One-off Vince Gardner-built Studebaker special expected to sell for as much as $600,000

Photos courtesy Mecum Auctions.

The new-for-1947 Studebakers designed under Virgil Exner’s watch might have had some of the most modern styling of any American car up to that point, but one of Exner’s designers felt it wasn’t quite modern enough and so on his own dime and his own time built a sleeker, faster, more stylish Studebaker, one that’ll hit the auction block later this month with a half-million pre-auction estimate.

Vince Gardner, as we’ve seen before, worked with some well-known designers and design teams during his career but was not much of a team player. In the Thirties he gained the trust of his mentor Gordon Buehrig as he designed Auburns and Cords; in the Forties he joined Exner’s team at Studebaker alongside Bob Bourke and Holden “Bob” Koto; in later years, he worked for Dearborn Steel Tubing and with Alex Tremulis. But some of his most remarkable creations came from his solo ventures.

The first of which came while working for Exner. As Peter Grist wrote in “Virgil Exner: Pioneer,” the man who would later helm Chrysler’s styling efforts during the Fifties had landed at Studebaker through Raymond Loewy and had begun, behind his boss’s back, work on what would become the postwar Studebaker with its slab sides, vestigial rear fenders, and – on the coupes – the attention-grabbing wraparound rear window.

When the 1947 Studebakers hit the market, Gardner bought a Champion three-passenger coupe (serial number G222901), though not for daily driver use. Instead, he cut away much of the body and began to transform it into his idea of a sportier roadster Studebaker. Most significantly, Gardner pushed the cowl – and thus the dash, the doors, the steering wheel, and the seat – back 18 inches and fashioned an opening decklid to span the distance between the rear fenders. To take the place of the roof, he added a clear plastic bubbletop, possibly the first bubbletop fitted to a custom car. The front end he reshaped with a dominant chrome bar and nosecone to de-emphasize the grille.

As if that weren’t enough, he incorporated a host of gadgets into the car, including exhaust routed through the center of the taillamps, pneumatic lifts for the hood and decklid, and a battery of switches and controls mounted to the steering column.

He retained the 169.5-cu.in. flathead six-cylinder and three-speed transmission, though he added a 7.7:1 compression ratio head and a second carburetor to the former.

Gardner finished the custom by 1949, when he entered it into the inaugural Press On Regardless rally and won. The following year, he took it out to the Grand National Roadster Show in Oakland, where the Studebaker won Most Magnificent Custom Roadster.

According to Mecum’s auction description, Gardner’s wife didn’t like the Studebaker and had him get rid of it, but Gardner also had another big priority come 1950: A sports car design of his won a Motor Trend design contest that year, and after pressuring Henry Ford II for the funding, he’d set about building what became the 1953 Vega roadster.

The Studebaker eventually went to W. Alan Canty Jr., who at one point served as Gardner’s psychiatrist, then after Canty’s death it wound up in the collection of John Allen, who commissioned Fran Roxas to restore the car to its original 1947 configuration. That restoration then led to a number of concours appearances, from its post-restoration debut at Amelia Island to its second-in-class showing at Pebble Beach.

Mecum’s pre-auction estimate for the Gardner Studebaker special ranges from $450,000 to $600,000. It will cross the block as part of Mecum’s Monterey sale, which takes place August 18-20. For more information, visit Mecum.com.

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