FOUND: Valley Custom Shop '53 Studebaker
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The Ray Charbonneau’s 1953 Studebaker was created by the Valley Custom Shop in 1955.
It was featured on 5 pages in the January 1956 issue of Rod & Custom Magazine.Last April the car was found advertised on Craigslist. It was bought from an older gentleman in Sacramento, who owned the car since the early 1960’s. He knew it was an old custom, but had no idea about its origins.
He had damaged the front left fender while hitting a pole in small ally. Right now the grille is missing from the car. But the older guy is still looking in his stuff to see if he can find the damaged grille. He feels he still has it. Lets hope so.The previous owner drove the car to East LA College in the early/mid 1960’s and he also street raced it. The car has a 1949 Cadillac engine installed. At this point its unsure who installed the engine.
The car has no interior, which was taken out at one point when the owner planned to make the Studebaker a full Bonneville car.Matt, the new owner from Wisconsin, a huge Studebaker fan, knew right away which car it was when he saw it on Craigslist several month ago. Right now he is looking for more information to be able to get the car back to how it left the Valley Custom Shop in 1955. So if any of you guys or girls knows anything about this car other than what is shown and mentioned in the 1956 R&C article.. please let us know.
We already have been in contact with the Valley Custom family. And when new information comes up we will show it here for sure.This is how the Studebaker looks today.
And here are four of the 5 R&C pages.
Enjoy the beauty of Customizing
Here are some detail photos Matt send.
Rounded hood corners.
Rounded trunk corners.
Custom reworked grille opening.
Door poppers in the belt line trim. Shaved door handles.
Valley Custom Shop used Ford glove box compartment lock. This way the doors could still be locked.
Caddy Engine
The damage…
Probably not really to hard to fix, but if the grille cannot be found that will be tough to recreate.
Enjoy the beauty of Customizing
The Valley Custom Shop family archive has at least one very nice and perhaps useful photo of Ray’s 1953 Studebaker.
This photo shows one of the guys at the shop fine tuning the hand made grille.
The grille looked very attractive in the car.
Enjoy the beauty of Customizing
Alright !! another old custom lives on. I don’t know much about these studes besides they make great bonneville cars. Im liking the attention that the C.C.C. has been givin to Valley Custom. This car is very cool with that cad mill under the hood,im sure it ran great.Looking forward to seeing progress on this one.
Have not heard anything from him since I started this thread… I saw him post a link to the CCC on the Hamb Valley Custom Shop post a few weeks ago.. but he did not say he had started the restoration or anything. His Facebook also does not show anything new.
Perhaps this coming winter.Enjoy the beauty of Customizing
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