Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Introducing... Automotive History Live!

Transcript

Introducing... Automotive History Live! · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Welcome to Automotive History Live, where the stories drive us.
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  From the grand lawns of Concours to the icons that shape the road
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  ahead, we celebrate the machines, the makers, and the moments
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  that define automotive history.
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  For more than a century, the automobile has been shaping our
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  culture, our communities, and the way we tell our stories.
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  And now, one of the nation's most important custodians of that history
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  is stepping into a brand new spotlight.
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  And today we're thrilled to introduce Automotive History Live, a new show
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  presented by the Studebaker National Museum, and proudly sponsored by the
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  Society of Automotive Historians.
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  This series brings scholarship, the archives, and the living legacy of
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  the automobile out of the stacks and onto the airwaves, where enthusiasts,
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  researchers, and the curious minds can experience history in motion.
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  And to help us kick off this inaugural episode, we're joined by someone who
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  knows the museum's collection, its stories, and its mission better than
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  anyone, Andrew Beckman, archivist at the Studebaker National Museum.
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  Andrew has spent years preserving the documents, designs, photographs,
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  and artifacts that define not just Studebaker's legacy, but America's
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  automotive evolution as a whole.
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  We'll talk about the museum's role as a guardian of transportation history,
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  the annual concourse at Copseholm, one of the Midwest's most elegant
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  celebrations of automotive heritage, and the museum's newest endeavor, Automotive
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  History Live, a conference dedicated to research, preservation, and storytelling.
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  That's right.
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  And joining me tonight is returning co-host William Ross from the Exotic Car
• 1:37
  Marketplace, one of the many personalities on the Motoring Podcast Network.
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  So welcome back to the studio, William.
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  Hey, great to be here.
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  This is gonna be a lot of fun.
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  I'm excited.
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  Well, with that, let's officially welcome Andy to- Break Fix?
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  Wait, Automotive History Live.
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  Well, thanks for having me, guys.
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  Well, Andy, as a fan of the show, you know most Break Fix episodes we
• 1:57
  take a deep dive into the personal superhero origin story of our guest,
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  but this is a special episode.
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  We're gonna talk about the museum, the concourse, and the conference.
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  So let's begin at the beginning and talk about Studebaker and
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  its link to South Bend, Indiana.
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  Well, you've got to go back quite a ways for that initial linkage.
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  In fact, you go back to the late 1840s when Clement and Henry Studebaker
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  made their way to the South Bend of the St. Joseph River in a town
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  coincidentally named South Bend, where their sister Sally had moved a
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  couple years earlier with her husband.
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  And the brothers were trained blacksmiths and wagon makers.
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  They opened up a, uh, small blacksmith shop at the corner of
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  Michigan and Jefferson Streets in downtown South Bend, Indiana.
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  When I say downtown South Bend, Indiana, it's probably, you know, smaller than
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  a Walmart parking lot was at the time.
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  But, uh, they opened up a, a blacksmith shop, and their first day in business
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  they shod one horse for a whopping total of 25 cents daily receipts,
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  and their first year in business they built a grand total of three wagons.
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  But eventually, uh, the rest of their brothers joined the firm, and by the 1880s
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  the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company is the world's largest builder of
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  wagons and buggies, headquartered still not far from that original blacksmith
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  shop in downtown South Bend, Indiana.
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  After many, many years in that business, they turn to the automobile.
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  Why?
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  Certainly they were solid businessmen.
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  You don't get to be the world's biggest and best without keeping an eye on the
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  market and, you know, learning the whims of your consumers, but also keeping
• 3:23
  an eye on the industry as a whole.
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  And by the turn of the 20th century, the second generation of Studebakers
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  are starting to take control of the company, and they are taking a more
• 3:33
  active interest in, in the automobile.
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  Studebaker actually entered the market with a line of electric automobiles in
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  1902 before entering the gasoline market in 1904, and the company's entry into
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  automobiles wasn't the traditional one you hear about, you know, Henry Ford
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  making a gasoline-powered car in his garage and realizing he has to pound out
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  the doorframe to get it out the door, or, you know, like the Hames brothers down
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  in Kokomo, Indiana, you know, a similar path with probably different architectural
• 3:59
  constraints to get theirs out the door.
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  What the Studebakers did was essentially they marketed automobiles
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  produced by the upstart companies, as Studebaker had the sales network,
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  they had the name recognition, they had a lot to bring to the table.
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  They just didn't really have a ready-made product.
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  So they partnered initially with the Garford Company of Elyria, Ohio, and
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  later with the Everett-Metzger-Flanders Company of Detroit, Michigan.
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  And when Studebaker was satisfied that the automobile was here to
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  stay, they, uh, bought a controlling share of EMF, and boom, Studebaker
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  was in the automobile business.
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  Although they kept building their horse-drawn equipment
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  as well up until 1920.
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  If you can imagine, you know, Eric and William, you're walking into a Studebaker
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  showroom, say around 1910, you could have your choice of an electric automobile,
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  a gasoline-powered car, or if you were kind of an old-fashioned fellow who still
• 4:43
  loved your horse, you could buy a full line of carriages or wagons or buggies to
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  whatever you felt would suit your needs.
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  And Andy, you've graced us with stories about Studebaker's past at many
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  symposium and conferences in the past.
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  A lot of them interesting stories about Studebaker's adventures
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  into the world of motorsport.
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  The most recent one I heard you give, you were talking about sort of the tail
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  end of the Studebaker line in the late '60s with the Avanti right before they
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  closed their doors officially after more than 70 years of being in business.
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  Studebaker left a mark on the town of South Bend.
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  A lot of other companies did, too.
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  There's other famous companies in South Bend, Indiana.
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  But now that you are the custodian of all this history, specifically
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  Studebaker, and how do you see that lasting impression as you look back
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  100-plus years of Studebaker history?
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  What does it mean to the town of South Bend?
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  What does it mean to Americana in general?
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  They were in, in a big sense, the company town, if you will.
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  At Studebaker's peak during the 1950s, they employed almost 25,000
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  workers at their South Bend plants.
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  At that time, that was probably quarter to a third of the
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  area population in South Bend.
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  There was families, generations worked for Studebaker.
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  That, in fact, they touted this father and son craftsmanship where fathers
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  would teach their sons the trades that they had learned at Studebaker.
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  Even during wartime, they touted it with a little more of a patriotic
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  bent, where the fathers are in the factory while the sons are going
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  off to fight for America's freedom.
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  Studebaker was very proud of this relationship, and they called themselves
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  America's Friendliest Factory, and for generations that's all towns knew.
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  I mean, there were people who literally, they got out of high
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  school, went to work for Studebaker.
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  That's the only career they ever had, and suddenly in the early 1960s, that's all
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  coming to a grinding, screeching halt.
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  But you look around the community, here we are today, 63 years after
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  the plant closed in South Bend, but there's still Studebaker just
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  layered throughout our community.
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  Every baby born at Memorial Hospital in downtown South Bend owes a debt of
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  gratitude to J.M. Studebaker's wife, Mary, for providing the initial donation
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  that started Memorial Hospital back in the day when it was Ep- Epworth Hospital.
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  I drive past no fewer than three different churches on my way home
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  that were founded with Studebaker money, any number of parks.
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  The Studebaker's family was very active in, in civic affairs.
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  The southern part of town, you have the Erskine Golf Club, Erskine Hills, named
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  for Albert Erskine, 'cause that was his land that he bought for his mansion and
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  later was developed as part of the city.
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  Still with us today, it's just the Studebaker layers are evident throughout
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  our community, and certainly, you know, other companies in other, uh, Midwestern
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  industrial cities as well can claim similar legacies, but it's really evident
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  and on the forefront here in South Bend.
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  And I'm glad you bring that up, because South Bend is sort of this mini Motown.
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  If you think about it, Studebaker spawned, maybe influenced other
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  people to come there, but also maybe getting parts supplied to them.
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  Think about companies like Bendix- Mm-hmm … from South Bend, AM Generals
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  from there, EVS, you know, Standard Parts.
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  But also some of us in the European community or even in the JDM world might
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  be familiar with South Bend clutches.
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  They come from- Mm-hmm … South Bend, Indiana.
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  So you guys have this mini Motown there in South Bend, and it's never
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  really left, even though Studebaker is more of a historical presence.
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  So many companies in this town that are still with us today- Got their
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  start in part or, you know, kind of off the coattails of Studebaker.
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  Uh, there's a sheet metal firm in town, General Sheet Metal, just north of
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  downtown, and they mentioned, yes, they got their start supplying Studebaker.
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  There were so many tool and die shops in, peppered around the f- the
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  Studebaker plant for little things like that, and even, uh, one of the
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  body shops and the iron workshops who got tremendous work out of Studebaker.
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  And you gotta think, 'cause y- you see this quite a bit, like with factories
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  and a company of that size and scope, that because all your ancillary
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  suppliers, other entities pop up.
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  Saying before, like the clutches, you know, your stamp Mm-hmm Studebaker had
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  been behind quite a few companies that got created and started there, I would
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  assume, because you had all the resources, metal fab, stamping, everything like that.
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  I mean, everything had to have been, "Hey, I'm gonna start it there because I have
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  everything I need." Yeah, and, and, you know, s- that just develops organically.
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  Of course, you know, with some of that stuff, too, it, it costs
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  money to ship stuff somewhere.
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  So if you can have someone close by, that's great.
