1953 Studebaker Starliner: Ahead of it’s time?

By 1953, Detroit was already beginning to make European-influenced car designs; Smaller, lighter and more aggressive. The new Corvette, The Cunningham C-3, the Muntz Jet and other ‘sport jobs’ lead the way. It was also the year that an American personal luxury coupe debuted (a full decade before the Buick Riviera), as Studebaker released the Commander Regal Starliner, a hardtop beauty with a smooth cut-down look. Raymond Loewy had been a design consultant to Studebaker going back to the prewar years, but his Starlight/ Starliner design was so fresh and advanced in it’s era that it is often recognized as one of the most beautiful cars of the entire decade… Heavy accolades, indeed. Comparing the Starliner body shape to her comparable coupe rivalries from GM, Ford or Mopar really shines a light on how radical the car was in 1953, akin to the Chrysler Airflow when it debuted in 1934. Maybe that’s why you see so few of these particular Stude’s customized- There isn’t much to do except shave some brightwork off and lower it a bit. Anything else modified would just be busy work on the Starliner.