South Bend was home to America’s Studebaker car company, which disappeared in 1966 after a 114 year history that began as a supplier of horse-drawn wagons, which it produced on a grand scale. It was the only American wagon maker to successfully switch to building automobiles, the first of these electric.

Today, its cars are best remembered for their styling, which was remarkable then and in the case of the bullet-nosed 1939 Champion (pictured), which had what looked like an over-sized vacuum cleaner pipe attachment where you’d expect to find a grille, positively weird.

The Champion was the work of Raymond Loewy Associates, one of the most distinguished industrial design agencies of the 20th century, and was merely a prelude to several landmark designs that included the 1953 Starliner coupé (pictured) and a decade later, the magnificent glassfibre-bodied Avanti.

But it’s the ’56-‘58 Golden Hawk that I’ve long harboured periodic cravings for, probably because I remember the Corgi toy model of it and because it could be had with a supercharger, a whining add-on that lent it a dangerously exciting power-to-weight ratio.

The first ’56 Golden Hawk was a more assertive version of the aforementioned pretty but tragically anaemic ’53 Starliner coupé , its raised bonnet and bigger, more vertical grille allowing a sizeable 352 cu in 275bhp Packard V8 to oust the limp straight-six usually found there.

This more thrusting nose was counterbalanced by a pair of fins that reached their rakish zenith for the ’57 model year, when the Packard engine was replaced by a supercharged version of Studebaker’s smaller 289 cu in V8, to produce the same 275bhp.

It allowed the Golden Hawk to a 7.8sec flight to 60mph – quick enough to dust all its competitors, including the Chevrolet Corvette, although there was a real possibility that it would see you off too, its weighty engine lending it the direction-changing qualities of a hard-flung axe – handling was not a Golden Hawk forte.

But it looked great. This was an American car whose wheels actually sat in the right place relative to the wheelarches, instead of riding on a track so narrow that its body appeared to cascade over them.

It looked vastly more athletic than most of large cars cruising America’s streets in the ‘50s, and also provided the rarity of a rev counter, set within a turned aluminium instrument panel that could almost have come from a Bugatti. For the US, the Golden Hawk was almost a sports car.

Golden Hawks are rare things – fewer than 900 were sold in the 1958 model as Studebaker plunged towards oblivion - but they’re coveted today. So there’ll be no itchy fingers pressing ‘place bid’ buttons on ebay. But one day…

Be brave and you’ll obtain that matchless Raymond Loewy styling, and a decent turn of supercharged speed that will keep up with modern traffic. Though corners may be tiresome, as will any need to stop quickly. Prices have moved sharply higher in past few years, and you won't get one for less than $25,000, though concourse condition ones can sell for more than $100,000.