Trunk Tailgate Nachos

The Studebaker was never just a car. Sleek lines, chrome curves, and the kind of design that looked like it belonged in the future — all built by a company that simply couldn’t outspend Detroit’s giants. By the early 1960s the brand was fading, but the cars themselves endured, stubbornly stylish decades later.

And if you had a Studebaker, odds are the trunk saw as much action as the engine. Families packed them for road trips, teenagers for drive-ins, and somewhere along the way, food always found its way back there. Sandwiches, sodas, maybe the occasional thermos of coffee. So why not nachos? A pan wedged between the jack and the spare tire, cheese melting onto chrome, jalapeños sliding with every turn. The trunk became less of a storage space and more of a snack station.

It fits, really. Studebakers were memorable, distinctive, a little impractical — just like nachos. Both demanded attention: the car with its bullet-nose grille, the nachos with a mountain of toppings threatening collapse. Both carried a kind of reckless charm. You didn’t eat nachos because they were neat, and you didn’t drive a Studebaker because it was sensible. You did it because they made you grin.

So celebrate Drive Your Studebaker Day the only way that makes sense: not just with polish and nostalgia, but with nachos riding shotgun, tailgating in the trunk, and leaving behind equal parts grease stains and cheese stains.