Photo: Facebook Marketplace, Mansfield, TX
Sometimes, you can kinda just tell a car was designed and named at a point in history just before a major world event, which makes the name incredibly unfortunate. Like the Austin Princess, named 22 years before a group of paparazzi decided to chase Princess Diana's limo down the entrance to a bridge onramp. Or the Dodge La Femme, a half-baked attempt by out-of-touch male auto executives to give women what they thought they wanted in a car right before second-wave feminism hit.
But few rival the irony of the timing in the name of the Studebaker Dictator. A meager six years before a certain Austrian painter rose to power in Germany, this plucky American family car was christened the Dictator as a follow-up to the Light Six/Standard Six, one of the original entry-level Studebakers. Shockingly, Benito Mussolini had already been in power in Fascist Italy for half a decade when the first-generation Dictator hit dealers in the US. Little did anyone know then how close the two countries were to war.
This particular 1928 Studebaker Dictator has been with the same family in Mansfield, Texas, for at least the last 50 years. Built during the first full year of Dictator production, this example comes from before Studebaker started offering a V8 in the model range around 1929. So this one has make do with a straight-six engine. But this being the late stage of the pioneer era of the automobile, this actually wasn't too much of a downer in the day. So to speak, a straight six might has well have been a V8 during the first 30 years or so of American passenger car production in North America.
What you did get were two couch-like leather seats, an unsynchronized manual gearbox, and a rear trunk integrated into the bodywork rather than a literal box strapped to the back of the car as was often the case in those days. All in all, it's not that impressive by modern standards. But by the standards of the pre-Stock Market Crash 1920s standards, it was a pretty sweet deal for the period. Keep in mind, most North Americans were still driving Ford Model Ts around the time of the late 20s. By comparison, there are at least a few more layers of refinement to this Studebaker than the average pre-owned Model T most folks made due with.
After 96 years of ware and tear, most of it spent sitting in a garage not moving, the engine in this Studebaker is still seized up even after filling the cylinders with Marvel Mystery Oil. That said, someone's going to have to tear down the engine to get it running again. But it's definitely worth the effort to get this classic back on the road.
This particular 1928 Studebaker Dictator has been with the same family in Mansfield, Texas, for at least the last 50 years. Built during the first full year of Dictator production, this example comes from before Studebaker started offering a V8 in the model range around 1929. So this one has make do with a straight-six engine. But this being the late stage of the pioneer era of the automobile, this actually wasn't too much of a downer in the day. So to speak, a straight six might has well have been a V8 during the first 30 years or so of American passenger car production in North America.
What you did get were two couch-like leather seats, an unsynchronized manual gearbox, and a rear trunk integrated into the bodywork rather than a literal box strapped to the back of the car as was often the case in those days. All in all, it's not that impressive by modern standards. But by the standards of the pre-Stock Market Crash 1920s standards, it was a pretty sweet deal for the period. Keep in mind, most North Americans were still driving Ford Model Ts around the time of the late 20s. By comparison, there are at least a few more layers of refinement to this Studebaker than the average pre-owned Model T most folks made due with.
After 96 years of ware and tear, most of it spent sitting in a garage not moving, the engine in this Studebaker is still seized up even after filling the cylinders with Marvel Mystery Oil. That said, someone's going to have to tear down the engine to get it running again. But it's definitely worth the effort to get this classic back on the road.
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