America has had a rough week. The tragedies in Massachusetts and Texas are still firmly on everyone’s minds, despite the jubilation last night, and it can begin to weigh on a country. With all that’s been going on, why don’t we take a brief respite and work up a bit of nostalgia?

I hate to start my Friday morning by reporting bad news, but that's exactly what's coming out of Chesnee, South Carolina, where 50 Studebakers and several other classic cars were obliterated when a garage caught fire earlier this week.

Remember the car you had at 16? I remember mine. A Wrigley's-gum beige 1968 VW Beetle I saved up $600 to buy when I was 15, then waited and stared at every day until I turned 16 and could actually drive it. Of course, it was wrecked within a year or so, because that's what usually happens to cars owned by 16 year old…

Welcome to Found Around Town, where we feature cars we find in a city where interesting ones are rare because everyone drives a Prius or rides a bicycle: Austin, Texas.

Choices in the "vehicle with a sliding roof over the cargo area" category are pretty limited. There are only two cars in history to offer such a feature – the Studebaker Wagonaire and the GMC Envoy XUV, but both can be had on eBay for under $14,000.

If you missed your chance to purchase the personal Studebaker Avanti of the famed industrial designer Raymond Loewy last December 11th, you'll have another chance next month. It's not the same car, but it is another Avanti owned by the man who designed Studebaker's automotive swan song.

Many of their utilitarian designs have certainly aged well, but styling was often at best an afterthought for many of the original hard working pickup trucks. Style is however something this rare 1937 Studebaker J5 truck that is currently listed on Ebay has no shortage of.

While any act of automotive vandalism is senseless, we've heard of few more pointless acts of vehicular destruction than what happened last weekend outside of the Canadian city of Edmonton, AL. Sometime between last Saturday and last Sunday vandals broke into the barn where Don Keltie kept his car collection and the…

Raymond Loewy must be the most prolific industrial designer who’s ever lived. After the Coke bottle, the Greyhound Scenicruiser and the interior of Howard Hughes’s Boeing 307, he designed the coolest American sports coupé. Loewy’s Avanti is a 1963 model and here is how it’s described by Los Angeles Modern Auctions:

Raymond Loewy was the industrial designer Studebaker employed to create their sporty Avanti model. At the time it was the last ditch effort of a failing company to stay relevant in an automotive market that had already passed them by.