The Avanti's afterlife: Newman & Altman and the Avanti II

1964 – 2006

The purchase: The Avanti did not die with the works because two of the company's own dealers would not let it. Leo Newman and Nate Altman, longtime South Bend Studebaker-Packard dealers, agreed with the company — the agreement is dated 1 July 1964 in the marque's newsletter account — to buy the Avanti model name, its tooling and molds, and plant space, and with them the rights and tooling for Studebaker's trucks and the company's vast stock of parts and accessories. The parts business was itself a going concern, and the new firm, the Avanti Motor Corporation, stood on both.

The Avanti II: In 1965 the partners put the car back into production as the Avanti II: the same Loewy design, hand-built in South Bend on the Studebaker-derived chassis, now with a Chevrolet Corvette 327 V8 in place of the unavailable Studebaker engine. Production was artisanal — a few cars a month, built to order, in former Studebaker buildings on the old works' ground; buyers were invited to tour the plant before taking delivery. Newman & Altman ran the enterprise into the 1980s, their buildings among the works' survivors of that era and, later, among the earliest of the old plant buildings to be razed. Stephen Blake bought the company in 1982; after his bankruptcy a new owner, Michael Kelly, took over in 1986 and moved production to Youngstown, Ohio, adding the long-promised convertible; the enterprise closed about 1990, and small revivals under later owners carried Avanti-badged cars, styled after the original, as far as 2006. The marque's total span — 1963 to 2006, under five ownerships — is the longest afterlife any Studebaker product achieved, and it was a South Bend story for its first twenty-two years.

Sources:

1. Standard encyclopedia history of Studebaker — the sale of the Avanti name, tooling, and plant space to Newman and Altman, their purchase of the truck rights and the parts stock, and the Avanti II's revival in 1965.
2. Piedmont Classic Car Club, "The Bowtie Bulletin" (2019), marque account — the agreement of 1 July 1964 and the Avanti II's introduction as a 1965 model; Silodrome, Avanti R2 account — the purchase in mid-1964 by Nathan Altman, Arnold Altman, and Leo Newman, hand-building from 1965, and the last Avantis in 2006.
3. Classic & Sports Car (2025) — the Corvette-engined Avanti II, cars taking two to three months to build, the factory-tour deliveries, Blake's bankruptcy, Kelly's 1986 takeover and the move to Youngstown; Studebaker Drivers Club forum, Newman & Altman corridor account — the Avanti Motors buildings' later demolition.