A rendering of the Studebaker Avanti courtesy of Loewy Design.

    Because of the Internet, you never know how far afield your words are going to travel.
    One of the people who wrote following a recent column on the “prettiest cars” was David Hagerman, who lives in Georgia and read it online at www.autonet.ca.
    David’s late wife, Laurence, was the daughter of designer Raymond Loewy and he said that together they established Loewy Design in 1998, “when the Web was still young, to introduce her father to a new generation of savvy industrial design enthusiasts.” He wanted to express his thanks for the nice things said about Loewy’s 1953 Studebaker Starliner and 1963 Studebaker Avanti.
    Actually, it’s easy to say nice things about both of those timeless designs, especially the Avanti which would not be out of place as a concept car at one of today’s major automotive shows. Anything else from that era looks like exactly what it is – a car that’s almost 50 years old. But the Avanti, at age 48, is as fresh as tomorrow’s morning breeze.
It’s also easy to say nice things about Loewy design studios, which was responsible for some of the most inventive and iconic items of life in the 20th century.
    As someone once said, he took the ordinary and made it beautiful.
Raymond Loewy (1893-1986) was born in France but immigrated to the U.S. in 1919, where he became known as “the father of industrial design.”
    His body of work includes streamlined electric and steam locomotives for the Pennsylvania Railroad, the redesigned 1955 Coke bottle, the Greyhound Scenicruiser bus and household appliances from refrigerators to pencil sharpeners.
    His studio also created the enduring logos for companies such as Shell, Exxon, Greyhound and Lucky Strike cigarettes.
    Loewy’s first work for Studebaker was in 1936 and his studio was responsible for the ground-breaking 1947 Studebaker Champion. In 1953 they produced the long, low Starlight coupe that’s considered a turning point in automotive design.
    By 1961 Studebaker badly needed a new car with sex appeal. Loewy and his design team of Tom Kellogg, Bob Andrews and John Ebstein were given 40 days to come up with something – anything. Their brainstorming resulted in a two-door coupe that featured a fiberglass body on a modified 109-inch Studebaker Lark chassis with a 289 cubic inch Hawk engine.
    “Weight is the enemy,” said Loewy. “In this age of fuel shortages you must eliminate weight.” He also eliminated the grille, saying, “Who needs grilles? Grilles I always associate with sewers.”
    The Avanti’s clean, unadorned shape was a radical departure from the chrome-laden beasts produced in Detroit. Before her death in 2008, Loewy’s daughter Laurence told CNN that her father called the automotive designs of GM’s Harley Earl “chrome-plated barges,” adding that “If left to his own devices, Harley Earl would put fins on a TV or refrigerator.”
    The Avanti went into production in June, 1962 as a 1963 model, and until Studebaker closed its South Bend, Indiana plant in December, 1963, 4,643 were built, not counting prototypes.
    With the closure of South Bend Studebaker shifted its Lark/Daytona assembly to the company’s factory in Hamilton, Ont. The Avanti name and tooling were sold to two Indiana Studebaker dealers, Nate Altman and Leo Newman. They purchased a portion of the South Bend plant, stacks of leftover Lark chassis, and produced the Avanti II in limited numbers using 327 Chevy V8s – the first in a succession of Avanti replicars.
    For more about Raymond Loewy and his work, log on to www.RaymondLoewy.org or www.RaymondLoewy.com.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com