1951 Studebaker Woodie - Three Freaks

Nobody would ever attempt to build a car like this without a sense of humor—and thick skin. That’s a good description of owner Dennis Varni from Pleasant Hill, California. Besides, over the years he’s accumulated an esoteric assortment of cars and trucks to satisfy whatever mood he’s in—from deadly serious in his blown 800hp ’33 roadster, to going 345 mph in his Bonneville streamliner, to benevolent when he takes his family and friends for a jaunt in his hot rodded ’36 White Yosemite tour bus. He’s participated in the revived Carrera Panamerica race in Mexico, ran a ’61 Falcon in a 5,000-mile car rally in Africa, and driven his America’s Most Beautiful Roadster–winning highboy roadster across the country so many times he can’t remember. From an enthusiast perspective, he’s done a lot.

If you’re going to have a custom why not have both a woodie and a custom in the same car?

 

The face only a mother and Dennis could love. Steve Davis configured the ’37 Ford headlights and lenses to the stock Studebaker fenders. Bumpers are custom, but the rest of that front end is stock ’51 Studebaker.

When the opportunity to purchase the ’51 Studebaker woodie/fastback-thing from the estate of the late Joe MacPherson presented itself, the cheap buy-in and freakishness prompted Dennis to step up. Of course, the freakishness caused the cheap buy-in. But nobody thought he was hallucinating because Varni has proved over the years he can transform even a disturbing vision into reality. Says Varni, “I had been wanting a custom, and when I saw the Studebaker I thought this was perfect because if you’re going to have a custom, why not have both a woodie and a custom in the same car?”
What helped make the decision was he had been looking for an oddball project to insert an oddball engine collecting dust for 20 years in a dank corner of his shop.
If you’re into odd, you couldn’t forget the Propulsion Development Laboratories (PDL) fuel-injected Edsel engine from our June ’59 issue. Strolling through a swap meet many years ago, he spotted those two big horns. He thought he remembered them from the cover of HOT ROD back in the day. Amazingly still intact, Dennis knew this one-off induction system would satisfy the freak flag in him, if only he could find a suitable car to plant it in. You know, like a Pontiac Aztec, or maybe anything made by Buick in the last 25 years. As Dennis puts it, “Suddenly, there were three freaks brought together: the engine, the car, and me.”

 

  In Dennis’ travels, he found this matching set of luggage in an antique store and thought they fit well with the woodie because the car is only a two-seater. Also note the functionality of the liftgate and tailgate, which, along with the painted sheetmetal insides, look factory stock but are not.

So how does a bullet-nose Studebaker end up looking like this? This all started when woodie-king Doug Carr wanted a calling card for his Signal Hill, California, woodie restoration shop. Something people would remember, and something he could install a blown big-block into for fortuitous quarter-mile forays. He asked me to scratch out some sketches of this idea he had for a fastback bullet-nose Studebaker, something they never, ever made. Once in possession of said sketches, he proceeded to hack away at an original sedan to transform into his vision or nightmare, depending on where you stand on this caper.
Metal-master Steve Davis helped with the metal wood supports, structural improvements, and ’37 Ford headlights set into the Stude fenders to get it to the point where Doug could do what he does best: whack out a wild woodie from nothing more than vapor and vision. Once roughed out, the fir fastback got sidelined for paying projects.

 

As the sun sets, the highly figured maple wood really screams. The rear fenders have been extended and incorporate custom bezels and taillights. Other custom sheetmetal includes the custom rolled pan. The wheels were custom made by Larry Westervelt.

When Joe MacPherson got a glimpse of the languishing project, he convinced Carr to sell it, and so it was added to Joe’s lengthening list of future builds. He was excited about the prospect of finishing the fastback, but time was not on his side and he passed away within a few years without anything substantive happening with the woodie.
Varni is not one to allow projects to collect dust, and in no time he hauled the bones of the bullet-nose over to Hill’s Rod and Custom in Pleasant Valley, California. They pitched the frame, choosing instead to have Art Morrison create a whole new one with his independent front suspension and 9-inch Ford rear. Julian Cigarroa was tasked with making the wood, which was notched for a steel cage constructed to give the impression the fastback’s wood is structural.
The development of the PDL mechanical injection was intended as an OE option, but never got past this one prototype, as best as we can tell. Dennis found an FE block and added Edelbrock aluminum heads to round it out. Friend Dan Brewer converted the intake to accept the hidden Hilborn electronic fuel injection. On the dyno, it was found that the horns ingested so much air volume the electronic injection helped to richen the otherwise too-lean mixture. Score one for EFI! Farther down into the horns, the bores have been stepped to decrease air volume. The icing on the cake are the Edsel valve covers just like our ’59 cover engine had. The 427ci engine dyno’d comfortably at more than 400 hp with plenty of grunt for a crazy custom. Putting that power to the rear is an adapted 700R-4 GM four-speed automatic.

Suddenly there were three freaks brought together; the engine, the car, and me.

 

The engine in search of a car became the quest for Dennis, which ended up being a 427 Ford FE under the rare and unusual PDL mechanical injection converted to electronic Hilborn injection hidden under the intake manifold. The horns allowed so much air volume the EFI needed to heavily fatten up the mixture to compensate.

Once the body was sorted out, custom glass had to be formed for the one-off curved rear window. The work was handled by Tri-Valley US Limo in Livermore, California. Altissimo Custom Paint in American Canyon, California, laid on the two-stage British Racing Green paint. Inside, Sid Chavers in San Francisco created another 100-point leather interior with matching luggage. Redline Gauge Works updated then restored the gauges, while Lucky 7 Garage created faux wood to tie in with the wood theme.
Says Dennis, “This thing rides out nice and gives me no hassles. It’s exactly what a custom car should be, don’t you think?” We can’t exactly say we’ve envisioned a car like this when we think “custom car,” but if anybody knows what a custom car should be, it’s somebody like Dennis, who’s seen it all and driven most of what he’s seen.