New 1952 Studebaker Manta Ray Concept Car
In 1953, Glenn Hire together with Vernon Antoine debuted their space-age inspired concept motorcar - the Manta Ray - inward Los Angeles, California.
Both men worked inward the jet aircraft partition of the North American Aviation Company together with wanted to comprise the swift flowing lines of a jet fighter airplane into their car's styling, hence they started a 1951 Studebaker Commander
The nosecone they scratch-built yesteryear get-go making a wooden designing together with and then casting a 1/4-inch shell. The fiberglass trunk they molded inward fourteen sections. And the triple taillamps they nabbed from a 1952 Lincoln.
It was featured inward the Feb 1954 trial of Rod together with Custom yesteryear Dean Luna , together with also appeared on the comprehend of Motor Trend inward July, 1953 together with other magazines such every bit Motor World, Mechanix Illustrated together with Popular Science.
By 1959 it somehow made its means out to a used motorcar dealer inward Topeka, Kansas, where collector L.L. “Peanuts” Lacer of Junction City, Kansas, get-go came across it. “Dad was a rare one,” Lacer’s son, D.E., said. “He was ever buying weird erstwhile cars that nobody wanted, together with then never driving them.”
Peanuts traded a Volkswagen together with a Crosley for the Manta Ray, together with then brought it dorsum to Junction City where he stuck it inward a warehouse together with and then never touched it until the twenty-four hours he died inward 1990.
In the years betwixt Yeakel’s purchase of the motorcar together with its migration to Kansas. First, maybe related to Hire together with Antoine’s production plans for the car, the Studebaker V-8 was swapped out for a dual-quad Cadillac
His boy together with then took it on every bit a projection to teach it dorsum to running condition, amongst about assist from an automotive restoration educatee at McPherson College, though he decided to teach out it unrestored for the fourth dimension being.
“The day’s coming to pose it dorsum to gold, but that’s non anytime soon,” he said. “As it sits now, it’s merely the means my dad got it – it notwithstanding has the master tires.”
The showing of the Manta Ray at the 2016 Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance marks the get-go fourth dimension inward over sixty years it has appeared inward public.
https://www.conceptcarz.com/z26063/studebaker-manta-ray.aspx
https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2016/02/08/unseen-for-more-than-60-years-the-one-off-manta-ray-will-once-again-return-to-the-spotlight/
Because hither is the far less cool looking version, y'all tin similar a shot compare a adept custom to a bad one
https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2013/08/28/charlie-beesleys-car-pictures-part-2-oddballs-and-weirdos/