While it is true they hoped to sell 20,000 cars, Avanti sales figures weren't the primary goal for creating the car. It was designed to be a "halo" car for the Studebaker line and bring excitement to the brand. Ironically, in 1963 Studebaker was still using the slogan for its car lineup as "The Common Sense Car" and that wasn't working out too well. The primary goal was to get people back into Studebaker dealerships where they would then buy Larks and Hawks and station wagons and such. They never expected to sell many Avantis as the price was up to nearly that where you could get into a Cadillac especially if you added some options. For reference, the $4,445 base price of the Avanti is interesting to compare to something like full size Chevrolets. The cheapest 6 cylinder 4 door was the Bel Air at $2,508. The top of the line Impala SS convertible with a 250 hp 327 cid V8 was $3,186. A Corvette coupe was $4,257 and convertible was $4,037.
That's probably the most accurate write-up I have seen on RU-vid regarding the Studebaker Avanti (some are full of errors). I would take issue with the "exceptional handling" comment. They did do those things you mentioned to help handling, but the result was far short of "exceptional". The Avanti is very nose heavy with nearly 60% of the weight on the front wheels. This really hurts the handling (I know - I own one). One of the reasons was their extremely durable, but extremely heavy 289 designed back in 1951. A Studebaker 289 weighs 650 lbs as compared to Ford 289 at 460 lbs. Quite a difference. Some have moved their battery to the trunk to help the weight distribution a little, but that helps only a little. It's funny to see some RU-vid videos where somebody unfamiliar with the car takes it out to a track. At some point they usually say, "feels like the rear is a little loose". Yep. Being fast in a straight line is what it does best. And you can see some RU-vid drag races against "big block" cars where a supercharged Avanti does quite well. The other car will typically be faster off the line, but the Avanti will often then catch up and pass it.
Actually , it was a 280 hp 289c.i. SUPERCHARGED (Paxton) .....in 1964 I took my driver's test in my Dads R2 here in Santa Clara , Cal.........sweat under the armpits MORE than when I soloed in a Cessna 150 the next year .
You are correct with the 63 r2. He may have looked up the R3 car: Although Studebaker never really announced the R-3's output, in "factory" trim it pushed 335hp and 320-lb.ft. of torque; some reports claim that by increasing RPM from 5,350 to 6,000, horsepower could exceed 400. I love these cars!
Here's the rundown on all of the engines related to the Avanti: R-1 240 hp, 289 4 bbl carb, normally aspirated R-2 289 hp, 289, 4 bbl carb, supercharged (the magic "one horsepower per cubic inch") R-3 335 hp, 304.5, 4 bbl carb, supercharged, different intake manifold, pistons, cam, etc. than the R-1 and R-2. R-4 280 hp, 304.5, similar to the R-3 but normally aspirated with two 4 bbl carbs. R-5 638 hp, 304.5, factory car for Bonneville with twin superchargers. Only nine Avantis were ordered with the R-3 and none with the R-4. Although I think one Lark was ordered with and R-4. The R-5 was a single factory car engine and not offered for sale. The 29 Bonneville speed records including making it the world's fastest production car in 1963 was with an R-3, but it was 299 cubic inches (not 304.5) which was the upper limit of the class they ran in. The notable two-way average was 168.15 mph for the flying mile. There was one mile on the return leg of the 20 mile record run where they hit 178.5 mph. The R-5, nicknamed the "Duo Cento", had a best two way average of 196.62 mph. This was 638 hp as noted in a paper Studebaker provided to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Some references say 575 hp, but the paper submitted is probably the best authority.