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  And like you mentioned Bendix, I mean, Studebaker used
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  Bendix brakes, and we have…
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  Actually, we have in our archives the actual vendor engineering files
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  with all the drawings of every part that Studebaker used on the parts.
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  So you go to the Bendix file and, you know, there's a full drawer showing every
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  master cylinder and everything else.
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  And you, you know, even other companies around South Bend that
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  you may not have think of, I think I mentioned Edwards Iron Works.
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  They did a lot of the custom truck bodies and truck bed work, they did.
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  You would see on a production record, it says, "Send over to Iron Works to
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  add, to Edwards to add a nine-foot stake bed body." And even, you
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  know, South Bend Tent and Awning.
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  That might seem like an odd crossover, but they actually made the-
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  bed covers, the canvas covers for the Studebaker's, uh, optional caravan
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  top that you could buy on the trucks.
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  And so many things go into producing an automobile that, you know, it
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  boggles the mind, but, you know, they had to get it from somewhere.
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  And, you know, so many companies just sprang up around the
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  plant as a result of that.
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  And even after Studebaker closed, some of their plants then were
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  picked up by other companies.
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  Like, their foundry was picked up by Cummins and operated
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  until the early 1970s.
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  Their stamping plant, actually, was under the auspices, I believe it was
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  Allied Stamping towards the end, but they were still using the same old
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  Studebaker presses but stamping out fenders for F-Body, or I'm sorry,
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  the, uh, Mustangs and, uh, other Ford, uh, Ford Fairmont rear fenders
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  they were cranking out over there.
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  And the plant only closed because their parent company had financial
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  problems and the Big Three got a little nervous and started pulling
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  all the materials out of there.
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  Now they might still be pounding things out today.
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  But the Studebaker workers, some, especially in the design
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  department I heard, were really sought after by the Big Three, as
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  they had experienced clay modelers.
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  They had people who really knew what they were doing.
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  In part, Studebaker being a much smaller firm, people were called
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  on to do a lot more, and this experience, uh, proved valuable.
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  We were up at EyesOn Design show, this was probably about 20 years
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  ago, going through the GM Tech Center Design department, and they were going
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  like, "Well, where are you guys from?"
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  "Oh, we're from the Studebaker Museum." He said, "Oh, yeah, we have a guy in our
• 10:42
  shop here who's actually…" You know, he was in his 80s then, but he would
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  come in a couple days a, a week and do some fine-tuning on the clay models
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  that they were working on up there.
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  It just absolutely amazed me that good for them.
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  Glad the legacy's living on.
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  Andy, you and I could probably geek out on Studebaker history and South Bend all
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  night, but I also don't wanna steal from your upcoming symposia presentations.
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  So let's switch gears and talk about the- Sure … museum, right, the
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  custodian of South Bend history.
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  So William, w- what are you thinking?
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  It's always interesting in regards to a museum starting.
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  There had to have been motivation, reason for it.
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  Obviously, the good reason would because of the Studebaker history
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  and the brand, but what was the exact motivation in regards to why was this
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  museum all of a sudden started, created?
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  And who was the person to actually say, "Hey, we need to have a museum"?
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  Well, it's kind of a roundabout way to get there, but Studebaker
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  started its corporate collection back in the late teens, 1918.
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  They had renovated their administration building.
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  They had a few vehicles which the company had collected, but they
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  actually formalized it into an actual museum around that time.
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  When the company closed, they gave their vehicle collection and the company
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  archives to the city of South Bend, Indiana, and the agreement was, and we
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  have a copy of the statute that governed that gift from Studebaker Corporation
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  to city of South Bend, Indiana, that the collection must be displayed in perpetuity
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  and it must be in a suitable home.
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  That was the legalese they put in there.
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  So the city received this gift of 37 vehicles and the company archives.
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  Well, the company archives was, like, three semi-trailers full of stuff.
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  The city had no way to do anything with that at that time Syracuse University was
• 12:15
  establishing a, uh, industrial history collection, so they said, "Great."
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  Off it went to Syracuse, and that was 1966 or so.
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  The collection was housed and displayed in the former Studebaker
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  administration building for a while, but then, uh, the city was having a
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  little tough time getting traction to get something together for that.
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  I mean, the wounds of Studebaker closing were still pretty
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  fresh in the early 1970s.
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  Eventually a n- a home was found in the new Century Center, convention
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  center in downtown South Bend.
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  They quickly outgrew that.
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  They ended up in a former Studebaker dealership building in South Bend.
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  But eventually we moved into our new home, current site of the Concord
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  Elegance at Copco Home, as well as the Automotive History Live, History Forum
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  in our West Washington Historic District in just west of downtown South Bend.
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  We are, uh, in brand-new facility, opened in 2005.
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  Just celebrated our 20th anniversary of that home, and, uh, great partnership
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  with our neighbors at the Northern Indiana Historical Society, namesake of Copco
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  Home, which our concourse named after, the Concord El- Elegance at Copco Home.
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  One of the top house museums in the company courtesy of the Oliver family.
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  I don't know if you guys have an agricultural background at all, but Oliver
• 13:18
  chilled plows were, you know, the finest plows in all the land, and they were made
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  right across the street from Studebaker, and they had a lovely mansion and a
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  lovely home, and now it's a great museum.
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  You've mentioned documents, archive that it went to Syracuse.
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  Now obviously it's back in South Bend.
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  How is that, I- I guess you say for a visitor coming in, is there a way for
• 13:36
  them to peruse it or kinda look up stuff, or is it just something on display?
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  I mean, 'cause obviously there was quite a bit that went to
• 13:43
  Syracuse and obviously came back.
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  Well, it's kind of a crazy story how that stuff ended up back in South Bend.
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  Turned out one of our trustees had written a letter to Syracuse saying,
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  "Hey, I know these three things are out there in these boxes. We would
• 13:57
  love to have them back," 'cause then the, uh, Discovery Hall Museum and the
• 14:00
  convention center was just opening.
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  And someone at Syracuse wrote back and said, "Well, you want everything back?"
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  And then the three semis came back- There you go.
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  … from Syracuse, and the, uh, company archives went through a couple
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  of different homes, and now we have a dedicated archive center.
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  But we are open to researchers.
• 14:15
  People reach out to me all the time actually looking for various related
• 14:18
  parts of Studebaker history, from some people looking for some information on
• 14:22
  perhaps a family member who worked there.
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  Unfortunately, we do not have employee records, but sometimes you can find a note
• 14:28
  in the company, uh, employee magazine, and we've had some luck with that.
• 14:31
  These two guys came into the archives one day, and they were-
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  quite clearly identical twins.
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  And he said, "Yeah, we were told that when we were born, our picture
• 14:38
  appeared in the company magazine."
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  It's like, "Okay, well this was pretty easy.
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  When were you born?" And they're, and I think he said, "Well, we're September,
• 14:44
  1943." Okay, we got out the 1943, 1944 issues, and 15 minutes later, yep,
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  there was a picture of these two guys on their dad's, uh, knee published
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  in the Studebaker Spotlight magazine.
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  And, uh, they were th- and it was such, and that's- Oh, that's cool.
• 14:57
  Yeah, that was s- such a neat thing.
• 14:59
  It's like, "Oh my God, we didn't know this was a thing." But we do a
• 15:02
  big business actually supplying, uh, technical drawings, engineering drawings
• 15:05
  to people reproducing Studebaker parts.
• 15:07
  In fact, weather strips of all things.
• 15:09
  Guys have been reproducing these things for years.
• 15:11
  Well, they're finding their tooling's getting worn out, and some of it
• 15:15
  was just reverse engineered from a new old stock part in the first
• 15:18
  place back in the early '70s.
• 15:19
  Well, now they're having to change suppliers.
• 15:21
  Well, they want, suppliers want new tooling.
• 15:23
  They call us and say, "Hey, can you get me this for a, a Novanti rear
• 15:26
  door weather strip, this part number?"
• 15:27
  It's like, "Sure." Send it off to them and they're happy.
• 15:30
  We get some cash in the process here.
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  And, uh, yeah, we're happy to help people however we can.
• 15:34
  They can check out the museum website.
• 15:36
  I have an archive section on there.
• 15:38
  We have an online photo library through Photo Shelter You just hunt for Studebaker
• 15:42
  archives at Photo Shelter, we're on there as well, and, uh, so many ways
• 15:45
  that, uh, you can get ahold of us.
• 15:47
  'Cause you hear quite a bit on, I would say, extinct car companies
• 15:50
  or even current ones, they were not very good in regards to documenting
• 15:55
  history and holding onto it.
• 15:56
  Now, you hear us saying trying to research something.
• 15:58
  Yeah.
• 15:58
  I mean, who was behind that in the beginning?
• 16:01
  Did they, like, have it in their head, "Hey, we need to preserve
• 16:03
  all this because of history"?
• 16:05
  I mean, what was the motivation or was it just, hey, they were very, very
• 16:08
  diligent in regards to keeping everything?
• 16:11
  They kept a lot of important things, and then it, it, it's … I'm
• 16:14
  continually amazed what we have, and then I'm also, you know, banging my
• 16:17
  head against the wall saying, why did they get rid of that in the process?
• 16:20
  But case in point is the horse-drawn era technical drawings.
• 16:25
  We know they were there during World War II.
