Pristine Studebaker pickup a keeper

WHO knew Studebaker was a German name?

The respected vehicle brand of yesteryear, which produced futuristic cars such as the Avanti and the Silver and Golden Hawks of the 1950s, played a massive part in American history.

After all, the company, which by 1918 boasted seven production plants with an annual capacity of 100,000 cars and 75,00 horse-drawn vehicles, can trace its history to 1740, when German immigrant Peter Studebaker built his home (still standing today) at Hagerstown, Maryland, and started building wagons.

He’d come from Solingen, Germany, and fathered five sons, who in 1852, built wagons and buggies for the Gold Rush miners, farmers and the US Army their plant at South Bend, Indiana.

By 1875 they claimed to be ‘the largest vehicle house in the world.’

They must also have had a crystal ball moment, since their first powered car was an EV – yes, an electric vehicle, way back in 1902 — and one of the first buyers was Thomas A Edison.

Studebaker went on to become a major force in automotive history, creating some futuristic models such as the Avanti and the Silver and Golden Hawks and had a reputation for quality and reliability.

Wars and economic crises hit everyone in the next 50 or so years and in 1954 Studebaker merged with Packard but that once great company had also been hit with cashflow hassles.

The last Studebaker made was in March, 1966.

By then, it had built 4.2 million vehicles, mostly cars, but also trucks – especially during WWII – and some of them, the M-5 pickup in particular, are now keenly sought after.

Wisconsin farmer Terry Frye has one of them and has no intention of ever selling it.

He’d toiled for about four years in his spare time to get it looking and running like it does today, and his wife, Marcia, likes the truck almost as much as he does.

In fact, she was the one who suggested they find a Studebaker pickup in the first place.

As well, Frye says, he couldn’t face all the people who helped him finish the venerable pickup if he ever put a “For Sale” sign on it.

“I think this will be a lifetime keeper for me,”he said.

“It took me four years of nights and weekends to do. I wouldn’t even know how many hours I put into it, and the people who helped me out with parts and everything, I’d just be afraid to turn around and sell it, because they helped me out so much.

“I just couldn’t do that.”

After buying the battered machine in 2003, he found he had so many things to fix that he wound up buying a second one as a donor truck. From that point, he combed the country tracking down parts and networking with Studebaker enthusiasts to figure out how to put an authentic M-5 back together.

“I thought that the parts would be easier to find,” he said, “but because of the rarity of the truck, it took me longer than I thought to round up the parts. It took me a little longer to get it done than I expected.”

And it never would have happened in the first place if he and his wife hadn’t spotted a similar truck at a show.

“We were looking for a pickup truck, and in 2000 we went to the International Meet in Madison,,” he recalled.

“And while we were there, on Thursday it was concours day, and we spotted a green one just like this, and my wife said that was the kind of truck she’d like to have.

“So then I was at work one day and I was working with this guy and I had told him I was looking for old cars. He said, ‘I know where there’s a guy in Cross Plaines who’s got a truck just like what you’re looking for.’

So I contacted the guy and went and looked at it. His son had it and had all the fenders off it and they were going to street rod it.

His dad didn’t want to street rod it because his dad had originally bought it.

They had kept it in the family. He said, ‘Do you want it?’ and I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘Well, I’ll sell it to you because I don’t want my kids to street rod it.’”

By that point in its life, the truck was fortunate it hadn’t been hauled to the boneyard.

It hadn’t run in several decades and showed 73,000 miles on its dusty odometer. It was just the kind of borderline basket case that Frye was looking for.

“Once I started getting in that price range and looking for old parts, I didn’t realise prices had gone up since the last car I restored.

“It was a farm truck all its life. It was pretty beat up and the front axle was bent. They ran it into a big boulder out in the field. It ran up until the middle ’60s, and that’s when they retired it. It had sat from the ’60s up to 2003 when I got it.”

Frye apparently wasn’t the first owner to be smitten with the Studebaker.

From the story he got, the first owner went to great lengths to get his hands on the pickup, which was originally Battleship Gray. “

The gentleman was from Wisconsin and he was out visiting some people in Montana, I believe, and it was right during the war and there were shortages getting cars,” Frye said.

“And he saw this one out on the lot in Montana and he bought it and brought it all the way back to Wisconsin because he couldn’t find any trucks in Wisconsin at the time.

“Eventually the truck went to his son … and now I’m the third owner.”

Studebaker made special cars and various express and delivery bodies during its early days, but didn’t officially launch a pickup truck until the car-based Coupe-Express arrived for the 1937 model year.

The trucks sold in small numbers until 1941, when Studebaker took a big leap forward and launched the M-5 series of half-ton vehicles.

The company made the fenders and running boards on the trucks interchangeable, and the new M-5s used the same 3.0litre L-head six-cylinder as the Champion cars. The trucks had all-steel cabs and could be ordered with or without the pickup box.

They were not overly fancy — no truck on the market at the time was, but they were handsome by almost any measure, at least for a pickup.

