AMC is known for being “All Makes Combined”, but after looking at this 1961 Studebaker Lark, I’m not so sure that AMC deserved all of that credit. Look at this thing…I see Corvair bits, Valiant bits…even the dash makes me think of a Ford to some degree. It’s not, of course…while Studebaker’s days were numbered, the Lark had been the company’s last huge hit, appearing in 1959 as a small middle finger to the long, low, wide and chrome-dripped sleds that Detroit was cranking out at the time. 
Seeing a Lark outside of a car show is a bit odd, but this Rough Start candidate looks pretty damn good for being about sixty years old, wouldn’t you say? The “VIII” on the trunk designates this car as a V8-powered machine, moved along by a 259ci V8 that trumped any of the other compacts that showed up at the turn of the Sixties. There’s a pleasing simplicity to this Studebaker. Everything is clean, everything is functional, everything just feels proper…my own feelings for the steering wheel wrap aside.
$4,500 for a clean four-door from days gone by? What do you think?
Why don’t these chumps ever open the hood? Don’t know how?
The Lark’s shape inspired various British cars in the late ’50s but I’d sooner have this fitted with a stonking AMC big block than one of those!