Madd Doodler

1956 Studebaker Transtar

In this day when trucks have become luxurious it’s common to find model names on them like Silverado or Ram but in the past you usually just found trucks identified with a letter and numbers like the F Series and the Studebaker R-Series trucks. One rare exception was Studebaker’s Coupe Express pickups of the 1930s. However beginning in 1956 Studebaker gave their trucks a real name, Transtar. This came with the second facelift of the popular R Series trucks that dated back to 1949.  These attractive trucks were designed by Robert Bourke.

The 1956 facelift included a revised hood, larger parking lights and Transtar emblems on the doors. The trucks were offered in a two tone paint job. Unfortunately the attempt to update the trucks and create sales did not help and sales continued to decline.

1957 Studebaker Transtar

For model year 1957 a more drastic facelift was tried with the addition of  the fiberglass grille with large upright dividers. They did take a bit of a styling step backwards though by moving the parking lights to the top of the fenders in a free standing housing. Sales continued to decline even with the new features so in 1958 Studebaker introduced the low cost Scotsman to draw customers into the showrooms. This was basically the original design from 1949 with a one piece windshield, a smaller front bumper and plaid decals. This was a no frills truck with no chrome, glovebox door and spartan features.

1959 was the last year the Transtar name was used on 1/2 and 3/4 ton pickups as 1960 heralded the arrival of the new Champ truck. The Scotsman was still available though now with optional upgrades as they found customers did not really want the bare bones trucks. Sadly the Champ was not able to increase sales much and was the last of the Studebaker trucks before the company went out of the automobile business. No Champs were built once the manufacturing moved to Canada in 1965.

Studebaker Champ Truck

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