Just Cool Cars: A '51 Studebaker gets a second life
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Just Cool Cars: '51 Studebaker is great design
Paste BN's Chris Woodyard takes us on a tour of this beautiful 1951 Studebaker.
Paste BN
COSTA MESA, Calif. -- To someone who appreciates design, there's nothing more satisfying to John Baldassarre than the old 1951 Studebaker that he restored.
The car's looks and details are what attracted him to it. He loves the so-called "bullet nose" in front and the wrap-around rear window. "It's called a Starlight Coupe," he says.
Bardassarre, of Orange, Calif., says he put in "hundreds" of hours restoring the car. He owned a 1953 model before it.
But he didn't bring it back to completely original shape: Today, it sports a 350-cubic-inch Chevrolet V-8 engine. It replaced the car's original six-cylinder engine, which just plain had to go.
"It was awful," says Baldassarre, who we encountered at a weekly car show here recently.