1951 Studebaker Champion Street Rod With An Unusual Twist

There are so many tricks on this 1951 Studebaker Champion street machine, yet they are almost completely hidden. It has postwar styling inspired by fighter planes, but underneath it is almost all third-generation Camaro from 1991. You expect to see a small-block Chevy under the hood, but shockingly there’s a modified 4.3-liter V6 living there.

Yes, this ’51 Studebaker Champion is a complete fake-out. It was born without rear seating, but now there’s room beneath the turreted roof for more passengers. The trunk is customized and it has a modern overdrive transmission, too. 

“Everything underneath is Camaro,” said Michael McDonald, the car’s owner. It has the Studebaker chassis, but the Camaro [parts] are welded to it.”

An Unusual Starting Point

The year 1951 was the second for the bullet-nose Champion (a design feature used on the Studebaker Land Cruiser as well). The Regal Starlight Coupe featured the four-piece rear window treatment, which was unusual even then. Cost was a mere $1,723, which got you a 170-cube flathead six making 85 horsepower. 

“A buddy of mine told me about it, and we looked online and it was for sale in Tampa and bought it there.”

The good news is the car was able to be driven home. Barely. Michael and his friends had to really go through the Starlight Coupe to make it truly roadworthy. It’s been a blast ever since. 

Tom Tilley, whose 440-power Dodge A100 compact pickup was featured here recently, added the back seat to the Champion. It is fully custom and looks like it was meant to be there all along. The Champion’s front buckets are recovered in bright red and are far more comfortable than the originals. It employs an ididit tilt steering column with a Grant wheel. The instruments are Auto Gages from Auto Meter. Power windows and cupholders integrated into the floor console add a touch more modernity.

Most hot rodders would have added a worked small-block of some sort to motivate the Champion, but the previous owner went an entirely different route. The 4.3 looks for all the world like a small-block Chevy and that’s what we thought it was when we first saw it. Because of its light weight, the Stude does not need a ton of power to pass modern traffic. The 4.3 is now carbureted with an Edelbrock carb and intake combo and an aftermarket cam of unknown origin, so we’d guesstimate horsepower to be in the 275-300 range. It definitely sounds the part through the custom exhaust.

Backing the V6 is a GM 700-R4 overdrive automatic, which feeds a 2.73:1-geared Camaro 10-bolt. Stock third-gen Camaro disc brakes are up employed up front; the rears are drums. With all that third-gen goodness underneath, the car wears rolling stock befitting its capabilities. A set of Nitto Motivo tires (P225/40R19) wrap around the polished AR wheels.

Michael’s favorite part of the Stude? Driving it, naturally.

“That thing’s a riot,” he says. “You get the looks and it’s fun. It’s a fun car, that’s for sure. And I love the back window on it. You could put a machine gun out the back. It looks like a turret from a tank.”