Their classy vertical grilles were painted to match the body, the headlights nicely integrated into the fenders, the windshields were raked and there was hardly a sharp edge on the truck — everything was rounded and seemed to flow together.

Only 4685 of the M-5 trucks were built for ’41 before Studebaker had to halt production of the trucks and build military vehicles for the war effort.

A total of 315 were apparently offered as 1942 models.

In 1946, with three years of experience cranking out military machines, Studebaker hit the ground running with its post-war civilian production and assembled 14,052 M-5 trucks.

That number grew to a high-water mark of more than 23,000 in 1947 — the year Frye’s truck was built — before dropping to roughly 10,200 in 1948, which was the last year for the M-5.

The 1947 pickups were largely unchanged from the previous year, although they did see the return of the hood ornament that had been missing for several years, and some more choices were added to the options list.

That list included a four-speed manual transmission, overdrive with a three-speed, hill holder, column shifting, radio, heater, clock, chrome bumper, turn signals, dual horns, caravan top, spotlight, fog lights and some other goodies.

The trucks were priced at $1082 without options — about $150 more than the year before, but still a few bucks cheaper than a Ford half-ton and almost the exact price of a Chevrolet or GMC half-ton.

“As far as power, it was similar to all the other trucks. All the other trucks were pretty similar,” Frye said.

“The thing I liked about the Studebaker trucks was they had vent windows, and no other trucks in the ’40s had vent windows. So it gives you a little better ventilation, and it’s just got unique styling.

“I think they were looked at as an average truck, going by what the old-timers say about them, and of course, GM dominated the market.

“Then there was Ford and Studebaker was behind them, but there were always loyalist Studebaker people from the ’30s on up … And this M-5 series truck, they sold those in record numbers. It was their first big venture into the commercial truck line.

“In ’37 and ’38, ’39, they had the Coupe-Express, and it sold, but not in the quantities they needed. When they designed this in ’41, it started to sell in record numbers and Studebaker finally had a hit.”

France and the iconic Citroen 2CV

Frye figured he’d need to do some serious parts hunting to get his truck finished, and that proved to be the case.

Fortunately, he was able to get assistance from fellow Studebaker buffs, who are generally very accommodating.

“Through the network, through the Studebaker people, I found a few older gentlemen that had them, and I started talking to them and asking for advice,” he said.

“I adhered to that and the project went real good, and once I got to know these older gentlemen, I could call them and they’d say, ‘I don’t have that part, but call so-and-so.’ So once I got in the network, parts came to me pretty readily.”

“And now because I had such help looking for parts, whenever anybody calls me looking for something on the truck, I certainly offer any advice I can to them.”

Frye said mechanical parts were relatively easy to find for the truck, and other parts such as bumper guards, interior kits, tail lights and window glass are all reproduced or available.

The fenders, he said, were the biggest challenge. He wasn’t interested in using any fiberglass re-pops, so he held out until he was rescued by a Studebaker enthusiast in Florida.

“I wanted an all-steel, real truck. I searched and networked and finally found a guy who had three of them, and I bought three new-old-stock fenders,” Frye said, adding that the fenders had bounced between owners in four different states over the years before he finally landed them.

He was also able to salvage the frame, engine, a couple wheels, seat frames, horns, headlights and a few other items off his original truck.

He outsourced the engine rebuilding, and got a friend to rebuild the transmission, including adding an overdrive gear.

“It had a 4.82 rear axle in it, so if you don’t go to overdrive in it you can only do about 45 mph,” he said. “I’d say 90 percent of the work I did myself… I had a gentleman do the seat for me. The chrome, of course, I outsourced, but the painting and bodywork and all that kind of stuff I did myself.”

The paint involved changing colours from gray to Sage Blue, which might not have been a common choice originally on the trucks, but provides a rich, refined look today.

“Most of them were green back then in the late ’40s and early ’50s and to see a dark blue one in the Studebaker lineup is pretty unique,” Frye noted.

Frye and his wife have rolled up about 6500 miles in their blue beauty in the past four years, making regular appearances at local cars shows. Terry admits he frequently gets to give brief lessons on Studebaker history. Yes, they did make pickups.

“A lot of people don’t even realize that Studebaker made a truck, so I have to tell people, yes, they made a truck from the ’30s on,” he laughs. “I fill them in that they made pretty good trucks up until… they closed.”

If you see it out on the road or at a show, Frye’s truck will definitely be traveling under its own power.

He says he didn’t bloody his knuckles for four years to leave the pickup in the garage, and he definitely didn’t do it to haul the truck around on a trailer.

“Oh, I drive it and it’s wonderful. I put radial tyres on it for a little extra security. It handles nice and straight. It rides like a truck because it’s got a straight axle. I can do 60-65 with it, but it’s real comfortable at 55,” he said.

“I stay a little bit farther back in traffic because it’s got brakes that are, well, ’41 brakes.

“I believe a vehicle is meant to be driven, and that’s what I do, and I like to show it off.”

* I have a soft spot for Studs – our wedding car, back in 1968, was an immaculate white Studebaker Lark.