March Car in the Room
by Neville Harper
1958 Studebaker Golden Hawk
It all started back in 2010 when I went to Melbourne to purchase our 1961 Studebaker Hawk. The vendor had recently completed an 8 year, body off, full restoration of this car which he did for himself with no intention of ever selling. He let me have a drive in it to show the difference of the handling between a car with cross ply tyres (the 61 Hawk) and radials (on the 58 Golden Hawk). It was like chalk and cheese and it was love at first sight. At that stage we bought the 61 Hawk off him. He was a Studebaker parts dealer so had access to any new parts required during the restoration so did an excellent job of the restoration. There were only 878 Golden Hawks produced in 1958 and only around 100 were exported and nobody knows how many were sold in right hand drive which this one is which was a real bonus for us. The main differences are that the Golden Hawk is pillarless (a hardtop coupe), has a factory McCullough super charger on the 289 ci V8 which produced 275 HP from the factory, has a heavy duty 3 stage auto, a “Twin Traction” limited slip diff, has electric front windows, electric seat and a vacuum gauge, and was the only year that Studebaker put 14” wheels on their cars. 15” was the norm at this time. We approached the vendor in 2020 to see if we could buy it from him and because he had now collected and restored several other cars (it’s a terrible disease, just ask David T) he reluctantly decided to sell it to us. Of course this was during Covid 19 lockdown so we weren’t able to go and have a look at it and relied heavily on his description and was very pleased with it when it arrived. When it arrived by container someone on the wharf managed to put a bend in the bonnet even though the owner had put instructions on the front bumper on how to open and close the bonnet and of course nobody would own up to doing the damage so it wasn’t a great start in New Zealand. 4
Side Curtains April 2021