• 16:27
  A Studebaker employee told a story of s- a farmer wrote to the company, like,
• 16:32
  right after he started in, like, the early '40s, and says, "Hey, I have a
• 16:35
  Studebaker wagon. I broke my wheel hub. Is there any way I can get a new one?"
• 16:39
  So he found out all the horse-drawn equipment drawings were in the
• 16:42
  top floor of one of the buildings in one part of the property.
• 16:44
  So he said he went over there, hunted, he found the drawing for the wheel
• 16:47
  hub, he took it to the guys in the wood shop, and they're like, "Can you
• 16:49
  make this?" "Yeah, we can make that."
• 16:50
  So they made him a new hub, and he says, "I boxed it up, sent it off to
• 16:53
  the guy, didn't even send him a bill." He says, "I always wondered what he
• 16:56
  thought when he opened the box and saw a brand-new hub freshly made for his
• 16:59
  Studebaker wagon." Well, that's cool.
• 17:01
  That stuff didn't survive past the 1950s.
• 17:04
  So that was tossed at some time when it was determined, you know,
• 17:07
  what would we ever need, you know?
• 17:08
  Yeah.
• 17:09
  Are we gonna wait for another guy who needs a wheel hub
• 17:11
  for a Studebaker farm wagon?
• 17:12
  The engineering department's files were destroyed after they closed the
• 17:16
  South Bend plant in World War II.
• 17:18
  The head of the engineering department described that as, you know, the most
• 17:21
  distasteful task he e- ever had to undertake, as they were literally
• 17:24
  just incinerating engineering files.
• 17:26
  He kept a handful of things, and that was all.
• 17:28
  So every test, every experimental vehicle, everything behind the scenes
• 17:33
  that was done was tossed and destroyed, presumably from a liability standpoint.
• 17:37
  But by the same token, this was a couple years ago, someone wrote
• 17:41
  in s- you know, wrote an email saying, "Hey, I have a 1908 Packard.
• 17:45
  Is there any chance you have the drawings for the tool bag?" You know,
• 17:48
  the little canvas tool bag that goes in with the spare parts and everything.
• 17:52
  And he sent me the part numbers, and sure enough, we had it.
• 17:54
  You know, this little drawing saying, you know, "Use this material," you know,
• 17:57
  something pound grade canvas with this stitching here, use this cotton thread.
• 18:01
  And it's like, goodness, you know?
• 18:02
  That stuff's still there, and we are far better off as Studebaker
• 18:06
  owners and Packard owners for what's still there than a- any number of
• 18:09
  companies I could name where that stuff just got tossed wholesale.
• 18:11
  Well, you know what's cool with that, too, is, you know, with the museum
• 18:14
  itself, you can kind of go through almost the whole history, starting with the
• 18:17
  horse-drawn carriages and the buggies.
• 18:19
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:19
  And then you're going into the teens of the cars and stuff like
• 18:22
  that, and how they just progressed.
• 18:24
  It's always interesting to me to see how, like, the jumps happened.
• 18:26
  You know, there's always those, like, increments- Yeah … where it's like a
• 18:28
  10 year or five, 10 years, and you're like, "Wow, they took a big leap here."
• 18:31
  I think it's really cool to see, and you could walk that, do this whole thing, do
• 18:35
  the museum, the show field, everything.
• 18:37
  The walking tour and the architectural tour, too.
• 18:39
  I mean, you can take it all in.
• 18:41
  South Bend's a really cool town in regards to that, you know,
• 18:44
  and the style they had there.
• 18:45
  They're gorgeous houses.
• 18:47
  Well, uh, kind of on that line, uh, there's a Frank Lloyd Wright
• 18:50
  house just down, uh, about three houses down from the museum.
• 18:53
  It's an Airbnb.
• 18:54
  People are coming in for the concour.
• 18:55
  I, I don't think anyone's booked it yet, but you could stay at a Frank
• 18:58
  Lloyd Wright house, and how perfect would that would be for a celebration
• 19:01
  of, uh, design and, uh, innovation?
• 19:04
  Yeah, I was just at a show over the weekend.
• 19:05
  Incredible selection of cars, 'cause it was the, uh, Classic Car America…
• 19:10
  You know, it's got a long name.
• 19:11
  But anyways, they had- Yeah … a bunch of Packards there to s- I
• 19:13
  mean, it was just incredible seeing what those cars were and the detail.
• 19:16
  You know, back then, no CAD, no computers.
• 19:19
  Nope.
• 19:19
  Everything's hand-drawn on a board, your slide ru- everything like that,
• 19:23
  and just, it's just impressive.
• 19:24
  You know, being able to access that stuff's just incredible.
• 19:26
  I mean, that's just awesome to see.
• 19:28
  Yeah.
• 19:28
  As Studebaker owners and Packard owners too, we have the Packard
• 19:32
  materials because Studebaker and Packard merged in the early '50s.
• 19:35
  All that stuff came down from Detroit, you know, the surviving
• 19:38
  Packard technical materials.
• 19:40
  A lot of it just kind of sat around.
• 19:42
  I don't think anyone really worried about it too much, and yeah, still there.
• 19:46
  So I'm glad you bring that up.
• 19:47
  And then you hear stories about famous people that have walked the
• 19:50
  halls of Studebaker/Packard, you know, when they were merged- Mm-hmm
• 19:53
  and things like that.
• 19:53
  There is a distinctly separate Packard Museum from the Studebaker Museum.
• 19:59
  Why are they separated, or is there reciprocity between the two of you?
• 20:03
  There's actually three Packard museums, depending how you wanna define your terms.
• 20:06
  So there's the Packard Proving Ground, kind of in
• 20:09
  northwestern Metro Detroit area.
• 20:11
  You know, great folks up there.
• 20:12
  They occupy the former Packard test facility up there and with
• 20:15
  a little vehicle collection.
• 20:16
  They have some Packard archives as well.
• 20:18
  Fine folks up there.
• 20:19
  There's also a Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio.
• 20:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:23
  It's the National Packard Museum.
• 20:24
  And then you have the Citizens Motor Car Company, America's
• 20:27
  Packard Museum, in Dayton, Ohio.
• 20:29
  So I can't give you the rhyme or reasons for where it is, and certainly out of
• 20:33
  preservation efforts, uh, Warren was kind of the ancestral home of the Packard
• 20:37
  Motor Car Company before they got their start there, before moving on to Detroit.
• 20:41
  The one in Dayton, Ohio was a Packard dealership back in the day, and really
• 20:45
  started more as, I don't wanna say private collection, more of a gentleman's
• 20:48
  collection who sought to really make a true Packard fan, and that's a
• 20:52
  wonderful s- We just had our auto museums conference for the National Association of
• 20:55
  Automobile Museums there this past April.
• 20:58
  A couple years ago before that, we were actually at the Henry Ford Museum in,
• 21:01
  in Dearborn, and we did a day up at the Packard Proving Grounds up there.
• 21:05
  You know, it's great that all the preservation work is going on.
• 21:07
  You know, so many companies, defunct company fans wish they had, you
• 21:11
  know, just one collection, but to have a great resource like that.
• 21:14
  And yeah, great people at each place.
• 21:15
  We work with them all the time and can't say enough good things about them.
• 21:18
  So does that mean that Studebaker National Museum holds at least the
• 21:22
  paper archives for Packard, or did that get shipped to Warren, Ohio?
• 21:26
  I haven't gone too far down that rabbit hole, but some of the engineering drawings
• 21:31
  are up at Proving Grounds in Detroit area.
• 21:33
  Some other materials are over in Warren, and the one in Dayton, they actually
• 21:39
  have, like, one of the big lintels that says Packard from above the Packard
• 21:42
  factory, one of the main entry doors.
• 21:44
  They have that down there, and it's… You know, the stuff was going
• 21:47
  somewhere and, you know, people were in the right place at the right time.
• 21:50
  And, you know, and again, I'm just thrilled that as much of
• 21:52
  it got preserved as it did.
• 21:54
  But there's only one Studebaker Museum, as far as you know.
• 21:57
  There is only one Studebaker Museum.
• 21:59
  Yeah.
• 22:00
  There are a couple other private collections adopt the land, and
• 22:02
  actually there's a, there's a tremendous collection of Studebakers down in, uh,
• 22:07
  Osorno, Chile, in South America too.
• 22:09
  Auto Museum Monchampulli in Osorno, Chile.
• 22:12
  But yeah, as far as, you know, we, we are kind of the home base,
• 22:15
  the central repository for all things Studebaker in North America.
• 22:18
  So William started this off talking about what people would expect
• 22:22
  to see the first time they pay a visit to the Studebaker Museum.
• 22:25
  From your perspective as the, the head archivist, what's something in
• 22:29
  the collection that always sparks a conversation, gets people to go, "Well, I
• 22:33
  didn't know that was a thing," or a story that you really like telling even though
• 22:37
  you've told it, like, a thousand times?
• 22:39
  It, it's so much of discovery.
• 22:41
  I wish I could say there's kind of one typical story.
• 22:43
  Probably the biggest thing we hear is people who walk in- And maybe only
• 22:46
  vaguely familiar with Studebaker from fathers or grandfathers, you know, it
• 22:50
  was the family car back in the day, or they heard the name somewhere, or
• 22:54
  they're new to the community and they see Studebaker School and Studebaker
• 22:56
  Street, and we have a bakery in
• 22:59
  town, Studebakels.
• 23:01
  Seriously.
• 23:01
  We'll maybe get, get some to-go there, uh, when you guys come
• 23:04
  to town in a few weeks here.
