1950 Studebaker Commander Starlight Coupe

1950 Studebaker Commander Starlight Coupe Commander Big 6 Engine. Overdrive. Heater. Radio When you think of 1950 Studebaker you think of designers like Raymond Lowey. Virgil Exner and Bob Bourke whom all designed various Studebakers. Bob Bourke’s all new “bullet-nose” design was brought to the Commander in 1950. If you look at a P38 Aircraft and then look at a 1950 Studebaker. you can see how the P38 influenced the design of the 1950 Studebaker. If you look at the rear of the car you can see the resemblence to an airplace cockpit. These cars were often referenced as not knowing which way it is going as the rear design could almost be the front of the car. In 1950. an all-new independent coil front suspension replaced the prior transverse leaf spring front independent set-up used by Studebaker. . The 1950 Studebaker Commander is powered by a six-cylinder L-head engine that produced just over 100 horsepower. It sat on a 120 inch wheelbase which provided ample interior space for the 5 passengers In 1950 Studebaker had two models. the Champion and the Commander. The Commander was the top of the line and had a longer sleaker stream lined front end which not only added a nicer look to the "bullet nose" but also provided a better ride for the passengers. The 1950 Commander Starlight is one of the most sought after post-war cars Studebaker made. There were 72. 60 1950 Commanders built as compared to 270. 04 1950 Champion models. The Commander Starlight weighs 3220 pounds while the Champion Starlight weighs 2715 pounds. This additional weight helped inprove the ride. Additionally the Commander had 100 horsepower in its engine and the champion only had 85 HP. There were only 7375 Regal DeLuxe Starlight Commanders in 1950 thus there are not a lot of them still around today. . My friend bought this car new. He then traded it in on a 1955 Studebaker Coupe. Around 1960 he repurchased this from the fellow he sold it to with the intent of doing a restoration when he retired. Time slipped away and this car set in his dry garage until a couple years ago. This car had not been ran during this time but he did an excellent job of preparing this car for storage. My friend had accumulated 3 Commander Starlights. As I only want to keep one of the three. I decided that I would make this one drivable once again and then offer it for sale. . You could almost refer to it as a barn find!. Let me show you a picture to end the suspence. PICTURE 1 I bet I now have your interest! After over a 50 year rest. this car is back to life. There is new original color paint. new interior. an engine rebuild. and renewal of other items as needed. . Lets start with the engine. As the car has 102. 00 miles on it. the motor which was still free was tired. It was bored . 030 with new pistons. rings. main bearings. cam bearings. rod bearings. valves. valve guides. cam timing gear. etc. The coolant distribution tube was actually still good which indicates that this car was prepared well for long term storage. The distribution tube helps cool the rear of the engine and these are often bad. They are very hard to find. This one is brass. I replaced the fuel pump. water pump. spark plugs and wires. hoses. tune up type items. and rebuilt the carburetor. The exhaust system was also replaced. The braking system was renewed as the wheel cylinders. master cylinder. hoses etc all needed some attention. It was upgraded to silicone or DOT 5 brake fluid so that the braking system would not clot due to inactivity. The shoes were also replaced and the brake drums were turned. The clutch disc and pressure place along with throw out bearing were also replaced. The u-joints were also replaced at this time. The steering is tight! Many other small parts such as motor mounts. bushings etc which tend to deteriorate with age were also replaced. All four fenders have been removed and new rubbers and fender welt were installed. When the rear fenders were removed the inner fenders were cancer free and were painted so they would last many more years. The inner fenders are often rusted out. The rear fenders had some rust behind the gravel guards which was removed. I am fortunate to have a lot of NOS Studebaker parts and replaced items as needed and did not document every item replaced. Lets look at some pictures of the outside . PICTURE 2 PICTURE 3 PICTURE 4 PICTURE 5 PICTURE 6 PICTURE 7 PICTURE 8 PICTURE 9 PICTURE 10 Now I want to show you what the floor boards and inside the trunk are like. The floor boards are SOLID SOLID SOLID. I cannot see where there was ever any cancer in these. The trunk had some rust in the left rear corner which had metal welded in and the tire wheel well was thin and strengthened with fiberglass. It is amazing to me how rust free this car was. Storage in a dry garage for 50 years sure preserved this car. PICTURE 11 Drivers front PICTURE 12 Drivers rear PICTURE 13 Passenger front PICTURE 14 Passenger rear While the paint and chrome are not necessarily show quality. they are good driver quality in my opinion. You have seen samples of the chrome above. The bumpers probably have the weakest chrome and as you can see they are still presentable. The front bumper had an accessory guard set on it which I removed as some do not like these guards. Here are a few more examples of the chrome. PICTURE 15 Trunk handle PICTURE 16 Hubcaps So what do you think? Do you like how that hard to find plastic insert on the hood ornament? And also notice the plastic on the fender ornaments. And what about the chrome?? On 50 commanders they either had painted grills and chrome headlight rims or chrome grills and painted