If Isidor Pavlik didn’t insist on always wearing hats, Harland Tegen and his cherished 1966 Studebaker Commander almost certainly would have never crossed paths.
“My uncle bought it in 1966, and you bet I remember when he bought it,” says Tegen, a retired resident of Omro, Wis. “He was older and he was always hung up on having a car with room for his hat. He always wanted to wear a hat, and if he couldn’t sit in it and wear a hat, he didn’t want the car.
“I always thought it was kind of an ugly car, because it was kind of boxy compared to some of the new stuff at the time. He died in 1976 and then I bought it from my aunt and I’ve had it ever since. She wanted to sell this one and get a car with an automatic. I bought two other cars from them, too — a 1930 Chevrolet that I still have, and a ’33 Ford.”
Tegen is the first to admit the blue Commander was never much in the looks department, but it had a few things going for it. It kept alive his connection to his uncle; it was a nice, solid used car with only 60,000 miles on the odometer at the time; and being a 1966 model, it was the last of a dying breed. Studebaker model year production in the venerable company’s final year was only 4,648 for 1966, and only a scant 198 of those assemblies were Commander two-door sedans.
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