• 23:05
  But usually it's like they had no idea that Studebaker was in the
• 23:08
  horse-drawn vehicle business, 'cause they walk in our… Most of our
• 23:10
  main floor is horse-drawn vehicles.
• 23:13
  And then once they find that, and then to realize the scope of
• 23:15
  Studebaker in its horse-drawn era.
• 23:17
  We have the world's largest collection of presidential carriages.
• 23:20
  We have the carriage Abraham Lincoln took to Ford's Theatre
• 23:22
  the night of his assassination.
• 23:23
  We have a carriage the Marquis de Lafayette used on his tour of the
• 23:26
  United States from back in 1824.
• 23:28
  We have Studebaker carriages that belonged to Presidents
• 23:31
  Harrison and Presidents McKinley.
• 23:33
  We have another carriage used by President Grant during his term in office.
• 23:36
  We have a pony cart used by Dwight Eisenhower on his, uh, farm
• 23:39
  near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
• 23:41
  And you look at it, you know, through the eyes of history, going back to
• 23:44
  the pre-Civil War era, there was Studebaker was there the entire time.
• 23:48
  They were, supplied wagons for the Union Army during the, the Civil War.
• 23:52
  One of their divisions was making, uh, the heat shields for the,
• 23:56
  uh, Mercury spacecrafts during the Space Race of the 1960s.
• 23:59
  It's just a fantastic scope of history.
• 24:01
  Yes, but do you have Fozzie Bear's 1951 Bulletnose?
• 24:06
  Yes, we do.
• 24:08
  Ah, nice.
• 24:09
  Yes, we do.
• 24:11
  Yeah, we have the screen-used, one of the screen-used 1951 Studebaker
• 24:15
  Commanders from The Muppet Movie.
• 24:17
  In fact, we just completed the restoration of that vehicle to its
• 24:20
  screen-used appearance, and shout out to the guys at Razorfly Studios
• 24:24
  down in North Carolina who really shepherded that project along for us.
• 24:27
  But, uh, yeah, you know, it's nice to have a touchstone with something
• 24:30
  that's still kind of actively in the pop culture, uh, you know, arena.
• 24:33
  And, uh, yeah, who doesn't love Muppets?
• 24:35
  It's, it… We, we debuted the car at our concour last year, and when we opened
• 24:39
  up the curtains, it's like you could hear a smile come over the entire room.
• 24:42
  It's just so many good vibes that exude off that car.
• 24:45
  I believe the quote is waka waka, but we'll leave that where it is.
• 24:49
  So we talked about some other museums earlier, Andy.
• 24:52
  For those of us that are sort of in the know on how museums work, and this is
• 24:55
  even art galleries are like this and other types of museums, who's in your network?
• 25:00
  Who do you partner with?
• 25:01
  Who do you exchange ideas with or meet with?
• 25:04
  Is it all Midwestern automotive museums, or do you work with
• 25:07
  places like the Revs Institute?
• 25:09
  Tell us about your extended network.
• 25:11
  In the nonprofit world, it's all about the partnerships.
• 25:13
  It's all around collaborations.
• 25:15
  We have a wonderful museum organization, as I mentioned, the National
• 25:18
  Association of Automobile Museums.
• 25:20
  I know, Eric, you're on the board of Society of Automotive Historians.
• 25:23
  I'm a past board member and past president.
• 25:24
  I've leaned on people from there.
• 25:26
  You know, made some great friends through that group.
• 25:28
  We'll be leaning on those guys some more for the, uh, upcoming
• 25:31
  Automotive History Live Conference.
• 25:33
  We have a vehicle on loan to us from the Classic Car Club of America up in Gilmore.
• 25:37
  Right now, we have a- our current exhibit, feature exhibit, is called
• 25:40
  Five Driven Women, and it focuses on the stories behind these five
• 25:43
  female-owned and driven classic era cars from the teens up through the 1930s.
• 25:48
  And the Singleton Collection out in Los Angeles, uh, loaned us, uh, I believe
• 25:50
  it was a 1911 Simplex for that exhibit, and- It's amazing just, I don't wanna
• 25:56
  say the unlikely partnerships, but just you may not think of a certain
• 25:59
  path to get somewhere until you pick up the phone and give someone a call
• 26:02
  and say, "Hey, we're doing this.
• 26:04
  Would you be interested in talking some more about X, Y, Z?" By and large, you
• 26:07
  know, people usually pretty happy to at least talk about it, and y- you would get
• 26:11
  some great things that come out of that.
• 26:13
  Do you do anything with ACD?
• 26:14
  And that's Auburn Cord Duesenberg.
• 26:16
  Brandon Anderson, the director at ACD, used to work at the
• 26:20
  History Museum in South Bend.
• 26:21
  In fact, he and I were neighbors in South Bend.
• 26:23
  We'll be seeing Brandon, uh, for our, the Concor in a few weeks here.
• 26:27
  You know, great relationship with them.
• 26:28
  They're good friends and good people and, uh, yeah, we work
• 26:31
  together all the time, you know?
• 26:32
  It's … And we're blessed in the upper Midwest here with kind
• 26:35
  of the convenience of geography.
• 26:37
  We're pretty easy to get to whether you, you know, you can fly into
• 26:40
  Chicago or Detroit or Indianapolis, but you can go see within the span
• 26:43
  of a couple days Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in Indianapolis.
• 26:47
  About 100 miles away is Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum north
• 26:50
  of there in Auburn, Indiana.
• 26:51
  We're about 100 miles away from Auburn over here in South Bend.
• 26:55
  Then you can head up to Hickory Corners, take advantage of Classic Car
• 26:59
  Club of America Museum, the Gilmore Museum, and all their ancillary brand
• 27:02
  museums they have up there, and there's even some smaller collection there.
• 27:05
  And frankly, once you get to Kalamazoo and Gilmore, you're not that far
• 27:09
  away from the Henry Ford Museum.
• 27:10
  And in turn, once you're in Hen- Dearborn, you can go up
• 27:12
  and see Packard Proving Yards.
• 27:14
  You can go see the Stahls Auto Collection.
• 27:15
  Now, we've literally had guys that's like, they'll be cruising through and
• 27:18
  say, "Oh, we're heading up here next. Yeah, we took a week and we just flew in
• 27:20
  here and we're, we're making the trip."
• 27:22
  Overseas people as well, they, they'll come and spend a, a ton of time and
• 27:25
  all the car guys heading their way.
• 27:27
  You know, sometimes people will bookend it on a trip making a loop from Hershey even
• 27:30
  around the time of the Hershey Car Show.
• 27:32
  Yeah, it's incredible how many different museums are in that sphere
• 27:36
  or triangle, however you might wanna do it, from basically Detroit over and
• 27:40
  down to you guys, and it's incredible.
• 27:42
  And a lot of people aren't aware of it.
• 27:43
  They like know a couple, then you say, "Well, you can go here,
• 27:45
  too." And, and, you know, Jonathan Summers is, he's driving whenever-
• 27:49
  Yeah … you're participating.
• 27:50
  Same thing 'cause he was right off a couple, saying, "Well, you could go
• 27:52
  here, too." And here, he's like, "Wait, what?" He wasn't aware of quite a few of
• 27:55
  these that he could also stop on the way.
• 27:58
  It's like Disneyland for the automotive people, in essence.
• 28:01
  Just, just it's a little bit more spread out, but I mean, you
• 28:03
  could touch and hit everything.
• 28:05
  It's awesome.
• 28:06
  Disneyland, it feels like a wine tour on a bachelorette party.
• 28:09
  It's like, you know, or like- … what, what is it?
• 28:11
  The whiskey trail in Kentucky?
• 28:13
  Yeah.
• 28:13
  Are you just gonna hit one distillery after the next?
• 28:15
  Yeah, we, it's a hydrocarbon trail for us, I guess.
• 28:18
  A petroleum trail or something.
• 28:19
  There you go.
• 28:19
  But, and I just kind of hit the highlights there but, you know, when
• 28:22
  you're in Auburn, you've got the Early Ford V8 Museum over there,
• 28:25
  the National Auto and Truck Museum.
• 28:26
  Over in Elkhart, Indiana, the RV capital of the world, the RV Museum
• 28:31
  and Hall of Fame over there as well.
• 28:32
  I mean, it's, you know, how far does your, your wheeled vehicle vice take you?
• 28:36
  And, you know, there, there's something for everyone.
• 28:38
  I stopped listening when you said Elkhart, 'cause I thought
• 28:40
  you were gonna say Road America.
• 28:41
  So you lo- you lost me on the RV thing.
• 28:42
  Nah.
• 28:45
  But I get your point.
• 28:45
  It's there, really.
• 28:46
  I swear.
• 28:47
  Yeah.
• 28:48
  Well, let's switch gears to one of William's favorite topics, and
• 28:52
  that's car shows and concours.
• 28:54
  He goes to more of them than anybody I know, so this is his area of expertise.
• 28:58
  Let's talk about the concours at Copse Home.
• 29:01
  Yeah.
• 29:02
  Tell us about the name, history behind that.
• 29:04
  A- as I said before, I should know how to pronounce it 'cause I am a
• 29:07
  majority, my bloodline is Scottish.
• 29:09
  But tell us about the name and how it came about, and what was the thought behind it.
• 29:12
  'Cause obviously there's usually a mission behind when you do concours
• 29:15
  and what they wanna showcase.
