You can order the Production Order for your truck from the Studebaker National Museum
see http://www.studebakermuseum.org
Click on Museum Store/Collectibles/Production Orders
The Production Order will tell you the exact date of build and what equipment was on the truck, as well as original paint and trim codes.
You can decipher some of it here: http://www.studegarage.com/refdata.htm
Your truck was built in the Chippewa Avenue plant in South Bend, IN. If you look at Google Maps, enter 20501 W Chippewa Ave, South Bend, IN. You can see an aerial view of the plant as it is today, on the north side of Chippewa Ave. I'm not sure what company is now occupying it. The plant was built in WWII under a Studebaker government contract to build Wright Cyclone R-1820 engines for B-17s and other planes. Studebaker bought the building in Feb. 1948 and moved truck production there.
2R5 production started with truck serial number R5-001 (1949 models). The 1950 models started with R5-42501, so your truck would have been about half way through the first year run.
Posted on Oct 5, 2008, 6:42 PM from IP address 76.118.116.176