So now that we are finally recovered from our amazing journey to Oregon and back, it’s time to get back to work! We have hundreds of emails to go through and many of those are great submissions. We are doing our best to get through them all and hopefully we will be able to get as many posted as possible, so if you haven’t seen your submission posted yet or haven’t heard back from us, please bear with us! We absolutely love getting submissions from you guys and it is a blast to see what type of stuff everyone is interested in. One of our most dedicated submitters, Jim S, seems to enjoy a little bit of everything and we love to see what oddball finds he digs up. Recently he sent in a number of truck submissions and in his last one he suggested we turn Thursday into Truck Thursday. We think it sounds like an interesting idea, so here is the first Truck Thursday! Check out the 1962 Studebaker Champ Truck that Jim spotted here on eBay, with a $6,500 BIN!

This Studebaker looks to be in great shape and given its story, it’s no surprise. According to the seller it has passed through a number of owner’s hands, but most of them left it parked in their garages. In total it has been in the care of six different people and at this point it has only seen 26k miles. The story goes that the first owner’s wife kept it for 10 years and then passed it on to her son, who put it in a garage and left it for another 10 years. From there it went into the care of a Mr. White, who installed an overdrive transmission and had it repainted. The seller didn’t give exactly how long it was in the original owner’s possession, but the respray doesn’t look that old. Of course this has all been passed on by word of mouth, so it’s hard to say how accurate any of this history really is.

Studebaker built some great trucks over the years, yet the company is rarely remembered for their work vehicles. The Champ wasn’t the best truck the company ever built, but it was a great little truck for the money and offered owners a lot of nice features. When the Champ came out, the company hadn’t updated their truck lineup in a decade, so this new light duty truck was a welcome addition. Tight financial times required that it be built with existing tooling, so they took the four door Lark, cut it in half, added a back wall to create the cab, and strapped it to a truck frame. The Lark based cab offered car-like comfort and a handsome appearance, but to give it a more rugged and tough look, they designed a new grill. They also introduced a new feature for trucks at the time, a sliding rear window. This one was optioned with A/C, so the original owner must have felt the sliding rear window wasn’t necessary. Overall the interior looks to be in great shape and would be very comfortable, even for those long journeys.

The Champ could be optioned with several engines, but the most common was the 170 cui inline-six. With 112 horsepower, this engine offered plenty of power, but it turned out to be rather problematic. Many developed cracks in the cylinder head, as a result of poorly adjusted valves. It would seem this one suffered from this design flaw and has been swapped out for a later engine. We aren’t sure if Studebaker ever fully resolved the issue, but as long as this engine is properly maintained, it should provide years of service. The seller claims it is from a 1964 and had new bearings and rings installed, so it is more or less a new engine. They don’t state how many miles it has seen since being installed, but it looks like new to us.

Overall, this truck looks to be in great shape. It has a little rust starting to form on the bottom edge of the cab and in the tailgate, but these are known to have serious rust issues, so it is rare to find one this solid. We have our questions and concerns about its story, but mostly just to have the seller clarify who did what and when. Looking at this truck, one thing keeps coming to mind. Would this truck be able to tow a car trailer with a barn find on it? It’s a light duty truck and we don’t imagine the brakes are that great, but it sure would make a great truck to pick up any finds with! What do you think? Also, let us know you think of the Truck Thursday idea.