Home » The Weirdest Cars In Studebaker’s Basement: The Porsche-Engined Lark

The Weirdest Cars In Studebaker’s Basement: The Porsche-Engined Lark

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I’m here in South Bend, Indiana to see and drive what is supposed to be the first hybrid motorhome, at least if that talking horse that appeared to me in a dream is telling the truth. Even if he wasn’t, that’s ok, because South Bend is also the ancestral home of defunct carmaker Studebaker, and there’s a Studebaker museum here with a basement full of interesting stuff. I got pictures of a lot of the interesting bits, so let’s look at one of them now, why not?

In some ways, I feel like this may be the most infamous car down in the basement, but it’s also one of the more confusing ones. I think, among hardcore car geeks, there’s some vague knowledge that Porsche and Studebaker once worked together back in the 1950s to come up with some interesting smaller cars for the American market, cars that had some hallmarks of Porsche engineering, like rear-engines and air-cooling, but also American styling influences.

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And, of course, that did happen, with the first four-door car that Porsche built being part of this project. The whole thing is absolutely fascinating, and while nothing ever really came of it, a few fascinating cars were built, including the handsome Porsche Type 542 that had a rear-mounted 120° V6 with concurrent air- and water-cooling (air-cooled heads, water-cooled cylinders, it’s weird). It looked like this:

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I especially like the detail of the turn indicators forming the upper shape of those bumper guards. It’s a nice-looking machine, and does seem to have both Porsche and Studebaker design influences. It’s also a bigger story I don’t want to get into just yet, but we’ll come back to it.

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Anyway, based on this, you’d be likely to think that the first car I saw in the basement, a 1959 Studebaker Lark with a rear-mounted air-cooled flat-four from a Porsche 356, would be part of this whole Studebaker-Porsche project. Incredibly, it’s not!

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What the hell? There was another Porsche-Studebaker cross-pollination project going on? Well, yeah, there was, sort of. Curtiss-Wright, the aircraft manufacturer, was actually who built this, and it was built without participation from either Porsche or Studebaker.

You see, Curtiss-Wright got a license to built NSU Wankel rotary engines, which they planned on using in aircraft. It seems someone at Curtiss-Wright also realized that these Wankel engines might have a good automotive application, and so decided to mock up something that could possibly use it. Of course, nobody was really building cars with rotaries back then, with NSU’s first wankel-powered car, the NSU Wankel Spider, not appearing until 1963. It was a rear-engine design, so it seems NSU’s development of rotary cars at that time was focused on rear engines, which they were already familiar with from their NSU Prinz cars.

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Now, I’m not sure why whomever at Curtiss-Wright just didn’t grab a Volkswagen or even an NSU Prinz or something that was already rear-engined, but they didn’t, instead taking a 1959 Lark and going through a lot of effort to re-locate the drivetrain to the rear. I’m told the fuel tank and spare and battery were moved up front into a nice trunk area (I couldn’t see it from the location the car is stuck in the museum) and the work done to mount the 1953 Porsche 356 engine looks pretty clean and well done at the rear.

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There’s plenty of room in that trunk for that little 70 hp flat-four, with its big twin carbs and distinctive orange oil filter, and I bet the battery could have been stuck back there, like VW did with the Karmann-Ghia and the Type 2 bus. The floor on the inside, freed from the burden of a driveshaft, is flat, too.

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It’s all very weird; this isn’t the engine that Curtiss-Wright was planning to use, but the car sort of makes sense, as Curtiss-Wright bailed out Studebaker-Packard in 1956 and ended up owning a big chunk of their stock, so maybe they were tentatively testing some future options for a new line of rear-engined Wankel Larks?

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Also, why are the corners of the windows painted over, or replaced with sheet metal?

No one seems to be entirely sure what the plan was for this thing or exactly why it was originally built, or, well, anything, really. It was sold as a regular used car before being acquired by the museum, making me wonder if someone actually drove this strange thing around, like a normal daily driver? It’s fascinating, and if you’re in South Bend, go to the Studebaker Museum’s basement and you can wonder about it, right next to it, yourself.

