1950 Studebaker Business Coupe

Gabe Robbins
Wichita, KS

After Gabe sold his 1950 2 Door Sedan he was sorry and purchased this Business Coupe to build. The car was missing some parts including the front and rear glass. He wrote "I found the rear glass I was needing. The guy that owned the car before the guy I bought it from still had the glass and he gave it to me! He said it should go with the car."

While collecting parts for this project a friend gave him a 1966 Ford Galaxy and Gabe installed the 390FE big block and C-6 transmission from it. This required some modifications to the firewall. He fabricated a Mustang II type front clip from 2x4 steel tubing and installed an S-10 rear end with a 4 link set-up.

Then he found a 48 Starlight in a farmer's field. Gabe said "It had a good one piece windshield and good back glass. It was sunk into the ground up to a foot below the door handles. He told me I could have it if I could get it out and said it has been there since he bought the farm 40 years ago." With help from some friends, they picked up the top half, because it was rusted and completely gone from the middle of the doors down. He got the glass, door handles, and a few other small parts for his car. All of his trim pieces needed chrome except the bullet that looks like new.

When he stripped the car to bare metal, he found that the rear fenders needed replacing because they were rusted behind the gravel guards worse that he thought. He found and purchased a 51 Starlight Coupe as a parts car to get the rear fenders from it.

Progress was being made on the body as is shown in these photos but, as often happens, projects need to be sold for one reason or another and Gabe's Business Coupe went to a new home in April of 2005. Hope the new owner finds Paradise and sends some photos of the completed car so we can update this page.