"You'd need $13,000 and a ticket to Italy to find anything like it. Avanti: America's only high-performance, 4-passenger luxury car."—This ad emphasizes the Avanti's Italian name and European styling. It also reminds potential buyers that no other car in America combines "high-performance" with "4-passenger luxury." This is one of Studebaker's best ads for its new Avanti. The car is in focus against a hazy, romantic background. Although the scene appears to be a landscape the car is on a smooth shiny floor. Notice the brilliantly lit interior. The body is white of course, but glows with a green hue as if lit by moonlight . . .

Ford Motor Company introduced the high performance, luxury car with the 1958 Thunderbird, but the elegant new 4-passenger T-bird was too tame. The 1963 Buick Riviera was to become the T-bird's main competition. Studebaker, on the other hand, aggressively promoted the Avanti's high performance capabilities. No real competition for the Avanti would be marketed until 1967 with the introduction of the Chevrolet Camaro and the Pontiac Firebird. Time would diminish the appeal of both GM models, but the Avanti remains stylish and even daring decades after it was concieved.