1981 Excalibur

The story begins in 1963 at Studebaker where Brooks Stevens had been employed as design consultant by the president, Sherwood Egbert. Raymond Loewy also worked for Studebaker at the time and he had just completed his styling work on the Avanti. One day Egbert telephoned Stevens to ask him to prepare some special automobile projects; these were for exhibiting at the various motor shows to be held over the forthcoming year. Brooks remembered the conversation well, Egbert was saying: "I can't manage to get Loewy in on this one, you'll have to help me..." The outcome of this was a trio of Studebaker Larks, a black and pink convertible known as "Mademoiselle", a vehicle called "Yachtman", and a "Town Car" featuring central roll-over hoop and a vinyl half-roof. Stevens also dressed up a Hawk Gran Turismo for the display but not one of these cars made any worthwhile impression at the Chicago Motor Show at the start of the season. The next show was to be the New York in April and for this one it was imperative that he find something a little more explosive. "...to attract people to the stand. Without a real eye-catcher they would walk straight past and not even glance in the right direction".