headlight rims. I have no idea why they did this. I replaced the painted grills with chrome ones as I think they spruce it up a bit. The front surface of the grills is suppose to be chrome and the rear painted body color. Also notice how nice the gravel guards are on either fender. These are another 1950 item that are extremely hard to find and are costly. They seemed to get dinged a lot. These have been repaired by one of those stainless repair guys. The black Dupont Centari paint shines There is some orange peel in the paint in places but if you want to make it a show car the paint is thick enough that it could be sanded out. Overall the paint is good driver quality paint. but it is not show quality and we do not want any surprises for the buyer. So you have seen the outside and it gets pretty darn nice if I do say so myself but a picky person will fine flaws here and there. The tires are radial tires for a smoother ride. I was going to put on four new tires but could not decide if I should but bias or radial tires on so I replaced the four dry rotted bias tires with four good used radial tires. I figured if I put on new tires the new owner would probably want something different anyway. Here are some shots of the inside of the trunk: PICTURE 17 PICTURE 18 --Note the original jack is still in the car PICTURE 19 - Deer skin floor mat The engine is the Commander BIG 6. I had it bored and assembled at a machine shop that specializes in vintage engines. He does it right such as planing the head and top of the block. Here are some shots under the hood. He polished the cam. checked the rods. turned the rods on the crankshaft and polished the mains. The original bearings were still good but were replaced. This is a sign that the engine had been well maintained. As you can see it is clean and original under the hood. You will see the NOS impossible to find radiator. He took the time to remove the cooling distribution tube which turned out to be very nice. These are brass and are often rotted out due to not changing the antifreeze on a regular basis. The distributor. starter and generator were not in need of repair. The voltage regulator needed to be replaced. All the ignition components were replaced (dist cap. points. condensor. otor . wires. plugs etc). PICTURE 20 - New radiator PICTURE 21 PICTURE 22 I want to point out that the glass is good and I am not aware of any cracks. The felt cat wiskers and window runs on the doors are new as the original ones were worn. The windshield is in good shape and I had the gasket replaced. The frame is solid and I did not see any bad places. I painted the under carriage after cleaning off the surface rust and years of dirt and grime. Okay. now lets take a look at the new interior from Lebaron Bonney. Lets start with the new light grey headliner. PICTURE 23 PICTURE 24 Now lets look at the interior starting with the front carpet and then rear carpet. Please note in the following pictures you will see the original door sills which are in really nice shape. PICTURE 25 PICTURE 26 PICTURE 27 Here are the door panels. PICTURE 28 . PICTURE 29 Now. lets look at the seats PICTURE 30 PICTURE 31 PICTURE 32 -- Storage compartments in rear seat Before we go further. I thought you might want to know how nice the front seats were. These are original and could be used as is except there is a slight split in the bottom of the rear seat. The original owner was old school and placed seat covers on the seats to protect the upholstery. PICTURE 33 -- Original rear seats PICTURE 34 -- Original front seat backs PICTURE 35 -- Original front seat bottom Here is the dash. You will see that we have turn signals!. This was an option in 1950 . While the radio does not work you will notice how nice its knobs are so once it is fixed we are good to go. The chrome on the radio has some light pits as does the bezel around the instrument gage bezel. The rest of the chrome on the dash is nice. There was an aftermarket radio in the car which did not work so replaced it with the correct radio. I like the look of the original radio as compared to the two piece aftermarket one. PICTURE 36 PICTURE 37 PICTURE 38 While I would not be afraid to drive this car anywhere. I would want to baby it for the first 500 or 1000 miles and keep the speed down as the engine is a new rebuild. I have not driven this car on the highway since the rebuild so have not been able to check out the overdrive but it worked when parked. According to NADA. average retail for this is between $18. 50 up to $32. 20. I will gladly try to answer any and all questions. The new owner or winner of this auction is responsible for any shipment and must arrange such shipping themselves. I will work with them as possible. I sold one like this two years ago for $17. 00 on Ebay and the owner was very satisfied. I was pleasantly surprised to see they have gone up 2000-3000 in the past two years. These do not come available very often. This car is titled by the engine number as is my other 50 Commander. Engine number is H433386. The body number is 4453855. Remember this is a rare car and the value should do nothing but go up. . You are buying this car as is. I have described it to the best of my ability. A $500 non-refundable deposit is due within 24 hours (Paypal or cash) and full payment is due within 7 days or as agreed to with the seller. Car must be picked up within 10 days unless prior arrangements are made. The existing owner must have cleared payment before it will be released. This car is for sale locally and I reserve the right to remove it from this auction at any time. Car is being sold as is. with no warranty expressed or implied.