Porsche Studebaker Mashup: A 356 Engine Lurks in the Back of This Lark

Hiding in the basement of the Studebaker Museum is a Lark with an air-cooled Porsche 4-cylinder in the trunk.

Most Porsche enthusiasts know that the company has collaborated with other automakers in the past to develop cars. Audi with the RS 2 Avant and Mercedes-Benz with the 500 E may be two of the better-known examples. A collaboration that most folks have probably forgotten about or never even knew of in the first place was with Studebaker back in the 1950s. A four-door sedan known as the Type 542 was developed but never came to market. So, there is some history between Porsche and the now defunct Studebaker. But the car you see pictured here is not part of any Porsche-Studebaker collaboration. Sure, it has a Porsche 356 engine in the back of a Studebaker Lark. But it was neither Porsche nor Studebaker that built it.

A recent story by Jason Torchinsky for The Autopian resurfaced the story of this unusual Porsche-powered Studebaker. The car is a 1959 Studebaker Lark, and it lives in the basement of the Studebaker Museum in South Bend, Indiana. The car originally had a Champion 6-cylinder engine under the hood when it left the factory. But now it has an air-cooled Porsche 4-cylinder from a 1953 356 sitting in the trunk. Studebaker didn’t put it there. Porsche didn’t put it there. So, who did?

Curtiss-Wright

For a time the Curtiss-Wright Corporation was the largest aircraft company in the world. In the 1950s the company was building NSU Wankel rotary engines for aircraft. While doing so, they had a thought that perhaps these engines would work in cars as well. NSU was already building the rear-engine NSU Prinz. So, Curtiss-Wright wanted a rear-engine car to experiment with. Why they didn’t use a Prinz or another rear-engine car as the prototype is not clear, but they decided to use the front-engine Studebaker Lark. That meant they had a lot of work to do in order to convert the car to work with an engine in the trunk.

Porsche Engine

Despite the dauting task ahead of them, Curtiss-Wright did what was required and the Porsche air-cooled 4-cylinder found a new home in the trunk of the Studebaker Lark. With 70 horsepower on tap the Porsche engine was actually significantly weaker then the 90 horsepower Champion 6 that would have been standard. The Porsche engine was lighter, but it is unlikely that it did much to improve the 21 second 0 to 60 mph time of a 1959 Lark with a Champion 6 engine. So, why was it built in the first place? No one really seems to know. It could have served as a test bed for some future design perhaps. But this is the only example to exist and there doesn’t seem to be anyone around that knows the full story. Still, it is an interesting piece of Porsche history. Or at least Porsche adjacent history. If you have already been to the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany you might want to head to South Bend, Indiana to see something that you won’t see in the factory museum.

Images: Jason Torchinsky / The Autopian

Join the Rennlist forums!

Joe Kucinski

Joe has been obsessed with cars since he got his very first Matchbox toy in the ‘70s. In 2003, he found a new obsession in track days that led to obtaining his SCCA competition license in 2015. In 2019, he became a certified driving instructor for the National Auto Sport Association. His love for all things four wheels has never wavered, whether it's driving some of the best cars in the world on the racetrack, tackling 2,000-mile road trips in 2-seat sports cars or being winched off the side of a mountaintop in a Jeep. Writing for the suite of Internet Brands Auto Communities sites, including Rennlist.com, Ford Truck Enthusiasts, 6 Speed and more allows him to share that knowledge and passion with others.