HANCOCK COUNTY — It’s safe to say Harry Weber knew every part of every Studebaker model.
“Studebaker didn’t make big changes in their mechanical part[s],” Weber told WRTV reporter Derrik Thomas in January 1990.
“The parts that fit this car will fit cars [that are] 10 [to] 15 years old,” Weber said. "I can go to my toolbox and pick up the tools I know it’s going to take to do the job, that makes a big difference in the amount of time it takes to do that amount of time it takes you to work on a car.”
But at 62, Weber was ready to close up his one-man, one-car repair shop in Philadelphia. It’s a job he held since 1957. Weber not only worked on Studebakers, he also owned them.
“If you drive one of these cars, you can get 25 miles to the gallon,” Weber said.
While Weber’s Studebaker Lark had 115,000 miles and counting, Weber himself had little gas left in the tank. Weber’s long road to retirement earned him the unique distinction of being the last full-time Studebaker mechanic in Indiana.
The Studebaker Corporation began producing carriages and wagons in South Bend in 1852. and ceased operations in 1963.
