Re: Diesel Powered Lark

The diesel program had 20 larks and twenty champs, evenly split automatics and 3-speed on the floor. They were assigned one lark and one champ to each sales district. When the decision was being made to transfer production to Canada, the program ended. The Perkins engines were they exact same ones that Perkins was selling to Farm tractor makers. As most people know, used studebakers were not worth much, even in the good years. The factory held-on to most of them  at the parts depots for bringing parcels to the post-office and important things like take-out food.They made that decision due to the fact that the Perkins engine peole handled the warranty on the engines, and studebaker dealers had no tools for them at that time. As the dpots closed the diesels were sold to amoung the remaining SASCO dealers. Most went to the farm belt and donated thier Perkings to saw a Deere! When the boston zone parts depot / sales office (Mercedes / Studebaker) closed in 1970 and i cleaned-out most of the Studebaker parts, and Feldman Motors, across the street from the depot got to clean out the Packard parts. The depot was at 590 Revere Beach Parkway, Rever,51 Mass.The Mercedes parts went to the Mercedes parts depot in New Jersey.  Prior to the Revere Depot, there was a Packard Depot on Commonwealth Aveue in Boston, and a studebaker depot on
Forseyth Street in Boston, after the S-P merger they were both moved
to the Revere location. The building was built to spec and leased by S-P.
When the lease ran out in 1970, Chuck Osborne, Branch Mgr. was visited by the folks from SASCO and was told to load the items in short supply into a railcar and return the to South Bend. I remember that opperation, 
The only parts that went back were for the Zip-Vans and the Avanti. The rest were to be scrapped. Orders were given to Chuck to get 3 Roll-of boxes, one for Iron, one for Glass and one for what-else. Chuck did'nt
think too much of that idea.  I was told that if i could come-up with receipts to prove that he followed thier plan, that i could help myself. 
A local trucking company, Capitol Transportation, who was the main trucker out of the Revere opperation, at one time they did a lot of delivery
to the New England dealers, but at that time they were more interested in 
renting-out the remaining ttralers for storage. They were really happy to bring trailers to the depot and store the loaded ones in thier yard untill i found a place to put all that stuff. My Father Henry and his brother Bernard thought that i was nuts, and did not want anything to do with the stuff, as they had pleanty at thier Studebaker Dealership that was not going anywhere, Most of what they did sell over time went to Sheldon Henderson, who lived just about 1 mile away. So much for the parts.

A new tennant, the Ogan Company, who makes Bakery mixes, such as donut filling and such. I get a call from thier warehouse man asking when would the remaining Studebakers find thier way out of the parking lot.  I told them that i would find-out from South Bend. After some delay and it was like we thought that Chuck Osborne had taken care of that. I get a call from South Bend and was asked if i would be willing to at least get them out of there untill they could go through the Revere paper work and find the "Mfrs Cert of Origon" for the Three Studes. I was able to use the Studebaker Dealership's Dealer plates (and jump-starter) to get them back to my place.  I still have the 1963 63D-y1 taxi package, Three on the floor,
the RED Champ pick-up, still has the origional "uinform Identy"big round
decals on the doors, that has the automatic transmission. The thir is the Diesel Demo truck tractor, Detroit 4-53 engine, manual transmission, standard nose, not the Mobile home deliver one. I have the "MCO" for all, as they have never been regestered or titled. Piad $1500.00 for the three, $500.00 each and they could not thank ne enough for taking them!. 
By the way Chuck Osborne beacme the National Parts Manager for Toyota.
I have stored these and my other Studes for 50 years, and it is getting more costly to do so. I was planning on donating them to the planed new
car / truck wing at Smithsonian, but looks like Trunp might be painting them into a corner.  I drove the diesel Lark when it was new and demoed / loaned it to some of the big Boston fleets, Boston Gas Company, New England Telephone, Boston Edison, not much interest, as even 1963 they were still buying gasoline powered trucks for thier fleets, only diesels they had were Backhoe/loaders, only due to the fact that the only came that way. Thre was a lot of interest amoung several of the Taxi co,s in both Boston & Worcester, but they could only drive them around, could not pick-up ares, as the Lark did not have a Taxi meter, and each city had to 
certify the meter if one was put-in. By that time, the Fall of '63, we all knew that the leaves were not the only thing falling. If Grundy and the other decision makers would have made 1965's Perkings powered and GM powered, Studebaker wolud might have had a better chance. The p-4 perkins with the 3-speed gets 50 miles per gallon of fuel, and it is not that noisy, and with good oil and fuel would likely go 200k with no trouble
That kind of low-cost high fuel mileage would have been an eye opener for 
any fleet. GM had Diesel pick-ups in testing as early as 1967, and they were junk compared to the Perkins. i am still going to drive a Studebaker, not every day , for ever. Lenny Visnick

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