While researching for an upcoming article, I stumbled across the short video above. I'm not sure that an uglier car has ever been made, but even an Avanti is cool on the salt. Plus, 170+ mph isn't too shabby! The voice-over is classic... [fl... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
holy moses! i never knew them avantis had that much in em! ugly? maybe... but damn if taking an unlimited class with a small motor aint the coolest shit!
In the eye of the beholder... ODD maybe, but certainly not the ugliest. Have you forgotten the Gremlin Ryan? Avantis are still on the salt and topping 200+ with modified Studebaker engines...
I kinda dug Avantis.Man in the 60's you could get them with all sorts of HP options.2nd on the Gremlin.Although they did make a cool drag version that is pretty rare (Gremlin,not Avanti).There was a small run of 4 seat Avantis;they were ugly.
Best part of an Avanti (for me) is the interior. I never cared much for the front end design. They do look cool on the salt however! I'm diggin the video player skin, Ryan. Very cool touch
Ugly, or not, (I kinda like 'em, too) there is just something very cool about a factory supercharged Stude. I had no idea the Avantis were that fast! Thanks for the video. Malcolm
I always thought that the Avanti was designed to have that ugly that only rich people "got". Kind of like the ugly supermodels.
UGLY?????????? My mom had one when I was in high school [ early 70's] It was the coolest thing around. I took it out on the freeway one time without permission, put my foot in it & got sideway's on the freeway Scared the S&%&T out of myself. Was & still is a very cool car!
The Avanti has a strange ugly yet cool look. At least to me. I like Studebakers though. That being said. Somebody out there was trying bring the Avanti back a few years ago. It's nothing more than a rebodied fourth gen F body and it is a strong candidate for one of the ugliest cars. Worse yet, it's not even slightly cool. The Aztec may be the winner though. Can't forget about the Bricklin and pretty much any BMW concept or road car for the last six years. Also while not ugly any mid 90s Mercedes Benz road cars are the most boring looking cars I can think of. I think I would prefer ugly to boring. At least there is something to talk/laugh about with ugly. I almost forgot the '96 (I think) Taurus. Damn!
Andy took a stock R4 Avanti, (the R4 was the performance package with Paxton superchargers,heads,crank and cam) he tweaked on it a bit, but really just put a bunch of safety equip. innit..when I bought my Avanti the previous owner included a copy of that video.awesome..So if I own an Avanti, an Edsel, and I just bought a Citroen/Masarati SM ,do I like "ugly"? am I rich therefore I "get" ugly? no way, these cars are rolling art, that somebody took a big chance bringing into production, almost not caring that they would be profitable..just to breakaway from the normal..I also think the 33-34 Ford convertable is the best looking car ever..
Edsel Ford died in the early 40s, they just named the car after him. I agree with you though, there are many many cars uglier then an Avanti. The Avanti was truly a design ahead of it's time and I've always thought it was semi-cool.
Cool vid! I think that Avantis are an acquired taste... like olives and mushrooms... and I love olives and mushrooms. I once saw an original, dark blue 63 with round headlights in a lady's back yard; apparently abandoned. I knocked on the door and asked her about it and if it might be for sale. She told me that it might be and to stop on the next weekend. I came back to find the car gone and asked if they might have decide to fix it up.... she said that when I originally asked her about it she realized how much of an eyesore it had become and sent it to a scrapyard. Moral of story.... ALWAYS LEAVE YOUR PHONE NUMBER By the way.. whenever the words UGLY and CAR come up in the same sentence I automatically think Datsun B210. Please see the picture of this odd little beast as it extols the many vices of bad proportion and hideous detailing. Awful, simply awful... couldn't be worse!
I can't swear to it, but I recall having seem some obscure sports car show on History a few years ago and they had made the claim that the Avanti was the fastest production car produced at it's inception. Any truth to that?
The '63 to'67 Vette was contemporary to the Avanti. IMO the Avanti was a much cleaner and attractive design. Ugly? Try '62 Valiants and Darts. Thanks for a great flick.
Good footage, ugly car, cool uniforms and fair speeds. Bonneville, the equal oppertunity race cource.
my bosses father inlaw designed that car. he was also one of the main designers for the acura nsx. very talented dude. i agree though..... ugly ass car but its good enough for leno
What is really surprising is that the Avanti used the ancient Daytona Chassis designed around 1950 I think. To actually have the balls to drive that thing at that speed with no aerodynamic gadgets like chin spoilers show Granatelli was man without fear. ha ha I've always like the Daytona ,today compared with 2008 cars they may look a little 'off' but the design is a real Classic and Avantis were made to special order for years by a firm who bought the rights etc from SP corp. This is one i saw here in Brisbane a few months ago
At the time they were introduced, the factory Avanti at 170- 178 mph, and a Granatelli modified at 196 mph, was faster than even the Ferarris of the time. For years, well into the 70's and 1980s, magazines like Car Craft etc called the Hemi Cuda at 145 mph the fastest production car ever made, completely ignoring the more than 300 new speed records that the Granatellis and racer Paula Murphy set at Bonneville in 1963 with factory Studes in a 10 day period. It was either 13 cars and ten days of racing, or 10 cars that were running for 13 days setting record after record. Factory Larks and Hawks going well over 140-145 MPH, and one Avanti almost getting to 200, but not quite. It was the Studebaker Bonneville records that gave famous racer Paula Murphy the nickname of "the worlds fastest housewife" that she was known by for many years. CHAMPION SPARKPLUGS used the Avanti records in their ads for a few years after the event... You can even see the ads sold on ebay every now and then. If these pics show up--- The white car, owned by a friend of mine, and also using some machined parts I made for him (while my wife was visiting the in-laws over and over, I used to escape the in-laws by spending all the time working on the all-important project), went 200.426 MPH at Bonneville in a very strict PRODUCTION class in 1992, and even got a small clip in Hot Rod Magazine several months later. (I'll see if I can take a pic of my souvenir copy) The blue car is a modified, owned by a guy down the road from here. Modified with turbos, but still with a Studebaker engine. (the 289 bored to 304) went 213 and 217 mph several years ago. Member of the 200 MPH club. I do not know what is the highest he has run. I haven't talked to him in a few years. img src=http://steeltechsolutions.com///images/langeparachute.jpg img src=http://www.steeltechsolutions.com//images/BonnevilleCarRONHALL.jpg I hope these links work. If they don't just copy them into address bar of your browser. I have quite a bit of home video of those record runs as they were performed in the early and mid 90's. My first son, when he was about 5 or 6 years old signed his name on the hood and loved to talk about his signature going over 200 MPH on the salt. The folks at our local Ace Hardware and CarQuest store were all excited that some of the parts and pieces from their store might be going fast at Bonneville, then learned that it was over 200 mph. Some day I might have the time to experiment with YOUTUBE and figure out how to put some of my old home video on there so you folks can see some of the salt runs and other adventures.
What a great video and story, such a classic presentation. It was great to see the great Andy G. accomplishing another automotive feat. Thanks for sharing that dandy, really enjoyed it.-Sololobo