The Avanti was developed at the direction of the automaker's president, Sherwood Egbert. The car's design theme is the result of sketches Egbert "doodled" on a jet-plane flight west from Chicago 37 days after becoming president of Studebaker in February 1961. Designed by Raymond Loewy's team of Tom Kellogg, Bob Andrews, and John Ebstein on a 40-day crash program. The Avanti featured a radical fiberglass body design mounted on a modified Studebaker Lark Daytona 109-inch convertible chassis powered by a modified 289 Hawk engine.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org