Every classic car has its own story

Over the course of her life in Montana, Marge Kroeger has never strayed too far away from her dad's 1961 Studebaker Hawk.

Like many other vehicles that will be showcased at this week's Ignite the Nites event in Libby, the historic black beauty has quite a story to tell.

The late Don Stark, who operated a farm near Rudyard, bought the car new. It represented his third and final Studebaker purchase.

“This was the one that Grandpa would drive Š he would come out and help with the harvest every now and then, and take the car back to Havre,” Kroeger remembered. “The car is pretty easy to drive and he'd be driving along and look down and he'd be at 90 mph. This is when my grandpa was 70, 80 years old.”

On one occasion, Stark raced a local music teacher, who was boasting of his little red Mustang. Kroeger remembers the race finishing nose-to-nose.

“This is the car that I did driver's training with,” Kroeger said. “This is what I learned to pass with, which was pretty fun.”

After the Hawk's engine went out, the car sat in a shed and later behind a barn for several years. Before the death of her mother this past year, Kroeger said she would take the car.

“She said, ‘well, are you ready to take this and work on it?'” Kroeger said, repeating a question from her mother. Kroeger answered in the positive since the kids were now out of the house and she and her husband, Wayen, had more time to devote to such a project.

“We try to keep it as stock as possible this being our first car that we've ever really done,” she said. “To make it something else, we couldn't see it. Plus, the emotional attachment that I had to it, I wanted to keep it pretty much like it was.”

The car was in fairly bad shape at first and the couple had to do plenty of research to make sure they restored it correctly. They had it re-painted in the Hawk's original black color and J.C. Whitney seat covers that sat in a Quonset hut for many years were installed.

“The engine somewhere gave out and I can't ask my dad now what happened to it,” Kroeger said. “He ordered a new short block engine and never put it in. It was in a crate all those years.”

With nothing under the hood, the Kroegers went to work on putting it back together. An original manual for the vehicle was found at the farm and a lot of further work was accomplished online, including eBay auctioning to find hubcaps.

Studebaker produced the Hawk for just two years (1960-61) - not counting several other variations in the “Hawk” series.

“We joined the Igniters club because we really didn't have much knowledge fixing up cars,” Kroeger said. “They were a resource of being able to ask people for help.”

The car remained in the Igniters' shop for 32 months as it came back to life. Its re-birth occurred this past June and although the Kroegers drove it to the Fourth of July celebration in Troy, they skipped the parade for fear of hurting the new engine with a lot of stop-and-go driving.

So, when she climbs behind the wheel for Ignite the Nites on Friday and Saturday, Kroeger will likely feel right at home. After all, the Hawk has been in the family for nearly a half-century.