SHOW INFO
Feature Car - 1950 Studebaker Regal DeLuxe Land Cruiser
Owners - Dan & Melissa Biddle
Our Studebaker Land Cruiser is a true Sharon, PA car and will hopefully represent the SVR club well at the 2025 Father's Day Car Show. We responded to a classified ad with a small picture in the Sharon Herald back in the summer of 2019 for a Land Cruiser that reported only 17,265 original miles in non-running condition. The car was purchased new in 1950 by Mr. Lou Demar who lived on Irvine Ave. in Sharon, just a few blocks from the car show event. Mr. Demar purchased the car new as a pre-retirement gift to himself, but then walked to work at the local steel mill and later to the Sharon Herald offices and rarely drove the car. When he was no longer able to drive, he passed the car on to a son, grandson, and eventually to a granddaughter, who still lives on Hazen Rd. across from Buhl Park.
The car had been parked and stored in an old garage at the family farm in Lowellville, OH for 30+ years, and was hardly detectable under years of dirt and dust, and filled with mouse detritus. I can blame myself for finding the car, but fault my wife Melissa for prompting the purchase, as she did a little "spitshine" on some of the chrome and decided we can not buy this car!' After months of serious cleaning we found the car to be in remarkable original condition, though in need of new paint and a few mechanical parts. Some of the old oil-change stickers from the 1960's were still attached to the driver's-side door jamb, which we wanted to preserve during the restoration process. Due to the originality of the car, we opted out of a frame-off restoration, and instead painted only the exterior in the original Studebaker/DuPont Aqua Green paint code. The car remains a 6-volt electrical system with a positive ground, and most everything on the car still works, including the original radio, though it takes 15 minutes or so for the tubes to warm up and play. The 1950 Land Cruiser model 17A-Y5 was designed by renowned Studebaker engineer, Bob Bourke - a design which came to be known as the 'bullet-nose', and was the first year of Studebaker's automatic transmission and coil front suspension.
We've driven the car quite often during the restoration process to various events and shows, now showing a little over 18,500 miles on the odometer. We even used the car as our Christmas card greeting prior to the paint project, to simulate the old car used in the 1983 Christmas Story movie. The car was featured in an article in the November 2021 issue of the Turning Wheels magazine of the Studebaker Drivers Club, with another post-restoration article planned for later this year. We plan to exhibit the car at the 61st International Studebaker Drivers Club Annual Meet in mid-September at the Washington County, PA Fairgrounds, where it will be included in the Heritage Judging Class, which is akin to the AACA Historical Preservation of Original Features classification.
Mr. Demar's granddaughter and her husband plan to be at the Father's Day show, and are excited and appreciative that their family car will be the featured vehicle for the event as a worthy way to celebrate
its 75-year old history.
Dan & Melissa
JUNE 15, 2025
12 PM to 4 PM in Downtown Sharon, Pa.
Parking opens at 8 AM
Registration 9 AM to 12 PM
Donations Accepted
No Pre-Registration.
No Classes or Judging.
Must Register Your Car at the SVR tent
at the East End of the State St Bridge
to Receive a Dash Plaque (First 400 cars) and a
Door Prize Ticket ( No Fee)
