My Studebaker Lark 1960
A company that started life in Indiana in 1852 making wagons for farmers, miners and the military, and in 1902 began making electric cars. “They should have kept making electric cars,” Lucas says. Studebaker switched to gasoline cars in 1912, and the last model rolled off the Canadian assembly line in 1966.
“Studebakers are quality cars that were way ahead of their time,” says Lucas. He points out that in 1946 they introduced the Hill Holder feature (“put on the brake and then let it go and it won’t roll down the hill”), and in 1952 they released a three-speed automatic transmission with a manual overdrive in each gear. “And they won just about every economic race in the 50s and 60s,” says Lucas.
Lucas, 67, manager of Caboolture Motorcycles, owns a 1960 hardtop Studebaker Lark that he bought in 2002 for $5000 from a Victorian owner. “It had more rust than the Cherry Venture,” he says. “I rebuilt it myself with a little help from friends. I had to replace all the bottom and thresholds, sort out the motor and gearbox, and much more. "It's pretty original, but I put disc brakes up front to stop it since the old drum brakes weren't the best."
Lucas claims that the man he bought it from had a hoax that suggested the car once belonged to American actor Tim Conway, who played the not-so-intelligent Ensign Parker in the old black-and-white TV comedy McHale's Navy.
"When the guy told me, I said, 'You couldn't tell me it was Clark Gable or Humphrey Bogart, could you?'" he laughs. “I have not been able to contact him (Conway). He is still alive. I wanted to take a picture of him with the car. Apparently, he owned it for many years. The car has traveled about a million miles."
Lucas bought the car because he liked its shape. “I persisted in it. I worked on it for three years almost always at night, because I work six days a week.
“Keeping me in the barn at night probably made my wife happy. Either way, it was worth the effort. This is a great little car. Everywhere I go, people take pictures of it.” Lucas claims it is the only one of its kind in Queensland and one of about three in Australia.
He also restores a 1952 Studebaker Commander Starlight V8 Coupe designed by Raymond Lowry, the industrial designer responsible for the Coke bottle and Lucky Strike cigarette pack.
His first car was a 1934 Dodge Tourer which he bought for 50 when he was 14 years old while living in Manly, Sydney. “I used to take him to school and I don’t know how I never got arrested,” he says. "In those days, you could do things like that."
“Friday and Saturday nights we drove to Manly Corsa on our Customlines, parked and beat the girls with a stick. I was a manly old vagrant and proud of it."
Lucas also boasts that he is Ford's man. “I've owned just about every Ford from 1932 to 1955,” he says. "They had a big V8 and they were a fast car, plus there was a Ford in every backyard and you could get them cheap."
He moved to Queensland in the 1970s as a sales manager for Yamaha and raced dirt bikes and later opened a motorcycle sales business. “I got to a stage in my life where I got bored, so one day I was looking through a car magazine and I thought I would like to restore an old car,” he says.
“It's a lot of fun to go to all the performances and reminisce with people my age. People think we're just stupid old buggers, but we really aren't; we just enjoy life. It's better than going home, opening a beer and sitting in front of the TV."
Lucas will enjoy life with his old pals when he displays his Skylark at the annual Studebaker Concourse on August 30 on the South Shore from 9am to 3pm.
