The Studebaker meets Dr. Branemark

I’m a car nut. It is no secret. I come from a family of car nuts. I have a 3x3 foot square picture of a ’36 Cadillac and another of a ’46 Packard in two of my operatories. I love cars. But the car I really covet? My uncle Meyer thinks it’s a Saab, my dad would say a ’62 Lincoln, my sister a Nash Metropolitan, nope…not even close! A 1963 Studebaker Avanti. That’s what I want. It’s not a Ferrari or Lamborghini, nor a Mustang or Corvette. While I appreciate all cars, the Avanti holds my eye and my heart. It is an amazing design that, unfortunately, came at the end of the Studebaker brand’s life. Some call it ugly, I think it is one of the most beautiful consumer products ever made. The design lives on, even though I may be the only person that sees it.

I think about what would have happened had the Studebaker lived on for thirty or forty years, much like the Mustang or Corvette. Would it even be recognizable? I think it would. The other day I saw an early 2000’s Honda Prelude. From a distance the front really looks like it was influenced by Studebaker. Maybe the design did live on, but what’s this got to do with Dr. Branemark?

2 Branemark Dental Implants

In the early 1980’s, P I Brånemark, helped to bring the first commercial dental implant to the marketplace. It was a simple, yet effective, design that used a titanium alloy as the basis for the implant structure. It was an iconic design that can still be found in many implant manufacturer’s catalogues today. Thirty years later I still see original Nobel/Branemark implants that are successful. It was a great design. Luckily it came at the beginning of a company’s life, not at the end, or we may not have had the opportunity to celebrate and utilize dental implants. Every implant for the last thirty years used the original Branemark designs as the benchmark for the development of their product. As soon as patents ran out there were dozens of “clones” of the original Branemark implant brought to market. Sure each one touted improvements on the design, but strangely they were mostly compatible with components made for Branemark implants thirty years prior. Two weeks ago I had a patient bring me back an implant from his dentist friend in Argentina. Guess what? It was an exact replication of the original implant by Branemark made in Israel, packaged in the U.K., and shipped to South America.

A few weeks ago a sales rep from one of my implant manufacturers was excited about a new dental implant design. It is a vast design improvement, utilizing a proprietary new version of titanium. It is still the same basic design, except the usual thread pattern disappears in the middle of the implant where it is replaced with an amazing trabecular pattern, mimicking natural bone patterns. This may be the birth of a new dental implant, I wonder where it will be in thirty years. 

Trabecular Dental Implant

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A Family Dental Care Center: Dr. Seth Rosen
2030 West Main St. Norristown, PA 19403
610.631.3400