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Borrego Springs Driving Art Tour

Some of our members enjoyed a fascinating drive out to Borrego Springs on May 12th to see the scenery and the interesting sculptures.  Here are some pictures supplied by Michele St Clair.

Pacific Southwest Zone Meet, Palm Springs

Our chapter joined the Los Angeles and Beach Cities/ Orange/ Inland Empire chapters to put on a great zone meet this year.  A nice gallery of pictures is available at the PIX tab on our website.

Dan Scott, member of our chapter from Murrieta, won Best of Show with his beautiful ’78 Avanti II, pictured below.  And he provided a very nice Youtube video complete with music for those of us who couldn’t make it to the meet; click on the link to see it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGoyVoiBwa8

Here is a shot of some of the San Diego Chapter folks at the Zone Meet dinner.

Also at the Zone Meet – Ken & Stacy Meredith’s ’57 President and Bob & Mimi Halgren’s ’53 Starlight Coupe.

Tacoma International Meet Adventures

By Keith Wahl

As many of our club members know, my original 55 Wagon was totaled last October 7^th 2017 – thought to be damaged beyond repair.  I found an identical replacement wagon, later-in-the-year model with curved windshield.  When I realized that my damaged wagon could be salvaged I had already started work on this Arizona rust-free car which made its way to Tennessee where it was shipped to me. Unfortunately that resulted in  damage to the roof.  However,  it was a really good car.  So I ended up restoring both cars.

Many mechanical repairs to the new purchase and lots of body work to my original wagon. Both cars were completely painted, new interior work to the second car plus brakes and a complete re-wire. [Editor’s note: the ad for Keith’s second wagon is on the left side of this web page, including a link to some pictures.]

As a treat to myself and with the desire to sell my more recent ’55 Conestoga, plus give it a real shake-down cruise, I wanted to go to the SDC International Meet to show it off, sell it, and come home on a plane.  Unfortunately that did not happen.

Ken Michael (long term San Diego SDC member, friend and neighbor of the Halgrens in Payson Arizona)  and I made plans to drive up and caravan.  He was going to drive his 62 GT Hawk but it was never road tested and he could not get the interior finished in time.  So he took his trusty Champ Truck, departed Payson.  We met outside St. George Utah  and headed up US Hwy 15 on the eastern side of the state through Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon and into Washington.  Our trip was uneventful.  We left on Saturday August 25^th  and arrived Tuesday August 28th.

Both Ken and I had turn signal problems.  His turned out to be a switch which worked from time to time and mine was more complex.  I customized the car with 55 Fender spears and functional turn signals including a third brake light and a 4 way flasher.  This required a relay which unfortunately blew out.  I had a larger unit sent to me at the former motel we reserved for our Washington visit.  However, we ended up having to go to a pet friendly motel because Ken brought Rosie,  his adopted Chihuahua,  who was new to him and a road trip, but she did great!

Ken thought he had a problem with a rear end noise so I followed him to a shop in town where they took out the rear end for inspection.  Meanwhile, the mechanic who set up my signals sent me the wiring diagram and 2 new heavy duty relays.  With Ken’s skill and expertise we re-wired the turn signals – that was a task!!

We met up with the Halgrens, St. Claires and the Keatings and hung out visiting the Tacoma Glass Museum and the Le May auto Museum plus the surrounding sites.  Ken, the St Claires and Keatings took some of the tours. The weather was really great.

Ken Michael, Bob, Ken St. Claire and I took a side trip on Friday near Seattle to one of Bob’s Hupmobile friends.  We toured his collection of antique hubcaps and 3 buildings – old chicken coops full of cars he stores for people plus his own Hupmobiles.  Bob bought a transmission from him and we headed back to Tacoma.  The Halgrens  et. al went to the SDC Banquet and I attended the Avanti Banquet.  At the Avanti dinner were the daughters of Studebaker President Sherwood Egbert.

Tacoma and the northwest does have its traffic so the only free travel we had was up the 15 through Oregon, Idaho and Utah with 80 MPH speed limits.  Both cars performed extremely well. The meet was not all that well attended.  Maybe some 150 cars – all very nice with some real interesting retromods.  Ken and I stayed for the entirety of the Saturday meet and we left about 1 PM.

We had an uneventful ride down to Albany, Oregon where we were to part ways Ken heading east and me south.  I made it down to Drain, Oregon – about 45 miles north of Roseburg, where our former president and good friend Denny Napier lives. I had the unfortunate mishap of hearing a terrible bang in the engine.  No smoke, no loss of oil pressure.  I pulled off and got a tow to Roseberg, Oregon (folks are really nice, many people stopped and ask if I needed anything – glad I had those flashers).

I called Ken Michael the following day who was now 150 miles away from me and he was kind enough to come back and pull off the valve covers where the problem was discovered.  I had a broken Crane Aluminum exhaust rocker arm on the #2 cylinder.  The push rod was not bent.  This was the labor day weekend.  I called JEGS and had a part shipped from Ohio. Of course, I had to wait from Saturday to Wednesday, so I hung out with Denny and we worked in his shop to fix some of his cars.

Turns out I have a friend in Roseburg who is another “Car Guy.”  He had lots of engine work done by a family shop that does nothing but engines and is now second generation opening the doors in 1949.  The son owns the business now and he was just great putting the rocker arm  back in and getting me on my way about 1pm Wednesday.  Unfortunately, there were fires 50 miles North of Redding so I had to drive 125 miles east, south and west through Mount Shasta (behind 8 trucks at 15 MPH).

I rolled into Sacramento  about 10 pm and stayed overnight leaving in the morning about 6:00 am. I made it to Los Angeles in 5 ½ hours through the central valley.  I visited my daughter-in-law and our grand daughter and then headed for home.  About 1 mile from the turnoff at La Jolla Village drive, traffic came to a dead stop.  A guy who was following me and taking pictures of “Conchita” – as I call her – pulls up and tells me he “loves the car.”  I mention its for sale and he hands me his business card on the freeway.  His name – CHUCK STUIDEBAKER –  and he lives in Vista.  He has too many toys and this was not going to be one of them.  So Conchita  is still for sale.

With ethanol free fuel I was getting over 18MPG.  I was able to drive the car up to 10 hours straight with no fatigue.  Between 80 and 90 MPH the car ran at 180 degrees.  All in all,  it was a fun trip and I am grateful to Ken and Denny for helping me. Some pictures of the trip and the event are included.

Happy Studebakering.

Keith Wahl

Nostalgic video of a past SD Studebaker Meet

Greg Weir, son of Jim Weir, has been kind enough to share a video from a Studebaker meet here in San Diego many years ago; it includes a short talk by Marvin Studebaker.  You can download it from Jim’s Dropbox share here