Automotive design icon has become a Santa Fe landmark

Richard C. Gross | For The New Mexican

3/19/2008 - 3/20/08

If Bernard Ewell wanted a work of art to reflect his professional life as a world-renowned art appraiser, he found it in the white 1967 Avanti II that has become something of a Santa Fe landmark.

"I'm definitely driving a piece of sculpture," he said. "When you see an Avanti, you don't confuse it with anything else."

The distinctive fiberglass coupe with the black leather interior and worn gold carpet sits hugged on three sides by rock walls outside Ewell's one-story office building at the fork of Old Santa Fe Trail and Old Pecos Trail — it can't be missed by anyone driving up the hill from downtown.



"I like to stand here and envision what it was like when you were coming along over the Santa Fe Trail and you arrived at this point and you could see the town below you, knowing that booze, babes and a bath were just ahead," said Ewell, 64, who lives in Apache Canyon.

The original building dates to at least 1846. The faithful would gather at the fork to greet the archbishop returning from visits to outlying pueblos, not knowing which trail he was taking, Ewell said. They would then escort him down to the cathedral.

The site is an apt parking spot for the Avanti II, a quintessential Santa Fe car. Its original owner was Fremont F. Ellis, Ewell explains, a renowned artist who, with four others in the 1920s, put together an exhibition group known as "Los Cinco Pintores," or The Five Painters.

"It really is a Santa Fe icon because of Fremont Ellis, who was very well-known around town," Ewell said.

Ellis bought the car new in 1967 from the brother of one of the owners of the Avanti Motor Corp. of South Bend, Ind., trading one of his impressionist paintings for it, along with an older car. The company had bought the rights to the Avanti, the equipment to build it and the remaining parts from Studebaker in 1964. Ellis' was one of 60 of the virtually hand-built 1967 Avanti IIs.



Studebaker, a name more than a generation gone from the American automobile scene, produced the Avanti from 1962 to 1964. The maker of sedans and station wagons wanted a sports car to boost sales.

Avanti in Italian means "forward" or "advance," and the car certainly was ahead of its time because of disc brakes in front, seatbelts and other safety features. The fiberglass body was installed over a steel cage bolted to a Studebaker Lark platform. The new owners added the Roman numerals to set it apart from the original.

Studebaker put its own engine into the Avanti, one version of which was a supercharged 289-cubic-inch V-8. But the Avanti II got a 327-cubic-inch small-block Corvette engine. It was paired to a three-speed automatic transmission on the floor.

About 8,000 Avantis of both stripes were produced, and more than 4,500 of them "are still out there," said Mike Baker, of Greenfield, Ind., president of Avanti Owners Association International Inc. The club has about 2,100 members worldwide. He said Avantis are worth between $10,000 and $25,000, depending on their condition.



Easing into the driver's bucket seat is like climbing into the cockpit of a plane; toggle switches abound. A wraparound dash, which glows red with the lights on at night, has eight chrome-ringed, white-on-black gauges that seem to monitor everything but the tire pressure. There are no idiot lights.

Ewell, who moved to Santa Fe from Colorado Springs in 2000, bought the car in 2005 for $15,000 from Ellis' daughter, Bambi, now 85. It had racked up about 100,000 miles, and Ewell, who drives it maybe once a week, has added only 400 miles.

"I thought it would be a kick to have it," said Ewell, an internationally recognized expert on the work of Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí. "I'm a very visual guy. It was really the lines and design of the car. It has a wonderful unified design — the whole thing works visually."



Ewell cruises the Avanti II on Interstate 25, "but I don't push it," he said, acknowledging, "I'm not a car guy."

"I don't own this or any other car because it's a muscle car — it's the structural aspect," he said. "When I tell people where my office is, they say, 'Oh, that's where the Avanti is parked.' "

But it might not be visible there much longer. Ewell wants to restore the body because of chips along the passenger-side quarter panel, and the car obviously could use paint.

After the restoration, Ewell said, "I may put a roof over it."

Richard C. Gross is a Santa Fe-based writer and editor. E-mail drive@sfnewmexican.com.