South Bend Sidewinder

Fred Summers faults me for not including Studebaker with the cars of 1940 offering sidemounts. Truth to tell, I avoided mentioning Studebaker in the CarPort installment on fender-mounted spares because I wasn't sure just when the South Bend automaker took them off the options list. To prove his thesis, Fred sends pix of this '40 President State Sedan he found a few years ago in Paducah, Kentucky.

Thankfully, he pointed out how to distinguish it from a '39, as the changes were very subtle. Most obvious, even if you don't know your Studies, are the sealed beam headlights, which all but a few automakers adopted for the 1940 model year. Careful comparison with the 1939 President will also show different bumpers, hood side trim, and elimination of both the emblem on the stainless trim separating the grilles and the hood ornament.

Although, as many cars, Studebakers were often equipped with sidemounts in 1931 and '32 (even the low-priced "companion" Rockne offered them), by 1935 they were seldom seen. Even the catalog, which listed "two spare wheels mounted in mudguard wells" as Deluxe Equipment for all but the entry level Champion model, illustrated them only on one car, the President Regal Limousine.

So if Studebaker, Buick, Cadillac and Packard were the last US cars to offer sidemounts pre-war, when did the others abandon them...Olds and Pontiac, for example? DeSoto and Dodge?

Fred has another question for the CarPort: which American marque was the first to take all spare tires indoors, on all models, with no option for sidemounts or outside rear tire, and in what year? I think I know, but I'd like to know what you think. Email your answer to the CarPort.