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Comet_65cali
Comet_65cali
13 days ago

I’ve known about this car and I’ve wanted to do a pro-touring Lark two-door sedan with a 996 drivetrain. Body-on-Chassis would make the swap alot easier and I do like how the wheels are fairly in the corners of the chassis.

Car Guy - RHM
Car Guy - RHM
14 days ago

Another interesting tidbit, the Studebaker proving grounds still exists and are now owned by Navistar. Take a look at Google maps, the trees were planted in a pattern that spells Studebaker which hasn’t changed.

Jakob K's Garage
Jakob K's Garage
15 days ago

You could have a whole zipper trunk down there with the engine, like in a Ferrari 308!

I’ve always adored the Porsche 912’s plenty of room for tools in the engine bay (because of the missing two cylinders for that body style), but this is kind of crazy 😀

Freelivin2713
Freelivin2713
15 days ago

Wankel Larks…is that the new Autopian band name? Or Membership level?

Hugh Crawford
Hugh Crawford
16 days ago

I really wonder what the rear suspension is on this car. Leaf springs? Torsion bars? Coils? Presumably swing axles are involved.
You would think that Curtis Wright would have some way of acquiring a Tatra to poke around at. BTW, have you ever seen the way Tatra 603 rear brakes are set up? Not what I would have thought of.

ADDvanced
ADDvanced
16 days ago

I bet the rear window mods were related to air intakes to keep the engine cool. Maybe they tested or were going to test intakes there, and then wound up realizing they weren’t needed, or the project got canned before they did so.

Who is the Leader
Who is the Leader
16 days ago

Wow, that is very unusual. Maybe a Beetle or Dauphine were much lighter than the car they wanted it to eventually power so they had to modify a heavier car?
While this is weird, it isn’t the absolute weirdest drivetrain swap I’ve ever seen. That honor would have to go to a Renault 10 powered by a 10 hp generator engine IN THE FRONT driving an electric generator sending power to an electric motor from a grain elevator hooked up to the original transaxle in the back with seemingly no built in battery capacity.

Austin Vail
Austin Vail
15 days ago

I… guess that’s one way to build a torque converter? What a strange build…

Who is the Leader
Who is the Leader
15 days ago
Reply to  Austin Vail

So not only is it powered by a small generator engine, it has additional mechanical complexity and drivetrain losses AND no luggage space AND more noise.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/museum-classic-renault-10-with-serial-hybrid-conversion/

Highland Green Miata
Highland Green Miata
16 days ago

That is a lovely museum. They really did a nice job with the current iteration of it. Glad you’re enjoying it.

DONALD FOLEY
DONALD FOLEY
15 days ago

The family was collecting before there were any antique automobiles. In 1887 Clement Studebaker purchased the carriage used by Revolutionary War General Marquis de Lafayette on his farewell tour of the (24) United States, 1824-1825. In 1889 he acquired the Woods Brothers barouche that carried President Lincoln and his wife to the Ford’s Theatre on the night he was shot. As the world’s leading horse-drawn manufacturer, Clement thought that vehicles important to the nation’s history belonged in a collection. The Studebaker brothers still had the 1835 Conestoga wagon built by their father that carried them from Gettysburg, PA. These vehicles were used to promote the Studebaker brand, and then formed the basis of the corporate museum which was formalized in 1916.

EXL500
EXL500
15 days ago

Yes, we enjoyed it immensely too. And it’s not far from the stellar A-C-D museum which is a must see.

Cheap Bastard
Cheap Bastard
16 days ago

It’s the perfect car for when you’ve got nowhere to go and all the time in the world to get there.

