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The 21st century Avanti, built by Avanti
Motor Corporation, owes its existence to two distinct
but related events in the Avanti saga. The first was a collaboration
between Jim Bunting, a former advertising
executive, and Tom Kellogg, one
of the designers of the original car. Their efforts produced
a two-passenger coupe version.
The first objective accomplished, Kellogg proposed building
an updated version of the classic Avanti. Bunting considered
this the ultimate dreamcar and was seriously interested in
building it.
AVX stands for AVanti
eXperimental. The original idea was to produce one car.
That vehicle was built during the winter of 1995-96, then
shown at several Studebaker and
Avanti meets to wide acclaim. It was built by customizing
a 1993 Pontiac Firebird. The idea of transforming the AVX
from a one-off into a production car began to take seed. The
design was refined again, this time with limited production
in mind, and the first production prototype was shown at the
June, 1997 International Studebaker/Avanti
meet in South Bend, Indiana. Ultimately, the AVX evolved into
the 2001 Avanti which was based on a newer version of the
Camaro and more recently on the Ford Mustang. Below are more
Kellogg drawings of Avanti-ized production cars
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