Rick Beyer's Studebaker

When Arthur F. Beyer bought his Studebaker Champion for $2,097.55 on March 11, 1949, there was no way he could predict the effect his car would have on his family for the next 53 years. Like the current of the Big Blackfoot River in Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It, this modest four-door sedan has coursed through his family with a steady rhythm: father to son, father to son.

Four generations of Beyer boys have wielded the keys to this tan four door with its racy red wheels. The list of drivers reads like a Biblical genealogy. Every time a son, grandson or great-grandson grips the thin plastic wheel of this family heirloom, Arthur Beyer’s spirit is sure to be alongside.

Arthur Beyer died at age 56 in 1952. Beyer’s wife, Emma, only drove the car 6,000 miles in the 16 years after his death. The cancelled check, bill of sale and Beyer’s handwritten journal describing trips are like new.

The car’s remarkable procession through the family began in 1968 when Art Beyer moved it from Cleveland to Texas. His son Brad, who now lives in Shawnee, drove it during his sophomore, junior and senior years. “We didn’t have concerns about salt roads, so I drove it year-round,” Brad said. “Then my brother drove it during his high school years. When he graduated in 1976 it was parked for a while and began a general deterioration. My dad, already thinking about grandchildren even though none were in sight, gave it to a high-school shop class in 1985 and asked them to fix it up.

“My dad was real proud because by the time my son Brandon was ready to drive in 1994, we went to Texas and hauled it up here on a trailer. Brandon immediately drove it over to a girlfriend’s house and it spewed steam all over because it had the wrong radiator cap. We were in the shop pretty regularly. Brandon had mixed feelings about driving the car. He wanted a car that was a little sexier, a little speedier, a little more muscular – something sleek and fast. I liked it because kind of big, kind of slow and very recognizable. The police in Shawnee knew it belonged to that Beyer kid, and he couldn’t get away with anything.”

The stories this car could tell. From Arthur and Emma Beyer’s cross-country trips in the 1950s to teen-agers learning to drive a stick shift in the Shawnee Mission Northwest parking lot. (“The yellow lines were cars, and we hit 39 the first time,” Brad said.)

About 1997, Brandon went to college. That’s when it was transferred to Brad’s cousin and current owner, Rick Beyer, of Leawood. “Loyalty in this family,” said Sarah Beyer, Rick’s wife, “runs wide and deep.”

“I didn’t really want it at first,” Rick said, “but Erik fell in love with it and got me interested in it again. He drove it to school. We decided to carry on the tradition that Brad had started by keeping it maintained. We took it to Precision Restoration in Independence, and Jim Barber took it apart and put it back together in the pristine condition it is now. Two of the hubcaps came from Australia.”

Erik went to college and last fall, Rick’s younger son Kent, 17, drove it every day. But, because it can be “temperamental,” and because he doesn’t like to drive it in the rain or snow, Kent recently got a car of his own. The tan Studebaker waits patiently in its garage stall.

The Beyer’s Studebaker has been a constant through generations of change. Family members today steer the same wheel that Arthur Beyer did when he first drove home from Koepke Motors that March in Cleveland. Like Maclean said in his book, traditions restore the soul and stir the imagination.

Even today, Rick said, “When I take the wheel I can almost imagine grandpa and what he felt like.”