{"id":14295,"date":"2026-05-25T08:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T15:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/25\/studebaker-built-two-supercharged-pickups-nearly-40-years-before-ford\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T08:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T15:58:12","slug":"studebaker-built-two-supercharged-pickups-nearly-40-years-before-ford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/25\/studebaker-built-two-supercharged-pickups-nearly-40-years-before-ford\/","title":{"rendered":"Studebaker Built Two Supercharged Pickups Nearly 40 Years Before Ford"},"content":{"rendered":"
The year 1963 began with hope for Studebaker, but the end of that year would also spell the end of US production for the long-standing brand. Beginning on December 9, 1963, all of the company’s production moved from its original plant in South Bend, Indiana to its plant in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. On March 17, 1966, production would end in Canada, marking the end of the brand altogether. However, for a while in the 1960s, Studebaker had the most powerful engine ever built. And two of those go-to trucks from the ’60s look even cooler today. <\/p>\n
Studebaker was an independent automobile manufacturer independent of General Motors, Ford, or Chrysler. It badly needed to “strengthen” its older car lineup – and it chose performance upgrades as the way to do it. In 1963, having just acquired the Paxton supercharger company, the company decided to supply them with its complete line of cars. <\/p>\n
These supercharged models, which used the Paxton SN60 supercharger combined with the company’s 289 cubic-inch V8 and were given the designation R2, were made available on Studebaker’s Avanti, Lark, and Gran Turismo Hawk vehicles. In addition to these production vehicles, Studebaker’s engineering department also ordered two more expensive R2 truck models for its Champ truck. This was almost four decades before Ford first used a supercharger to give real power to the 1999 SVT F-150 Lightning, a very special muscle truck.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
What else should you know about Studebaker and its supercharged pickups?<\/h2>\n
\n \n \n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Sjoerd Van Der Wal\/Getty Images<\/span>\n <\/div>\n
\n
The Champ pickup truck was Studebaker’s last stab at the pickup market before disappearing. It used an earlier Studebaker Lark front clip, dashboard, and doors, in an attempt to look fresh. The current whereabouts of the two supercharged Champ trucks are unknown. However, what is known is that one was white and the other was black and the white one had an automatic transmission while the black one had a four-speed manual transmission. Other options included on the black Champ pickup were dual exhaust, gauges, oil cooler, power steering, and disc brakes. The white Champ was ordered by a businessman from Indianapolis, Indiana, and the black one ended up in the western US, where he reportedly lives.<\/p>\n
As for what happened to Studebaker, it was founded back in 1852, when its main business involved making various horse-drawn wagons, including the Conestoga wagons that criss-crossed the American plains as settlers headed west. The company entered the automobile business in 1902 making electric cars, switching to internal combustion engines in 1911. By the 1920s, it had stopped making horse-drawn cars entirely. <\/p>\n
Studebaker had ups and downs over the next few decades, and in 1954 the company was acquired by Packard, becoming the Studebaker-Packard Corporation. Unfortunately, competing with deep-pocketed full-line manufacturers was a losing game, and Studebaker had to call it quits in 1966. Production of the Champ pickup ended when the company closed its South Bend plant in 1963.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Different_brian\/Getty Images The year 1963 began with hope for Studebaker, but the end of that year would also spell the end of US production for the long-standing brand. Beginning on December 9, 1963, all of the company’s production moved from its original plant in South Bend, Indiana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-smartphones-tablets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14297,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14295\/revisions\/14297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"1963](\"https:\/\/www.slashgear.com\/img\/gallery\/studebaker-built-two-supercharged-pickups-nearly-40-years-before-ford\/what-else-should-you-know-about-studebaker-and-its-supercharged-pickups-1779406355.jpg\")