1950 Studebaker Bullet Nose Custom

Studebaker’s 1950 “bullet nose” design was so unconventional that people joked they couldn’t tell which way the car was facing — and it still sold 343,000 units, an all-time high for the brand. Owner Scott Cawley’s version skips the trailer-queen treatment entirely, running an updated suspension and a swapped-in modern engine so he can drive it daily. Here’s the design gamble that nearly didn’t happen, and the sales run that proved the doubters wrong.

We’re talking with the Owner Scott Cawley. Scott a Fan of the Studebaker and decided to create this custom as his daily driver. The car has the 1950 look, with a updated suspension so it rides and drives like a new car, and engine is a new motor to add extra horse power to increase the fun factor.

Picture rolling up to a stoplight in 1950 in a car so strange-looking that strangers would ask which direction it was actually driving. That was the reception Studebaker’s bullet nose got when it launched, and Scott Cawley’s custom take on it still turns the same heads more than seventy years later. Where most bullet-nose survivors get trailered to shows and babied, this one pulls daily driver duty, riding on an updated suspension and backed by a modern engine swapped in purely for fun. It’s the kind of build that respects a genuinely weird piece of automotive history while refusing to treat it like a museum piece. So what was Studebaker actually thinking when it strapped an airplane nose cone onto a sedan?

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An Idea Too Radical for 1947, Perfect for 1950

The bullet-nose concept actually came out of Raymond Loewy’s design studio years before it reached production, first pitched for the 1947 model and passed over in favor of a more conservative design from Virgil Exner. By 1949, the Big Three had rolled out all-new postwar models that leveled the playing field, and Studebaker finally greenlit designer Bob Bourke’s bullet nose for 1950. The result was a chrome-plated central nose cone that looked more like aircraft hardware than automotive trim, paired with wraparound glass that eliminated the traditional C-pillar entirely for genuinely panoramic rear visibility.

The Gamble Paid Off — Then People Made Fun of It Anyway

Studebaker’s gamble worked: sales exploded 160 percent over 1949 to 343,000 units, an all-time high the company never matched again. Over its two-year run, the bullet nose pulled in 611,729 buyers total, the strongest postwar stretch Studebaker ever had. That success didn’t stop the jokes, though — “which way is it going?” became the running gag at the time, and the design earned about as much ridicule as admiration.

Daily-Driving a 70-Year-Old Design

Most surviving bullet-nose Studebakers live the trailer-queen life, rolled out for shows and tucked away otherwise. Cawley’s build goes the other direction — an updated suspension for modern ride quality and a swapped-in engine mean this one actually gets driven, not just displayed. Turning a genuinely divisive piece of 1950 design into a car you can rely on every day is its own kind of tribute to the original gamble.

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