• 29:16
  Yeah, this, this came about kind of on the heels of, there was the Concours on
• 29:20
  the Bluff up in St. Joseph, Michigan, and they'd been going for a while.
• 29:24
  St. Joe, if people aren't familiar, it's a town on Lake Michigan about,
• 29:27
  yeah, 30, 45 miles north of South Bend.
• 29:29
  Just a wonderful little kind of touristy town, but they have a
• 29:31
  wonderful art museum up there.
• 29:33
  And they, in conjunction with that is actually former director of one of
• 29:36
  the other museums up there, started this little concours on the bluff,
• 29:39
  and they have this wonderful road out in front looking over Lake Michigan.
• 29:42
  Well, eventually they were getting some pushback from the city saying,
• 29:45
  "Yeah, we'd really not rather have you blocking off the bluff for, you know,
• 29:48
  an entire weekend at this time of year."
• 29:50
  And they decided to fold up the concours, but came to us and said, "We have the
• 29:54
  resources here. You know, your grounds around the museum and the Copse Home
• 29:58
  mansion would be an ideal spot for a car show." Well, we'd been thinking
• 30:01
  the same thing for some time, but we didn't really know much about how do
• 30:05
  you get this going from off the ground.
• 30:07
  And well, we were able to come to a agreement there to, you know, share
• 30:10
  some of the info, and we kicked off the Concours d'Elegance at Copse Home in 2018.
• 30:15
  And Kopach Home is the ancestral home of the Oliver family.
• 30:18
  We mentioned the Oliver plow just a bit ago, and the Olivers built
• 30:21
  this palatial mansion, I think it's 36 rooms or something like that,
• 30:26
  just west of downtown South Bend.
• 30:28
  And they gave it to the Northern Indiana Historical Society back
• 30:32
  in the late '80s, early '90s.
• 30:34
  When I say they gave it, it wasn't like the house was standing empty.
• 30:37
  It's like they left everything in the house, handed the keys over, and
• 30:39
  said, "See you." Mr. Oliver's shaving brushes are still in the bathroom.
• 30:44
  There's all the silver, all, you know, the summer furniture was in the basement.
• 30:47
  This is one of the top house museums in the country, as far as
• 30:51
  you walk in there and you actually can believe people lived here.
• 30:53
  It's not like it was turned into a restaurant or a hotel or a law office.
• 30:57
  It was always a residence until they handed the keys over to the
• 31:00
  Northern Indiana Historical Society.
• 31:02
  And they opened their adjoining museum in the early '90s.
• 31:05
  We joined the campus in 2005, and that was one of the things we were looking to
• 31:09
  really expand, you know, kind of develop a signature program for the museum,
• 31:12
  signature automotive thing, and going to different shows like St. Johns and, uh,
• 31:16
  Glenmore Gathering near Canton, Ohio.
• 31:19
  We're like, "This is something we'd love to do." The opportunity
• 31:21
  presented itself, and we took it off.
• 31:24
  As I said, 2018 was our first year.
• 31:26
  We're blessed with great weather and a great show field, and we've just been
• 31:29
  trying to build off it ever since then.
• 31:31
  Yeah, it's great to see.
• 31:31
  I mean, it, from starting in 2018 till now, I mean, it's still
• 31:35
  a relatively young concourse.
• 31:37
  Yeah.
• 31:38
  But you wouldn't know that looking at it, 'cause it, it see- you
• 31:41
  know, the history is already established, which is fantastic.
• 31:44
  'Cause that's the one thing you see, some of these ones that just start
• 31:47
  up, is trying to get their identity.
• 31:48
  Who are we trying to draw?
• 31:49
  But you guys nailed it right out of the gate.
• 31:52
  Well, thank you.
• 31:53
  Appreciate that.
• 31:53
  You know, some of it was, the first year you don't know what you don't know yet.
• 31:57
  I always point to things you think will be pressure points, but you never
• 32:00
  know until it actually comes to pass.
• 32:02
  And we, we had some tremendous advisors.
• 32:04
  Matt Short, who's a friend of mine, really my mentor in this business.
• 32:07
  He's been at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum for a lot of years.
• 32:10
  He was director at the Ariels Transportation Museum, director
• 32:13
  at the Packard Museum in Dayton.
• 32:15
  He cut his teeth at the Henry Ford Museum, uh, many moons ago.
• 32:17
  Actually, Matt and our fellow, uh, SH board member, Mary Seelhorst,
• 32:22
  actually shared an office up at Henry Ford Museum many years ago.
• 32:25
  And he's been our chief judge from day one.
• 32:27
  I mean, the man has forgotten more about classic automobiles and old
• 32:30
  cars than I will ever know, and he's really helped us along there.
• 32:33
  Uh, David Schultz, who was, um, the head honcho behind the, uh, Glenmore
• 32:38
  Gathering in Canton, Ohio, just became a real good friend to the museum.
• 32:42
  Tremendously respected that man and how he put together a show, and he freely
• 32:45
  shared his time and knowledge with us, saying, "Now, here's what to do,
• 32:49
  here's, you know, what we did," you know.
• 32:50
  And he was never like, "You have to do this." He was always, you know,
• 32:53
  very willing to share his experiences and, and eventually he graced us,
• 32:56
  uh, as a judge in our second year there, and he kept coming back.
• 33:00
  Uh, we lost David just a couple years ago, but his name lives on and, uh,
• 33:03
  we have the David Schultz Award for the most outstanding full classic as
• 33:06
  part of our concours in recognition of his contributions to our event.
• 33:09
  Our show field is such that we're limited in our size by our physical
• 33:12
  footprint, and, uh, we started coining the term boutique concours.
• 33:15
  That's how we describe ourselves.
• 33:17
  You know, we only have 85 to 90 cars max.
• 33:21
  You know, Pebble's got a couple hundred, probably pushing 300 in Amelia.
• 33:24
  And we, we realize that.
• 33:25
  We're not trying to be that, but we're just trying to be an, as David and I
• 33:29
  were talking, you know, trying to be the little jewel box of a concours where
• 33:31
  you're gonna see something you're not gonna see at the cruise-in at Culver's on
• 33:35
  a Wednesday night or anything like that.
• 33:36
  But really, really bring some unique automobiles to the show field and
• 33:39
  show the, you know, the visitor something they haven't seen before
• 33:42
  Yeah, I think that's critical.
• 33:44
  You don't wanna go to one and you're seeing everything over and over again,
• 33:47
  you know, week in, week out, going to different events and everything like that.
• 33:50
  And having, you know, the unique and say the best of the best, and
• 33:53
  people wanna see that because, you know, one, it's just eye candy,
• 33:57
  especially those cars from back then.
• 33:59
  They're just so elegant.
• 34:00
  They're so gorgeous.
• 34:01
  I mean, the minute detail, I mean, everything.
• 34:03
  Just, like, the bolts, I mean, it's just, it's incredible.
• 34:05
  It's awesome to see that 'cause the other thing, too, is, you know, you can
• 34:08
  take your time looking at the vehicles.
• 34:11
  You know, you go to Amelia, Pebble, that kind of stuff, I don't wanna say you gotta
• 34:14
  rush yourself, but you wanna have that fear of missing out type of situations.
• 34:18
  "I, I gotta see everything.
• 34:19
  You know, I gotta
• 34:19
  Let's hurry up.
• 34:20
  I gotta get the next car." There, you can take your time and really soak it in.
• 34:24
  The owners are so generous and gracious in regards to, one, sharing their vehicles,
• 34:28
  but two, talking about them, you know, and giving you the history behind it.
• 34:31
  So I mean, it's excellent.
• 34:32
  I can't say enough good things either about our, our exhibitors
• 34:35
  over the years who ultimately they are what make the show.
• 34:38
  You can have the nicest grounds and everything in the world, but if you don't
• 34:40
  have owners willing to come out and, you know, certainly take time out of
• 34:43
  their busy schedules and a fair amount of personal expense to come out and
• 34:46
  show their cars, you- you're nowhere.
• 34:48
  We've been absolutely, uh, overwhelmed with the response we've gotten
• 34:51
  since we've started doing this.
• 34:52
  And sometimes it'll be just a casual conversation with someone, you know,
• 34:56
  not even related to the show itself.
• 34:58
  It's like, "Oh, you know, well, I've got a Lincoln Continental Mark II
• 35:00
  as part of my collection. You know, I'd love to come out and show that
• 35:03
  sometime." Great, we'd love to have you.
• 35:05
  You know, it, it's things like that that come about and, you know, having
• 35:08
  the smaller, and also having the, the location with the museums are on site.
• 35:11
  Both museums are open all day.
• 35:12
  Your show admission gets you into both facilities.
• 35:15
  You know, we got plenty of shade trees.
• 35:16
  The bathrooms and creature comforts are nearby, so it's, uh, it's
• 35:20
  worked pretty well for us, and we're just hoping to really build on the
• 35:22
  event and, uh, and keep it going.
• 35:24
  How do you handle that delicate, "Nah, we don't need your car"?
• 35:30
  Well, it's- That's delicate.
• 35:33
  Yeah, sh- it's not a pleasant conversation to have.
• 35:35
  No.
• 35:35
  But usually we have limited space.
• 35:37
  We can only fit so many vehicles on the field, and, uh, short of
• 35:41
  stacking cars on end, you know, we're not gonna pack much more on there.