Collegiate Autodidact
Collegiate Autodidact
16 days ago

“Also, why are the corners of the windows painted over, or replaced with sheet metal?”
In the top image, while it’s kinda hard to tell, there are spots in the right rear corner window that at first glance appear to be where the paint flaked off the glass but upon a closer look it appears that they might actually be rust spots which does indeed suggest sheet metal. Wonder if the glass was originally taken out and replaced with vents to provide cooling air for the Porsche engine? And then the vents were found to be unviable so they were replaced with sheet metal? Yeah, rather the plethora of questions with that car!! Mighty fascinating.
Alas, it seems like that particular Studebaker was little more than… a lark. Ba dum tss.

Last edited 16 days ago by Collegiate Autodidact
Loren
Loren
16 days ago

Looks like they went for raising the lid on spacer blocks and doing some hole-saw work instead.

Jlacourt
Jlacourt
16 days ago

Torch — not sure how long you are here, but a short drive away up in Kalamazoo is the Gilmore Museum. One of the best car museums I’ve ever been to. Also in the other direction in Auburn is the Auburn/Cord/Duesenberg museum — very cool as well.

EXL500
EXL500
15 days ago
Reply to  Jlacourt

Both absolutely brilliant places.

John Burkhart
John Burkhart
14 days ago
Reply to  EXL500

Second on the Gilmore, plus Cord Auburn Museum both are amazing. I will add the Studebaker museum to my next trip out that way. FWIW I think I read that the Gilmore is THE largest museum in North America, not sure what the metric is though.

Canopysaurus
Canopysaurus
16 days ago

Imagine if James Dean had died in a Bathtub Lark. So embarrassing.

Vanillasludge
Vanillasludge
16 days ago

This place is a hidden gem. The Packard Predictor prototype is a must-see.

Harvey Firebirdman
Harvey Firebirdman
16 days ago

Hey I work right down the road from South Bend. Glad one of you guys here got to the Studebaker museum. The museum just had their cars and coffee a few weekends ago at the Navistar Proving grounds and I got to see a few of the old race cars start up and drive around when they were setting up for the show.

Parsko
Parsko
16 days ago

South Bend, also home to one of the greatest lathe manufacturers in the world. I’ve got a 9A in my basement still able to hold tenths after 60 years of use.

Any chance of this hybrid RV solving the Autopian RV want??? Maybe they can donate one like in similar fashion as Zero has with Mercedes.

Knowonelse
Knowonelse
15 days ago
Reply to  Parsko

Nice! My uncle acquired a Southbend 9 (of some sort) when they decommissioned destroyers in the San Francisco bay area. It was in the ship machine shop. He used it for decades, and as they were moving out of their house and into a care facility, he donated it to The Curious Forge makerspace/art studio. That thing is heavy! We have it in our machine shop at the Forge. We found a teacher who has one in his basement to train us on using it. I have huge respect for machinists who used it back in the day.

Parsko
Parsko
15 days ago
Reply to  Knowonelse

I got mine from my old job. I “needed to go” to make space. It was lightly used for the past… 40 years, but well used the 20 prior. It is certainly heavy. I fully rebuilt it when I got it, and it does a great job. I got a full set of collets with it as well. I absolutely love it. Now, I need to find a larger Mill to complete my shop. I have a mini-mill (desktop one) that is good for some stuff, but not great.

Knowonelse
Knowonelse
15 days ago
Reply to  Parsko

If you are not already, follow Blondihacks on YouTube. Great resource for small machine shop knowledge, tips, and tools. Another one is Joe Pie. There are probably others, but these two are great.

Parsko
Parsko
15 days ago
Reply to  Knowonelse

Funny, I just stopped following her. I’ve come to realize that, trying to sound humble but isn’t, I’m just as good as them. I just don’t have time to do all the things I want. Similar with 3d printing, my other passion besides automobiles. I”m not watching or following them anymore either. I’ve learned all I need to know, for now. At some point, I’ll need to watch stuff again, but it gets boring when you kinda know what they are doing, and really just want to be doing it yourself. She is absolutely fabulous, don’t get me wrong.

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