Excalibur (automobile)

Excalibur
1965–67 Excalibur Series I SSK
Overview
Production	Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Excalibur automobile is a Neoclassic automobile styled after the 1928 Mercedes-Benz SSK by Brooks Stevens for Studebaker. Stevens subsequently formed a company to manufacture and market the cars, which were conventional under their styling.

A prototype premièred at the New York City Auto Show in 1964, fitted on a Studebaker Lark Daytona chassis and using a 290 hp (220 kW) Studebaker R2 289 V8 supercharged engine. Studebaker almost immediately ceased its operations, ending the availability of that engine.

Stevens subsequently obtained engines from General Motors through his friends, GM executives Ed Cole and "Bunkie" Knudsen. These were Chevrolet 327s in 300 bhp (220 kW) Corvette tune, making the 2,100 lb (950 kg) Excalibur a strong performer. With the standard 3.31:1 rear axle, acceleration from 0–60 mph (0–97 km/h) took less than six seconds. Projected top speed was 134 mph.

A little over 3,200 Excalibur cars were built, all in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The American comedian Phyllis Diller was a notable proponent of the Excalibur automobile; she owned four of them.

The company failed in 1986, but was revived several times. Production of the Excalibur continued until 1997.

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".