• 35:44
  And, you know, at times, you know, I'll, I've made more than
• 35:46
  one call to say, "Thank you so much for submitting your car.
• 35:49
  We'd absolutely love to have you.
• 35:51
  We only have room for eight vehicles in this class, and we
• 35:53
  had 25 applicants, and I'm sorry.
• 35:56
  We hate to say no to really nice cars, and please consider applying
• 35:59
  next year when, or the year after when we have classes that'll fit for
• 36:02
  you." And most people understand that.
• 36:03
  Anyone who we do say no to, we always, in the letter letting them
• 36:06
  know that unfortunately we cannot accept them, we'll put in a couple
• 36:09
  of passes for that year's event, too.
• 36:10
  So if they wanna come out and check things out, that's on us.
• 36:13
  People are attending the concours, how would you say, "Here's my recommendation
• 36:16
  how to," say, "approach it or attack it"?
• 36:18
  Like, where would you say, "Hey, go here, then go here, then go here"?
• 36:22
  I mean, what would you recommend to someone that's attending the
• 36:24
  concours for the first time?
• 36:25
  I'd recommend get there early.
• 36:27
  Gates open at 10:00.
• 36:28
  You can even buy your tickets ahead of time through the concours website.
• 36:31
  Get there right away in the morning.
• 36:32
  That's when things are still getting, uh, settled in.
• 36:35
  You c- that way you can take advantage of any of the
• 36:37
  programming we have during the day.
• 36:38
  If you don't wanna look at cars for the entire time of the show, we're also
• 36:41
  offering some, uh, historic walking tours of the neighboring historic,
• 36:44
  uh, West Washington Street District.
• 36:46
  Oh, cool.
• 36:47
  Yeah.
• 36:47
  We've got the programs going on.
• 36:49
  Second day of the Automotive History Live forum going on during the
• 36:52
  Concours are the ones that are mostly related to the brands on display.
• 36:55
  We're featuring Pontiac and Auburn this year.
• 36:58
  You can come and, uh, check out our, our old pal Tom Cotter, the Barn Find Hunter.
• 37:01
  He'll be on-hand as well, and he'll be doing a book signing during the day.
• 37:05
  But there's so many things.
• 37:06
  There are g- you know, if it's a warm day, go into the museum.
• 37:08
  We're air-conditioned and you can see our latest exhibits.
• 37:11
  Just allow yourself plenty of time.
• 37:13
  Don't feel rushed.
• 37:14
  There's plenty of stuff to do.
• 37:15
  You just make the big circle around the mansion and you're gonna take
• 37:18
  in everything and maybe even go back again and catch something you missed.
• 37:21
  I come from the motor sports world.
• 37:23
  When I was first taken under the wing of some of the guys from the classic
• 37:27
  car space, they were like, "So let me teach you how this all works."
• 37:30
  And the one word that stuck was classes and classing, 'cause that's
• 37:33
  something I knew from autocross and club racing and stuff like that, is
• 37:36
  I gotta put a car in its class to compete with other cars in its class.
• 37:40
  But the same is true of collector cars and car shows and Concours.
• 37:44
  Yeah.
• 37:44
  So I've come to terms with that, but I've also come to realize that some Concours
• 37:50
  are very strict in their classing.
• 37:52
  They run these classes every year.
• 37:55
  To your point, we only accept, you said eight cars in that class, and
• 37:58
  we got 25, we have to turn some away.
• 38:00
  But I come to find out that the Concours at Copps Home changed the classes.
• 38:04
  There are some static classes, but you change them up every year.
• 38:07
  What does the classing look like this year compared to previous years?
• 38:11
  We generally have, you know, a couple featured marks.
• 38:14
  Just about every Concours does that something, and this year
• 38:16
  we're featuring Auburns and Cords.
• 38:18
  Uh, again, talk about the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum.
• 38:21
  They'll be on-hand featuring Duesenbergs this year, celebrating
• 38:24
  the Pontiac centennial.
• 38:25
  So we actually have a class for Pontiacs and a class for GTOs.
• 38:29
  Everything's shaping up pretty nicely.
• 38:30
  But then we also like to have some fun, too.
• 38:32
  We want, we love the diversity and well, like we're doing a class of vintage
• 38:35
  motorcycles this year, and that, uh, we have some wonderful bikes, even going
• 38:39
  a Mead Aerothrust bike from the teens.
• 38:42
  You'll see it when, well, you'll see it when you guys come out here.
• 38:44
  You know, up to a, we got a late '60s Triumph, a couple
• 38:46
  Harleys, an Indian mixed in.
• 38:48
  You know, a little bit of everything.
• 38:49
  But, you know, ultimately we wanna show the variety of the automotive spectrum.
• 38:53
  We're always gonna have classes of like a, you know, something
• 38:55
  from the full classic area.
• 38:56
  We like to have something from overseas.
• 38:58
  We're doing a European economy class this year.
• 39:01
  So, you know, not necessarily bargain basement, but something
• 39:04
  cheaper than a Ferrari, a Lambo, or a Jaguar on the field.
• 39:07
  So we have, I think, everything from a Alfa Romeo Giulia little sedan from 1968
• 39:12
  to a Volvo 1800 to, uh, an Amphicar to, uh, it's a little bit of everything.
• 39:17
  We want everyone to have a good time, first and foremost.
• 39:20
  That economy, the European thing is awesome.
• 39:22
  You know, obviously that's gonna attract a younger demographic and attendee, but
• 39:27
  how much does that play a role and say, "Hey, you know, we wanna try and draw this
• 39:29
  crowd. Uh, what, what should we go after?" Well, and William, you're 100% right,
• 39:33
  because when he set that up, I wasn't thinking Alfa Julias and Volvo P1800s.
• 39:38
  I was thinking Volkswagen GTIs and Sciroccos- Yeah, me
• 39:41
  too … and stuff like that.
• 39:42
  And I'm like, "That's a European economy car. Like, what are we talking about
• 39:45
  here?" That's right up your alley, Eric.
• 39:47
  By the way, if, if anyone wants to send an email to me with a Mark 1 GTI, you're
• 39:51
  still there, 'cause I owned one of those when I was in college, and, uh, yeah,
• 39:55
  that's on the very short list of cars I really, really loved and wish I still had.
• 39:58
  But yeah, you just gotta, you know, invariably you're implying if
• 40:02
  someone goes to the effort to buy the ticket, we're thinking they must
• 40:04
  have some interest in automobiles.
• 40:06
  And, you know, with the diversity on the show field, you're gonna hopefully find
• 40:10
  something you like, and hopefully that might lead you to something else that
• 40:12
  you either didn't know anything about or maybe you didn't fully appreciate
• 40:15
  until you see it sitting there.
• 40:17
  And, uh, you know, you can take a little something home with you from
• 40:19
  something you learned that day.
• 40:20
  And I think one other thing that's unique to your concours is imitation is
• 40:25
  a sincere form of flattery, as we know.
• 40:26
  I think you guys pulled a page out of Amelia's playbook.
• 40:30
  You do a fun class every year, and this year's fun class is
• 40:33
  exceptionally entertaining.
• 40:35
  Well, we try, we try and do some fun things.
• 40:37
  I mean, it's, it, you kind of have the loose categories.
• 40:39
  I mean, we're the Studebaker Museum.
• 40:41
  We have to do a Studebaker class every year, and, uh, you know, certainly
• 40:45
  that's always gonna be a part of it.
• 40:46
  We're always gonna have- You know, something with the full classics.
• 40:49
  We want to do something with the very early stuff.
• 40:51
  But yeah, something more contemporary, too.
• 40:53
  One of the most fun classes we've done in recent memories was the Disco Decade
• 40:56
  rides, where it was Luxo barges from the 1970s by and large, and, uh, I grew
• 41:01
  up in the '70s, and, you know, even in my mind's eye I'm like, "Gosh, I didn't
• 41:05
  realize how massive these things were," until we put them on the show field.
• 41:08
  That decreased the amount of cars you could have on the field at that point.
• 41:12
  What I meant to get at was the Concours de Lemons.
• 41:14
  Oh, yes, yes, yes.
• 41:16
  Well, the, as we mentioned, you know, we're trying to expand our
• 41:18
  footprint of the, uh, Concours.
• 41:21
  I am a proud, uh, co-owner of a 24 Hours of Lemons racing team.
• 41:25
  Proud winners of the Index of Effluence at GingerIn back in 2024.
• 41:29
  But, you know, just, uh, tremendous, we've had a wonderful time.
• 41:32
  And again, uh, we can either thank or blame our pal Mary Sealhurst
• 41:36
  for introducing me to Lemons.
• 41:38
  Yeah, we say, "Well, what about, you know, what about doing, like, a Concours
• 41:40
  de Lemons?" Reached out to Alan.
• 41:42
  Yeah, managed to put it together, so that'll be part of Friday's activities
• 41:46
  concurrent with the Automotive History Live showcase, and then, you know,
• 41:49
  that'll segue right into Saturday.
• 41:50
  So, hopefully people can come in and, uh, check out the whole weekend with us.
• 41:54
  Lot, lot of fun stuff going on.
• 41:55
  Well, since you went there, let's segue into your latest addition
• 41:59
  in this Studebaker layer cake.
• 42:01
  As we've been building up here, it seems like one thing begets the next.
• 42:05
  This has actually been in the making for several years.
• 42:08
  Let's talk about the birth, finally, of Automotive History
• 42:11
  Live and what that's all about.
