1953 Studebaker Post Coupe - A Saga

Belmont SanChez’s ’53 post coupe was one, if not the first, of the Raymond Lowey–designed Studebakers to run at the salt flats. Here in 1956, the now Chrysler-powered sleeper is shown on what appears to be a death-smoking 185-mph return run.

HRM’s legendary photographer Eric Rickman captured the ’53 in front of the famed Pan Pacific Auditorium during late 1955.

The only obvious body modifications were its frenched-in headlights. Its hood, grille, bumpers, trim, fresh-air duct, and brightwork were stock.

Rick’s high-angle shot illustrates high-dollar racing circa 1955. Lakewood Muffler supplied the F-100 Ford tow truck—note flipper disc hubcaps, matching paint, and tuck ’n’ roll upholstery. Also note the towbar—this sweetie was flat-towed—and the quick-release fender skirts that allowed easy access to the rear rubber.

The Stude’s first race motors were a pair of Ardun-equipped flatheads, the bigger displacing 284ci, the smaller one 259ci. Internal goodies included Chet Herbert roller cams, boxed rods, and forged aluminum pistons. Both engines were Hilborn-injected but note the missing mag.

Notice also that a pair of war surplus “blitz” cans serve as coolant containers. Its 25 percent engine setback necessitated the fabrication of a new firewall. Note how the driveline sits above the stock floorpan and that the door panels still retain the OEM trim and window/door handles.

I can personally assure the readers that the noise from eight, bell-tipped exhaust pipes sounds so bitchin’ that you’ll never forget it.

Trapped air was picked up with 5-inch ducts and exited behind the rear window. This modification was said to have added 12 mph to the car’s top speed.

The Ardun Fords gave way to a series of heavily loaded Hemis in 1956, and the car’s speed went up accordingly. But the big strokers usually blew before they could make the necessary two-way record runs.

Two years later, the renamed SanChez, Kamboor & Ansen Spl followed a familiar script. The Stude, with the can in the tank, recorded a 210-mph down run in D/Coupe but the engine scattered on the return pass. Still, the ’53 became the first stock-bodied passenger car to exceed 200 mph.

The addition of the blower served to shorten the fuse of the team’s various grenades—they lost four engines in 1960.

It was at the ’60 Bonneville Speed Week that the SanChez Studebaker lost its sleeper status.

Not only was the body radically altered, but a front-mounted blower was added to fill up the engine compartment.

In 1959 the Studebaker ran two classes, B/Fuel Coupe and B/Competition Coupe, which was made possible by changing the shape of the headlight openings on the front fenders. Running with the smoothed-off openings put the car in the comp class and the ’53 responded with a best of 217 mph.

Driver Jim Locasto had a best of 231 mph and a two-way average of 230 mph before the car was retired in 1962. The interior had been trimmed in tin and the open driveline components received a total detailing.

Stude’s last 230-mph record run lasted only one year. In 1962, a similar-bodied ’53 upped the A/Comp record to over 232 with a 237 one-way. Still, Belmont SanChez’s slippery Stude influenced the shape of land speed coupes until the late ’70s.

One of the endearing aspects of Land Speed Racing is what I like to call the “Fifty-Three Factor”— Raymond Lowey–inspired Stude coupes and sedans and the wind-cheating profiles that influenced the shape and style of two-decades worth of Bonneville closed cars.

It all began in 1955 when Belmont “Beach Ball” SanChez—the rather portly son of a used-car dealer—removed a ’53 Studebaker post coupe from his father’s pre-owned car inventory and joined forces with Clark Cagle and Carl LeMmon to build the first door-slammer to break 200. Forty years later, Jerry, Joe, and Jeff Kugel would enter into the twilight 300-mph zone driving the family’s ’92 Pontiac Trans Am. Although these two entries are four decades and 100 mph apart, they share one thing in common: When each reached their respective 200 and 300 magical mile-per-hour marks they remained virtually OEM stock. In fact, the Kugels’ air-managed Pontiac has merely followed the tire tracks of * SanChez’s new/old smoothie.

This was the car that engendered the term Slippery Stude. In 1955, ’53 Studebaker post coupes were still considered new cars, but even then land speed racers were aware of the benefits of an aerodynamic shape. It’s therefore reasonable to assume that the boys appreciated Stude’s slippery profile. They entered the car in what the SCTA called the coupe and sedan class. Rules governing body mods were pretty restrictive, but not those concerning engine setback, powerplant choice, or fuel used. So they chose to round off the headlight openings and then get with the serious stuff under the box-stock sheetmetal.

The coupe and sedan class had few chassis restrictions. Consequently, the team’s first order of business was to notch the rear portion of the frame 5¼ inches over the rear axle. They then installed adjustable spring perch plates. This modification allowed the team the luxury of being able to adjust the running height of the all-Ford suspension at both the front and rear. Another trick was to turn the Halibrand quick-change centersection upside down and move the ring gear to the opposite side of the rearend housing. The idea was to add a belly pan after raising the entire drivetrain a total of 6 inches above the original floorpan.

Class rules also allowed for a maximum 25 percent engine setback—as measured from the center of the driver-side spindle to the number-one spark plug. This would improve traction by moving as much engine mass rearward as possible. So the original firewall was removed and the rear of the engine encased in a fabricated sheetmetal box.

The original engine (which would have been a flathead six or an overhead V-8) was removed and replaced by a 284-inch ’41 Merc fitted with a pair of Ardun hemi heads. However, the Ford’s life was short-lived. After upping the “C” coupe record with a two-way average of 155.458 mph (with a one-way best of 167.832) in 1955, the boys dropped the 5/16 x 3/8-inch former flathead and made the switch to Chrysler Hemi power in 1956. Two years later, the renamed SanChez, Kamboor & Ansen Spl warmed the salt with a 185-mph alky run, then returned to the starting line loaded (100 percent in the tank) for bear. The heavily nitrated 454-inch Hemi responded with a 210-mph qualifier. The next day the world’s fastest passenger car began its two-way record sequence with another 210-mph down run but the short-fuse Chrysler blew on the return run.

Not content with being the first stock-bodied passenger car to break 200 mph, the Saga of the Slippery Stude would continue for another three years. In 1959, another name change occurred—SanChez-Kamboor-Locasto—and two new class records were set: 217 in B/Competition and 204 in B/Coupe.

However, SanChez’s old smoothie lost its sleeper status in 1960 as the result of a radical race lift. First, its OEM shell was chopped, smoothed, and rounded off. Second, the army of injected, nitro-burning Hemis were fitted with front-mounted, crank-driven 6-71 GMC superchargers. The team’s new Studeliner—renamed the SanChez-Krasne Hi-Matic-Kamboor Spl and driven by Joe Locasto—upped the existing A/Comp record (in those days a blower advanced the racer one class) to 220 mph, some 19 mph over the existing 201 mark.

Six years after it had begun its quest to be the world’s fastest coupe, the country’s first slippery Studebaker hit a one-way high of 231 mph in 1961 and averaged 230 for a new A/Comp class record. Unfortunately that mark lasted only one year when a similarly bodied ’53 Studebaker fielded by the team of Edmunds, Cagle, & Alpenfels upped the A/Comp record to 232 with a best of 237 mph. But the die had been cast. Thanks to Belmont SanChez and his various partners, the Saga of the Salt’s Slippery Studebakers began in 1955 when the son of a used-car dealer helped himself to the old man’s stocker locker and went land speed racing.