profit organization receive the full color quarterly "Avanti Magazine" publication, published since the organization's founding in 1965.
Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada - July 9, 2016 : 1934 Ford convertible parked in Centennial Park during 2016 Atlantic Nationals.
Camera: Nikon D7100 & Nikkor 18-105mm lens
ISO 400, 30mm, f/8.0, 1/50
Camera: Agfa Isolette L
Test Roll after rebuild and calibration of focus.
A very obscure format of 3cm wide by 6cm tall is available in this camera by way of a built-in mask that flips onto the film plane.
Normally the camera is a 6x6 format camera and 12 photos per roll. I was able to squeeze out 25 photos at 3x6 format.
Developed using 60 minute stand in Caffenol CL:
9.6g washing soda
6g vitamin C
42g iodized salt
24g instant coffee
600mL water
Ilford Fixer
Shanghai GP3 100 (type 120) film shot on Agfa Isolette L, 3x6 built-in mask.
Scanned on Epson V600 @ 3200dpi
I suspect genuine Minor convertibles, which this one looks to be, are the rarest survivors of the model, because they ceased production a few years before other variants.
328/366
The convertible version, named the Golf Cabriolet (or Typ 155) in Europe and Canada ("Rabbit Convertible" in America originally and renamed in 1985 to "Cabriolet"), was sold from 1980 to 1993. It had a reinforced body, transverse roll bar, and a high level of trim, and kept the pre-1980 style of rear lamp clusters. The Mk1 Cabriolet is of unibody construction built entirely at the factory of Karmann, from stamping to final assembly; Volkswagen supplied the engine, suspension, interior, etc. for Karmann to install. The vinyl or cloth tops were heavily insulated and manually - or beginning in 1991, electrically - operated, with a heated glass rear window.
Esmi's convertible BMW is beautiful: it is in perfect shape and has nice alloys. I love to drive it :-)
I should explain this.
Toby thinks the top of my convertible is his other bed. Whenever he can get into the garage, he takes a nap on the soft hammocky material and leaves it covered with white cat hair that sticks to the fibrous texture. Especially when I have forgotten to cover the top of my car with a sheet. So I thought I would outsmart him. I did not put the top up when I came home.
This is how he dealt with that.
One of the many convertible open-toppers that Bristol Omnibus Co. has used over the years on its services in Weston-super-Mare. This one, a Bristol LD Lodekka with Bristol engine, was acquired second-hand from Crosville Motor Services. Crosville operated throughout south Lancashire, Cheshire and north Wales. Where would they have used this vehicle I wonder? Llandudno possibly. When photographed outside the town hall in Weston on Friday 7th November 1975 its roof had been put back for the winter.
Lotus Elan + 2 Convertible
There was a company in Cannock by the Caterpillar works who used to convert these.
The owner told me he's put a 2.0 Zetec engine in it. I liked everything about this car & it would sit happily in my garage.
My MGF convertible with a bit of tweaking using Lightroom. Taken when the weather was kinder. Mid life crisis prompted purchase.