• 42:13
  Well, yeah, and it, you know, as we've mentioned, the, we're all kind of
• 42:16
  tied into the Society of Automotive Historians, and they've been doing their
• 42:20
  automotive history conferences, oh gosh, going back to when I first joined the
• 42:24
  organization back in the early 2000s.
• 42:26
  And I was always fascinated by, obviously I'm in automotive history, I, I must have
• 42:31
  some enjoyment factor that goes into that.
• 42:33
  But you go and you, you hear some of the foremost automotive historians
• 42:37
  in the land talking about, you know, the subject they've sometimes spent
• 42:39
  their life work researching on.
• 42:41
  I remember at a very early one listening to Leroy Cole of the Cole
• 42:44
  Manu- Automobile Manufacturers in Indianapolis talking about his family's
• 42:49
  company, and just it's fascinating to hear kind of that first person account.
• 42:52
  I think it was Bill Chapin talking about, uh, his family's experience
• 42:55
  with American Motors, and another one, I think that one was in Dayton, Ohio.
• 42:58
  Of course, the Arkutsinger Motorsports Symposium, and we
• 43:01
  were, you know, some talk about taking that on the road possibly.
• 43:04
  And then it's like, well, you know, we'd love to do something with that in
• 43:06
  South Bend, possibly even as part of the Concours, and that really blossomed.
• 43:09
  And eventually, I think after we bought Eric enough cocktails, he
• 43:12
  in a weak moment agreed- … to come and, uh, you know, help us
• 43:15
  jumpstart our little showcase here.
• 43:17
  So, uh, yeah, that's what got us here.
• 43:19
  Just, uh, looking to add some content and having some willing and interested
• 43:22
  parties, uh, willing to make it happen.
• 43:24
  For that, we very much appreciate it.
• 43:26
  So Andy, what do you hope that listeners, whether they're listening to it live
• 43:30
  stream there in the forum, or later as a podcast episode, what do you think they're
• 43:35
  gonna get out of Automotive History Live that they can't get anywhere else?
• 43:39
  Well, you're gonna be hearing some of the nation's, the top historians
• 43:42
  in the business talking about subjects they are passionate about.
• 43:45
  And hopefully they come away, you know, take away a new take.
• 43:48
  Even if it's a subject you're very familiar with, take away something that
• 43:51
  you didn't know before, maybe looking at it in slightly different fashion.
• 43:55
  I mean, delighted to have Lauren Goodman from the Revs Institute talking about
• 43:58
  radiator mascots and hood ornaments as kind of more of an artistic bent on there.
• 44:02
  We have a wonderful panel on, uh, America's roadways.
• 44:05
  I think we actually call that one Mothers' Roads.
• 44:07
  We're celebrating the 100th anniversary of Route 66.
• 44:10
  The Lincoln Highway, America's first coast-to-coast highway, runs about 100
• 44:13
  yards from the Studebaker National Museum where it cuts through northern Indiana And
• 44:17
  of course, the Interstate Highway System, which, uh, I think all of us here will
• 44:20
  be spending a lot of time on in, in the next few weeks in our various travels.
• 44:23
  But, uh, all those is kind of a, you know, a natural look at that, uh, moderated
• 44:27
  by retired curator of transportation from the Henry Ford Museum, Bob Casey.
• 44:31
  Bob is g- himself presenting on, uh, three musketeers of Chrysler
• 44:35
  who also were Studebaker engineers before they went on to really
• 44:38
  establish Chrysler as the engineering powerhouse it was back in the day.
• 44:42
  Of course, Tom Powder, we- we're working him hard.
• 44:44
  He'll be talking Saturday and Friday, so you'll wanna catch both shows for Tom
• 44:49
  talking about his coast-to-coast trip in a Model T. He took paralleling a lot of
• 44:52
  the Lincoln Highways route back pre-COVID.
• 44:54
  I think that was 2018 or so that Tom did that.
• 44:58
  Ruben Verdes, you know, the foremost experts on Rolls-Royce,
• 45:01
  again, another SAH alum.
• 45:02
  Automatic transmissions, who hasn't used one of those?
• 45:04
  Bob Elton, another SAH-er talking about the history of GM's groundbreaking
• 45:09
  Hydramatic automatic transmission.
• 45:11
  And, uh, yeah, then of course the Motor Podcasting Network
• 45:14
  with the, uh, Bianco Speciale.
• 45:16
  You know, can't wait to hear what you guys have to say about that.
• 45:18
  And, uh, you know, just a great, great time all around, and we're,
• 45:21
  we're really looking forward to that.
• 45:22
  Do you have one that you're most excited about in that list?
• 45:25
  Y- yes.
• 45:26
  Actually, I'm d- I'm fascinated to hear Bob's take on the Hydramatic
• 45:29
  transmission, because I spend a lot of time working on my own Studebakers,
• 45:33
  and the one component that is just mystery and, you know, something I've
• 45:36
  never taken apart and never fully understood how they work, I assume it's
• 45:39
  witchcraft, is automatic transmissions.
• 45:41
  If I can come away with that with a better understanding of how they work,
• 45:44
  I mean, I can read the shop manual and I see the diagrams, but when you get
• 45:47
  to the swirling arrows going back and forth in the torque converter diagram,
• 45:50
  it kind of makes my eyes glaze over.
• 45:51
  But really looking forward to hear about that.
• 45:53
  Well, you've never not surprised us when you've presented at the
• 45:57
  Motorsports Symposium in the past about Studebaker's involvement in motorsport,
• 46:00
  and we sort of tease you at the end of every year with yet another project
• 46:05
  for Studebaker Motorsport stories.
• 46:07
  But you're not presenting this year, but if you were, what do
• 46:10
  you think you'd be talking about?
• 46:11
  Oh, gosh.
• 46:12
  I think the scheduling conflict is just a little much for me this year.
• 46:15
  We're actually, we're the same weekend as the, uh, Muscle Car
• 46:17
  and Corvette Nationals again.
• 46:19
  And, uh, and I, I did the, uh, the jet-setting, delivered the car, jet out
• 46:22
  to Watkins Glen and then back again.
• 46:24
  And unfortunately, I think we're displaying two cars this year,
• 46:26
  so I'm not sure that's gonna, that's not gonna work that well.
• 46:29
  But, uh, yeah, I'd love to get more into the, we talked about the Avanti racing
• 46:33
  program at the 24 Hours of Daytona back in the early '80s, and actually one
• 46:37
  of our trustees has, can't remember if it's the regular car, maybe it was
• 46:40
  the backup car, but he has one of the racing Avanis from that that they've
• 46:43
  been trying to put back together.
• 46:45
  Every time I ask him about it, he kind of gets this look on
• 46:47
  his eyes and shakes his head.
• 46:48
  But, uh, you know, they're still working on that.
• 46:50
  Another Holman and Moody prepared, I think it was three Studebaker
• 46:54
  Larks in the early '60s.
• 46:55
  And I think they did Sebring and- No, was it Bridgehampton?
• 46:59
  There's a couple other road races and endurance races
• 47:01
  they had in the early '60s.
• 47:02
  It's like, what?
• 47:03
  Studebaker Larks in road racing s- and sure, there's pictures on the track
• 47:06
  with them going around, you know, the usual sports car fare of the day.
• 47:09
  It just … And it's kind of like when you see the, uh, Galaxies at, at Goodwood.
• 47:13
  You know, they're flopping around the track with the Minis and the,
• 47:15
  and the Mark 2 Jaguars out there.
• 47:17
  It's kind of like that same, uh, automotive dissonance you
• 47:19
  see when, when you see them on the track at the same time.
• 47:22
  I'd love to go back and do a, a more in-depth look at the non-Studebaker
• 47:26
  factory IndyCars at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the straight-8 powered cars.
• 47:30
  Literally, this was in the last two weeks, I was going through our photo
• 47:33
  index, and the entry said, "Race car," and it was, and the date was around 1940.
• 47:38
  And I asked our volunteer, you know, "Can you pull this out and scan these?"
• 47:40
  "Sure." And I look at the picture, and sure enough, it's definitely a race car.
• 47:43
  It's kind of that late '30s, early '40s shape, but it was
• 47:46
  none that I'd ever seen before.
• 47:48
  And there's a picture under the hood, and yeah, there's a Studebaker
• 47:50
  straight-8 in there, and it shows it taking a checkered flag somewhere.
• 47:53
  I have no idea where the, what this picture is or where this came from,
• 47:55
  but you know, there's little things like that I'd love to dig into further.
• 47:59
  And, uh, yeah, look forward to doing that again soon.
• 48:01
  Why is this more important than ever, you feel, in regards to preserving this and
• 48:06
  finding a way to share it with the world?
• 48:07
  'Cause you get a lot that, like, you know, people have it, they don't share and that,
• 48:10
  which, which is great on your guys' part.
• 48:12
  But I mean, tell us about that and your thoughts.
• 48:14
  Well, our primary sources are dwindling.
• 48:16
  The people who were there and remember and can testify to what actually happened
• 48:21
  are disappearing, you know, every day.
• 48:23
  You know, really, I kind of see that as the, the Society of Automotive
• 48:26
  Historians' role in that as kind, you know, the vanguard of history to preserve
• 48:29
  and safeguard, uh, what actually took place for the future generations.
• 48:33
  In the Studebaker realm, the youngest Studebaker employee is about 80.
