Forgotten design studies - Studebaker Italia
01/10/2022
After Bob Bourke's 1953 models with the "European look" had become more and more Americanized over the course of the 1950s with attached tail fins, huge radiator grilles and sprawling chrome trim, Studebaker was given the chance to return to its old elegance in 1960.
Based on the brand new Lark, Pietro Frua had designed a saloon and a coupé with trapezoidal lines, filigree chrome trim and a wafer-thin roof structure, which were reminiscent of contemporary Fiat models and which he intended to produce in a small series of 1000 units each. The highly elegant cars were shown for the first time at the Turin Motor Show in November 1960. The coupé graced the stand of coachbuilder Italsuisse from Geneva. On the stand of Carrozzeria Lombardi - which incidentally also exhibited its own "defiantly pointy-chested" coupé design - were two four-door Frua sedans: a black one with a 4.2-liter V8, called the "Studebaker Italia Sedan VIII", and a grey "Sedan VI" with a 2.8-liter flathead six-cylinder engine.
The cars went largely unnoticed by the press, criticized in auto, motor und sport and Automobil-Revue only for their jagged front design. In March 1961, Frua presented its Italian-Americans once again in Geneva, but here too the response was modest. The planned small series production therefore did not take place. It is not known whether any other cars were built in addition to the two saloons - bearing chassis numbers 5 (eight-cylinder) and 7 (six-cylinder) - and the coupé, but it is unlikely. Equally unknown is the reason why the six-cylinder saloon also had "Sedan VIII" lettering on the rear.
Unfortunately, the coupé did not survive. And it was almost as bad for the saloons. When expensive-looking but cheap cars were needed for the 1976 Italian exploitation film "Ice Cold Guys on Hot Stoves" to set them on fire in front of a casino, the two seemingly worthless Italia four-doors also had to die. The gray one was already marked by an accident.
The two Frua-Studebakers then ended up with a scrap dealer in Rome, who let them rot in his yard, but at least didn't push them into the press. Pictures from that time paint a sad picture, but at least the former black eight-cylinder still seemed relatively easy to restore, while the gray one with an ondulated nose and windows blown out by the film fire would require a little more work. The engine had also been lost.
At the beginning of 2004, the cars were bought by a Studebaker collector from California who wanted to restore them. However, if the stories in the Studebaker Drivers Club forum are to be believed, nothing has come of this to date.
Picture above: a rare sight, but one that you would have gladly done without - both burning Frua Studebakers in one picture. On the far left is the Sedan VIII, on the far right the Sedan VI. The Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow in the foreground was just a cheap "stunt double" and also went up in flames shortly afterwards.
