By ALEXANDER SIMONE

Staff writer

Roger Hannaford III’s 1940 Studebaker Champion coupe doesn’t travel far from home, but it is a mainstay in Marion.

With its age and condition, Hannaford prefers to keep the car around Marion, mostly going to events like the Old Settlers’ parade.

“I don’t take it out of town much,” he said. “I don’t know how road-worthy it is.”

Since Hannaford’s dad, also Roger, bought the car in 1960, it has undergone two restorations. The first project restored the body and interior, while the second re-worked the car’s mechanical functions.

While Hannaford’s father was Roger, his nickname went on the license plate.

“Everybody called him Bud,” Hannaford said. “Nobody called him Roger, they just called him Bud. For some reason, when he got that antique tag, he decided to name it ‘Old Bud.’”

Any time Hannaford takes the Studebaker out, it draws a good reaction from passers-by, he said.

“You don’t see that kind of car going down the road very often,” he said. “You get a lot of lookers. They don’t make them like that anymore.”

Old Bud is different from many classic cars because it isn’t in pristine condition, Hannaford said. He thinks those quirks and blemishes add to the character of the car.

“This one has flaws, kind of like all of us,” he said. “You see it from a distance and it looks pretty good, but it has some issues.”

One of the special details is getting the car to start.

“Sometimes it floods, and sometimes it doesn’t get enough gas and won’t go,” he said. “It’s that fine line of trying to get the thing to start.”

In addition to keeping the car as original as possible, Hannaford likes that is has real-world experience.

Old Bud sees limited use now, but it has 51,000 miles, mostly from before 1960.

Hannaford is a big Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas State football fan, but he will never change the car’s maroon paint job.

“That’s the original color, we’ll never deviate from that,” Hannaford said. “That thing is going to the grave in that color. It’d be fun to paint it a Chiefs vehicle or a purple wildcat, but we’re going to keep it.”