• 48:38
  And we're talking, uh, one of our life trustees.
• 48:41
  He started working at Studebaker I think when he was 17 or 18 in the
• 48:45
  summer of 1963 putting in headliners.
• 48:47
  And now Ron is just about, yeah, it'd be just about 80.
• 48:51
  That story disappearing in 20 years, we're just gonna have to rely on what has been
• 48:55
  collected and, you know, disseminated.
• 48:57
  There's so much disinformation out there with, you know, one person's take on
• 49:01
  what happened with automotive history.
• 49:02
  And even a simple thing like someone asking, well, you know, some basic
• 49:04
  question on the web on a Facebook message board, "I need something basic
• 49:08
  for my Studebaker," and you look at the array of answers, it's like, no,
• 49:11
  the guy needed a distributor cap.
• 49:12
  He doesn't need a small block or an LS motor in it.
• 49:15
  No, the answer is always LS, Andy.
• 49:17
  That's just the answer.
• 49:18
  It is always LS?
• 49:19
  Oh, okay.
• 49:22
  I told him put in a 2JZ, but anyway.
• 49:26
  I, I really didn't.
• 49:26
  But- … uh, that's the key.
• 49:29
  It's understanding what happened and how to back it up, how to document
• 49:32
  it, and how important that is as we strive to tell people the truth
• 49:36
  as best we can approximate it, and accuracy as best as we can get it.
• 49:39
  I look at that as that's our job as automotive historians.
• 49:42
  Or frankly, just as, as historians.
• 49:44
  So you hit the Mega Millions.
• 49:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 49:47
  You're kind-hearted, 'cause like Studebaker museums, you love.
• 49:50
  You provide the finances for it.
• 49:52
  Then what would you have… Okay, this is the best thing we can do,
• 49:55
  'cause it's, funds are unlimited, you know, depending how much you win.
• 49:58
  What would your dream thing be for the Studebaker Museum?
• 50:01
  At our museums conference, I made this joke to, uh, one
• 50:03
  of my colleagues one time.
• 50:05
  It's like, you know, these, these conferences, you know, once we all agree
• 50:07
  that we don't have enough time, space, money, and staff, we can get on to that.
• 50:10
  And it's not like we, they were wasting our times anyway, but it's really the
• 50:13
  space that every, not just automobile museum, any museum is dealing with.
• 50:17
  So to answer the unlimited funds, storage facility and, uh, extra archival
• 50:21
  staff to help us digitize, make more accessible the holdings that we do have.
• 50:25
  That would be fantastic to be able to add a significant amount of square footage,
• 50:30
  and the ability to staff it as well.
• 50:32
  I like that.
• 50:33
  It's just there's so much there.
• 50:34
  Our, our photo collection is over probably a quarter million images.
• 50:38
  We've got maybe a couple thousand of them on the Photo Shelter site, and even
• 50:41
  that might be being generous right now.
• 50:43
  And, you know, every other museum I know of it, you know, thank God
• 50:46
  RABS has been able to bring the resources to bear that they have.
• 50:48
  That is a tremendous resource.
• 50:50
  But there's so many other collections out there that are languishing in
• 50:54
  someone's attic or someone's basement.
• 50:56
  We found a Studebaker film from the '30s that we thought
• 51:00
  was lost forever, you know.
• 51:01
  And I get a call from a guy saying, "Hey, I just found this film in my attic, and my
• 51:06
  father was a projectionist at this thing."
• 51:08
  He's like, "It's called Wildflowers." And I'm like, "Really?" This was
• 51:11
  an original 35 millimeter nitrate stock film that had somehow managed
• 51:16
  to survive in this guy's attic.
• 51:18
  I don't know for how long it had been up there, and that was
• 51:21
  an invention in its own right.
• 51:22
  Eventually we basically shepherded it over to the Library of Congress,
• 51:25
  their film and, and media division, as they had, you know, the
• 51:28
  wherewithal to properly store it.
• 51:30
  They said, "Just get it to us. We'll send you a digital copy for that." But this
• 51:34
  was something no one had seen since 1931, thought it was lost forever and, and,
• 51:38
  you know, here we come up with a actual pristine copy of it still hanging around.
• 51:42
  But there's stories like that, that let's get this stuff and, uh, let's preserve it
• 51:46
  as best we can and make it accessible for others to, others to use as a resource.
• 51:50
  He always surprises me, William.
• 51:52
  I thought he was gonna say he was gonna go on a spending spree at Mecum and
• 51:55
  buy all the Studebaker- … automobilia that comes up at the auctions.
• 51:59
  No, that's really good.
• 52:00
  That's really cool.
• 52:01
  So with that, Andy, we've reached the part of the episode where I like to
• 52:04
  invite our guests to share any shout-outs, thank yous, promotions, or anything
• 52:07
  else we haven't covered thus far.
• 52:09
  First of all, thank you guys for taking time out of your busy
• 52:11
  schedules to make this happen here.
• 52:13
  It takes a village to make anything, you know, come together of this scale.
• 52:16
  And, uh, I've mentioned some of the people already, you know, thank you to,
• 52:19
  uh, Society of Automotive Historians, of course, the fine folks at Motor
• 52:23
  Podcasting Network who have been nothing but gracious putting this together.
• 52:26
  Of course, our sponsors of the Concours, uh, the JBS Collection, and also Lavine
• 52:30
  Restorations down in Nappanee, Indiana.
• 52:33
  Couldn't happen without them.
• 52:35
  Our, uh, Chief Judge Matt Short, our entire judging crew.
• 52:38
  The shout-out to David Schultz earlier.
• 52:40
  Our concours wouldn't be what it is without, uh, David's support and wisdom.
• 52:44
  Bob Barr, Chris Lizotte, they've been with us every step of the
• 52:46
  way, and, uh, staff and volunteers at Studebaker National Museum.
• 52:49
  Folks can find the museum at studebakermuseum.org.
• 52:53
  Check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
• 52:56
  We're on Twitter as well, and there's probably one social media platform,
• 53:00
  I'm not sure we're on BlueSky yet, but, uh, I have a feeling we might be.
• 53:03
  But check us out there.
• 53:04
  No, the MySpace page is dead.
• 53:06
  Sorry, folks, you can't find us on there.
• 53:09
  Many, many great ways to please come down to see the concours and
• 53:12
  the Automotive History Live, the Lemons and everything, and, uh, we're
• 53:15
  gonna have a rip-snorting good time.
• 53:16
  Hope you can be a part of it.
• 53:17
  Fantastic.
• 53:18
  Now, as we wrap up this inaugural episode of Automotive History Live, we want to
• 53:22
  thank our very special guest, Andrew Beckman, for taking us behind the scenes
• 53:26
  of the Studebaker National Museum, the Concours at Copse Home, and the
• 53:30
  brand-new Automotive History Live concert.
• 53:32
  That's right, William, and if today's conversation sparked your curiosity,
• 53:36
  and we hope it did, you can explore even more of the museum's work,
• 53:40
  collections, and events online.
• 53:42
  As Andy said, follow the Studebaker National Museum on social media to stay
• 53:46
  connected by way of Facebook for event updates, behind-the-scenes posts, and
• 53:50
  community stories, on Instagram for stunning visuals and archives from the
• 53:54
  collection, on YouTube for video features, lectures, and digital exhibits, and of
• 53:58
  course, their website for hours, tickets, research access, and upcoming programs.
• 54:03
  And with that, Andy, I can't thank you enough for coming on.
• 54:06
  You're a familiar voice here on the MPN thanks to all your previous presentations.
• 54:10
  We've been able to live stream and remaster those to the world, and we hope
• 54:14
  to have you back to talk about some of those things that you didn't get to talk
• 54:17
  about this year, some of your own personal history with cars, and we look forward to
• 54:21
  the continued partnership with Automotive History Live, and we'll be carrying the
• 54:25
  season throughout the rest of this year and the future with all the events we have
• 54:29
  planned together, so thank you, thank you.
• 54:31
  My pleasure.
• 54:32
  Appreciate it.
• 54:33
  And we'd like everyone to please stay tuned to the Motor Podcasting Network for
• 54:36
  more episodes throughout the season from the Automotive History Live Conference.
• 54:41
  I'm sure that I have a good time with it.
• 54:42
  Thanks, everyone.
• 54:50
  This episode is made possible by the Studebaker National Museum,
• 54:55
  the home of South Bend, Indiana's automotive and industrial heritage.
• 54:59
  The museum preserves and interprets the legacy of Studebaker through
• 55:03
  its world-class collection of vehicles, artifacts, and archival
• 55:07
  materials, including several nationally designated treasures.
• 55:11
  As a center for history, design, and innovation, the museum inspires
• 55:16
  enthusiasts and the community alike through its exhibits, programming, and
• 55:21
  commitment to safeguarding the stories that shaped American transportation.
• 55:25
  To learn more or plan your visit, check out www.studebakermuseum.org.
• 55:34
  This episode is also brought to you by the Society of Automotive Historians.
• 55:40
  They encourage research into any aspect of automotive history.
• 55:44
  The SAH actively supports the compilation and preservation of papers, organizational
• 55:51
  records, print ephemera, and images to safeguard as well as to broaden and
• 55:56
  deepen the understanding of motorized wheeled land transportation through
• 56:01
  the modern age and into the future.
• 56:04
  For more information about the SAH, visit www.autohistory.org.
• 56:16
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• 56:20
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• 56:22
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