1962 Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk: Brooks Stevens's restyle

Sherwood Egbert, newly appointed Studebaker president, commissioned Milwaukee industrial designer Brooks Stevens to freshen the six-year-old Hawk design for 1962. The result, the Gran Turismo Hawk, was a hardtop carrying a Thunderbird-inspired roofline and a completely redesigned interior, on a body this record's own overview describes as six years old by that point. The base price rose $400 to $3,095, and the museum reports that sales more than doubled over the 1961 model year, a comparison this record's own overview states directly rather than one drawn from reading another year's file. The 289 V8 remained the standard US engine at 210 hp, or 225 hp with the four-barrel carburetor and dual exhaust; the 259 V8 and 170 six stayed export-only.¹

Production is the best-documented figure in the Hawk's whole run for this year: the museum and 1956goldenhawk.com both independently give 9,335 built, and Wikipedia's own sales table splits that same total into 8,388 domestic and 947 export cars, a domestic-plus-export split that sums exactly to the museum's figure with nothing left over. Old Cars Weekly separately gives 8,388 for the year without stating a market scope, a figure that matches Wikipedia's domestic count even though the two sources describe it in different terms, one as sales and one as a bare production figure. This record's own production notes state plainly that the domestic and export rows simply partition the 9,335 total as Wikipedia presents it, and that no engine-specific, transmission-specific, color-specific, or trim-specific production counts were found for the year.^1,2,3,4

The 289 two-barrel is rated 210 hp, rising to 225 hp with the four-barrel carburetor and dual exhaust, SAE gross, and remained the sole standard engine for the US market. The 259 V8 and 170 six are again documented together as a single export-only entry, with no ratings found for either. Four transmissions are documented for 1962: a three-speed manual standard, a three-speed manual with overdrive optional, a four-speed manual optional, and the Flight-O-Matic automatic optional, all four drawn from the same chassis-and-engineering description with no production breakdown by transmission found for any of them.^1,2,3

Eight exterior colors were charted line-wide for 1962: Velvet Black under a combination code pairing two separate chart numbers, Ermine White, Riviera Blue, a Green Iridescent metallic, a Silver Iridescent metallic, Desert Tan, Blaze Red, and a Brown Iridescent metallic, three of the eight being iridescent or metallic finishes. Nine Gran Turismo Hawk-specific interior trim codes are documented separately: blue, green, and taupe cloth, and black, blue, green, taupe, red, and tan vinyl, a three-cloth, six-vinyl split, with the black vinyl code itself carrying two alternate numbers in the source.⁵

Model codes are given as 62V-K6 and 62S-K6. Engine numbers for 1962 Lark and Hawk 289s started at P-79,801, in the 62V series, with Canadian units starting at a separate PC-2,801 series. Body codes ran 62S-K6 for the Gran Turismo Hawk six hardtop, explicitly noted as built for markets outside the US, and 62V-K6 for the Gran Turismo Hawk V8 hardtop, with the body plate riveted to the cowl under the hood. One source adds that the side grilles were painted body color on US-built Gran Turismo Hawks but chrome-plated on Canadian-built cars, a US-versus-Canada distinction stated directly within that source's own specification paragraph. The Gran Turismo Hawk held a 120.5-inch wheelbase and a reported 3,230-lb weight, with no weighing basis stated; no performance-test data was found in an accessible documented source for the year.^2,6,7