In 1977 I saw an ad in our local newspaper listing a 1959 Silver Hawk for sale. Being a Studebaker fan I had to go check it out. I was still in high school and only had a part time job but the price wasn’t bad so I figured that if the car was decent I would buy it. When I went to see the car it turned out to be pretty rusty underneath. Too many years of sitting on a dirt floor in a barn had taken it’s toll. The floors and trunk were shot and would need to be replaced. The interior was ratty and the body had several spots of rust showing. The price of 1000 dollars seemed too high for the condition of the car for me to consider the purchase.
Now let’s fast forward to 1995 when an ad appeared for an auction and they listed a Studebaker Hawk. It turned out that the auction was being held at the same farm where I had looked at the Hawk years before. The 18 years of neglect since I had last seen the car had not been kind to it. The rust had gotten much worse by now but the engine still ran very well and I decided to try to buy it for parts. I opened the bidding at 50 dollars and nobody else bid. I thought I was going to get it cheap. The auctioneer kept trying to get bids to no avail. After two to three minutes of trying he called to a man who was a good 100 feet away and had been paying no attention to the proceedings. When the man came over the auctioneer whispered in his ear then asked for bids again. This new man started bidding and we went back and forth bidding the car up to my bid of 275 dollars. My competition bid 300 dollars and when the auctioneer looked back at me I said "Let him have it". The hammer dropped with the shill bidder having the high bid of 300 dollars, he immediately walked over to me and asked if I wanted to buy the car. I told him no. I really don’t like these type of games at auctions.
The Hawk showed up for sale in his yard and sat there for several years. He was asking 1000 dollars for the car and nobody was interested in it due to it’s poor condition. Of course everyone kept telling me about it thinking I hadn’t seen it and would want it. Finally the car disappeared and I figured I had seen the last of the Hawk. Not so…
In 2002 I saw a listing for an auction which had in it’s listing 2 Studebakers. Yes, you guessed it… ol’ rusty was back! This time it had a friend with it, a 1961 Hawk that was in worse shape and incomplete. There were only two of us by the cars when they came up for bid. I ended up buying both cars for just 100 dollars.
I had no trailer to haul them out right away but the man who sold them at the auction said it would be no problem to leave them there for a while. I checked back in a month and once again he said there was no hurry, there were fine where they were. Shortly after that I was at the annual swap meet in South Bend when a friend came up to my table and mentioned there were two Hawks on ebay near me and he wondered if I would go look at them for him. This sounded way too odd so when I got home from the trip I checked ebay and sure enough, they were my Hawks. I called the guy who sold them and told him I would be there the next day to get them. I never did mention that I had seen them on ebay.
It took some serious effort to load the cars but with the help of two good friends but we got the Hawks moved to my house. The rust had gotten so bad on the ‘59 that it sat there with it’s nose buried in the dirt due to the frame around the front suspension breaking. We actually had to jack the car up underneath the transmission and block it up then back the trailer under it to get it loaded.
There wasn’t enough left of either car to restore but I did get a lot of good parts off them to use and many that fellow club members needed for their cars before I scrapped what was left.
I guess the moral of the story, if there is one, is to be patient… if you are meant to get something it will eventually find it’s way to you.
