1958 Studebaker Commander

1958 Studebaker Commander, click picture to enlarge.

One of my uncles used to drive a Studebaker for many years. The particular one that I remember was a Studebaker President series which was the largest, most luxurious and most expensive of the Studebaker lineup. I also knew a good friend that liked the smaller Studebaker Champion series with its famous "bullet nose" aerodynamic design. As I said in my last post about the 1955 Desoto, the Studebaker, along with the Desoto, Packard and Hudson, was one of the old cars that died by the wayside, mainly because many of the feaures they introduced were just too far advanced ahead of their time and the public just did not accept the "new-fangled gadgets". Some of the things that they introduced were the new aerodynamic design that I just mentioned and a feature called "hillholder brakes" that allowed the driver to pull up to a stop sign or a redlight on a hill and mash the brake peddle and then take his foot off of the peddle and the brakes would still hold until the gas peddle was mashed which released the brakes. The Commander had a 259 cid V-8 180 hp engine and a three speed, three speed overdive or Flight-o-matic Transmission