The Arizona State Chapter of the Antique Studebaker Club The Editors Musing's By .... Richard Dormois September 2008   It is really a little hard to believe summer is already winding down and we are into the third quarter of our Arizona State Chapter of the Antique Studebaker Club and approaching forty member families sharing their lives and their Studebakers with us. The driving tour and social gatherings Malcolm hosted was our first big event as a chapter and by all accounts it was successful. Fred and Malcolm have shared the events with you in their stories in this issue. Thank you to Chris Collins for guiding the production of the Saguaro Sage, Steve Fein for his photographs, Fred Gooch, Malcolm Stinson and Don Robertson for their articles and Claudia Robinette for addressing and mailing. I was driving about rural Ada and Canyon County, Idaho about three weeks ago, looking for a friend's Angus cattle ranch and became very lost, seeing nothing but alfalfa and sprinkler pipe for many miles when, out of the corner of my eye, I spied the form of a Studebaker sedan partially buried in a pile of brush fifty yards off the roadway to my right. Bear in mind....I hadn't seen anything that appeared to be humanity or habitat for a long time and to see this terribly attractive form was truly a sight for sore eyes. I pulled my borrowed Pontiac off the roadway and set out to determine if my eyes had deceived me and I was suffering from some sort of dehydration induced delusion or was there really one of South Bend's finest creations abandoned in that field. Indeed, as I parted the waist high weeds, my eyes feasted upon a very tired but mostly all there, 1939 Champion four door. Several different caliber bullet holes and more than several dents about the sheet metal, but again, mostly all there. Oh I didn't mention the top. The top appeared to have been used for an unforgiving trampoline by a family who didn't miss many meals. Dash was intact, springs and some upholstery were there. Steering wheel, pedals and what appeared to be a solid front and back floor, influenced me to start thinking about this motor vehicle possibly being a restoration project. Something in the back of my mind kept saying "Richard...You have gone too long without water! Walk away son. Walk away." Unfortunately, I have made too many decisions based upon comparisons with my first Studebaker project, a 1928 Dictator pick up that looked a lot worse than this Champion when I first found it, just off the road near the Mexican border. With a little help from my friends, it became a handsome little truck. Oh yea, I forgot about the money part. I remember Julio Lopez saying. "Senor, If I was you, I wouldn't buy this truck from me.." I was really pretty pumped up, but when I turned around and started to walk back to the roadway and the Pontiac, I about lost it. Previously out of my view were six count'em....six pre war Studebaker trucks. All in presentable shape. All with tires aired up. All sans any major dents, lacerations or rust and resting near two elderly appearing trailer houses end to end. Two big M series farm trucks, three M5 pick ups and the jewel of the fleet, a 1939 KIO boom truck that had been beefed up big time, possibly at the factory. Twenty inch wheels, heavy duty axels, dual wheels and this boom that went out as far as Chuck Naugle's. I'm asking myself. "Why haven't any of the guys in the Snake River Chapter ever mentioned this stash?" Well.......... Maybe they don't know about it as hidden as it is and so far out in the country. Here I was with no camera and nothing to write yin numbers down on. I was just out for an afternoon drive looking for some black cows. I wasn't prepared for this. I got back in the Pontiac and just started forward when I saw a man in front of the far house trailer next to a twenties restored Model T flatbed truck. As 1 pulled up he asked what he likely asks anyone out there who are not his wife or kids. "Are you lost?" Yes I was lost and he was able to give me directions to the farm I sought. I was on the right road, just about ten or twelve miles east. He said he had restored the truck and showed me a twenties Model T Roadster Pickup he had also restored and told me of his vintage aircraft collection quartered at several small airports in the area. He indicated he hadn't done much with the Studebakers, but they were all his and he had driven the 1939 KIO from Marana, Arizona at forty five miles an hour thirty two years ago and turned it off where it was sitting. We conversed about pre war Studebaker trucks for some time, but there had been no introductions. He shared his stash of Turning Wheels and Antique Studebaker Review magazines piled high in a second house trailer where his mom had lived until her passing several years before. He said he had been a member of the drivers club and the Antique Studebaker Club for a long time, but never joined a local chapter. The man pulled out an Antique Studebaker Review with a '28 Dictator pick up on it and a Turning Wheels with an old yellow Coupe Express on the cover and we went outside where the light was better to look at them. We exchanged business cards and he was surprised that he was talking to the guy that built the trucks he was showing me in the magazines. "Your the first one that's ever stopped here." He said. Thanks Steve for a great evening and for the '39 Champion sedan.

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