Postwar Studebakers

isellhondas

Not the first time this has happened. A company is finally seeing a future and the union decides they aren't happy enough so they strike. Then they wonder later why they don't have a job!

Mr_Shiftright

ab348 said:

I think most small imports back then would get a garage/gas station with some space to take on their line. I remember even seeing pics of early VW dealers that were like that.

I don't recall what the reputation or image of Studebaker was in the mid-60s. I know we had a dealer here that continued after the brand departed as a M-B dealer and still exists in successor form today. But I don't recall any family or friends who owned Studebakers and it wasn't a brand that came up very much in discussions. I didn't get into reading car magazines until around '67 or '68 so there was no mention of them by then.

The Studebaker image in the 1960s was mostly as an "Independent" automaker, mostly known for solid, "thrifty" cars ala AMC but also a company struggling to field some "sporty" cars to compete with GM and Ford primarily.

Considering their very limited capital, Studebaker put up a very good effort, but the general public knew the company wasn't a big player, and didn't see a long future for the company. It's hard to sell a car that might be orphaned.

fintail

I wonder if there was a future, or if the strike just hastened the inevitable. Domestic makers with a lot of resources lost a lot of ground once the 70s started rolling. Those without resources lost all of their ground and are gone.

Today it would be different - a vulture capital firm would buy it, roll debt from purchase into the books, gut the assets, then have it fail via said debt, while complaining about over-regulation and claiming corporations are people too. The result would be the same though, workers left out, execs walking away wealthy.

isellhondas said:

Not the first time this has happened. A company is finally seeing a future and the union decides they aren't happy enough so they strike. Then they wonder later why they don't have a job!

uplanderguy

Amazingly, Studebaker workers made more than the Big Three, I've read in more than one place. Seems like insanity. They used to call themselves in some ads "America's Friendliest Factory" and had a lot of ads, mostly in the forties and fifties, showing grandfather, father and son working by each other in the plant. Supposedly, for a lot of years, they went to great lengths to avoid strikes, not in the best long-term interest of the Company, for sure. But mostly, their facilities in South Bend were old--some buildings were still in the use from the wagon-making days.

I've heard stories about the coddled workforce--one guy killed in a car accident in Michigan but he was clocked in at the plant.

At 25:25 in this video, there is video from the 1962 strike, including Egbert's Fintail crossing the picket line. He was a tall guy and it looks to me like him in the back seat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9QQQy1h8bQ

berri

AMC also had some union militancy and untimely strikes. You wonder what the workers were thinking?

fintail

Interesting to see the fintail being used as a chauffeur-driven car - they are not huge cars. There was a LWB fancy (W112 300SE) fintail at the time, even could be optioned with a divider but they were expensive and are pretty rare.

uplanderguy

I haven't been able to locate it in a good while, but there was a factory photo of a '63 model year introduction parade of cars in South Bend, starting near the Administration Building. There's what I call a 230 coupe (or hardtop) parked smack in front of the Administration Building, which made me think Egbert was probably driving that that day. He was known by the locals to drive his Avanti impatiently between the plant and his home 15 miles away out at the Proving Ground. Supposedly the Indiana State Police got to know him as they repeatedly pulled him over at 100 or more in the Avanti on Indiana Rt. 2 headed out there. I read where he used to say "I have to test the product", LOL.

fintail

That'd be a 220SE coupe, new for MY 1961 existed through 1965 - for MY 1966 it became a 250SE (otherwise identical, the design was made until MY 1971). The coupes were quite chic at the time, and cost a lot more than the sedans. I suspect a 220SE coupe was around 8K in 1961.

uplanderguy

I still have trouble remembering numerical names, LOL! Was there ever a 230? Mr. Filer Sr. had a 220 sedan in black with red interior. My friend, the younger Mr. Filer, has always said his Dad really enjoyed the car.

Mr_Shiftright

Yes there was a 230. It was kind of a turkey--burned up the valves a lot.

fintail

There were numerous cars to bear the "230" number (some with a letter suffix or prefix). Two fintail sedans W110 and W111, W114 sedan, W123 coupe sedan and wagon, W124 coupe and sedan, W202 sedan, W203 coupe/hatch and sedan, W210 sedan, SLK, along with prewar cars.

220 badged cars (often with suffix or prefix) are most likely to be a ponton or fintail sedan or coupe along with early 50s W187 prewar style cars, but can be W114/115 sedan , W124 sedan and coupe, W210 sedan, W211 sedan , W212 sedan, and I believe exists for C207/208/209 (CLK/E coupe).

Confused yet?

berri

I wonder if MB merged with Studebaker back in the old days, what the result would have been? Of course synergy doesn't always happen. But if you think about it, as Studebaker was running into headwinds in the 60's, MB was gaining traction in the US market. A successful top line product can sometimes generate increased interest in the rest of the product line, especially back in those days. Plus I think MB had become profitable in Europe by then and was increasing sales profit margins here. OTOH, an MB merger may have created more UAW issues for Studebaker and maybe MB to boot I suppose. Fun to speculate sometimes.

uplanderguy

I always thought the opportunity to sell M-B came along as Packard in the Corporation went away...a ready-made upper-price line to replace Packard and Clipper.

Not every Stude dealer got M-B. In hindsight, I'm surprised our small-town dealer added them. Not every Stude dealer added Packard during '54-58, either. Ours did too.

Back to Sherwood Egbert for a minute--I have one of his business cards from Studebaker under the glass on my desk. From '63, based on the Studebaker logo on it. A few years ago his last Studebaker Avanti went to auction with some small memorabilia from him. The car's normal "S" emblem on the roof sail panel was modified back then to show "SE". It sold for $75K IIRC, a record for an Avanti at the time which his since been blasted past by a couple Avantis at auction in the past year.

A book I own about Byers Burlingame, Studebaker's last president who shut South Bend production down, said that after that he went to Germany among other things to talk to M-B about getting Studebaker out of their sales agreement, M-B officials wouldn't meet with him. Seems hard to believe, but it was written from notes and records in the archives at the Studebaker National Museum.

I'm aware of a few stand-alone M-B dealers that started out as Studebaker dealers.

omarman

Ed Potter Sr. founded Ed Potter Inc. as a used-car operation in 1951 on West Fifth Avenue in Columbus. From 1953 to 1964 his dealership sold Studebakers and then obtained the Mercedes Benz franchise in 1957.

Germain Motor Co. bought Ed Potter Mercedes-Benz and Columbus Cadillac in 2004 and relocated both dealerships to Easton town center in 2006 to develop what they called "a luxury-car campus."

At the time Germain's president Steve Germain said that it cost $13 million to build the Caddy and Benz showrooms at Morse Crossing at Easton. And he added, "...there isn't a bigger Mercedes-Benz sign anywhere in America." That was my favorite part of the story!

edit to add: I think the other Mercedes dealer in Columbus is Crown but I don't know how they got their franchise.

ab348

berri said:

I wonder if MB merged with Studebaker back in the old days, what the result would have been? Of course synergy doesn't always happen. But if you think about it, as Studebaker was running into headwinds in the 60's, MB was gaining traction in the US market. A successful top line product can sometimes generate increased interest in the rest of the product line, especially back in those days. Plus I think MB had become profitable in Europe by then and was increasing sales profit margins here. OTOH, an MB merger may have created more UAW issues for Studebaker and maybe MB to boot I suppose. Fun to speculate sometimes.

Well, the merger with Packard was supposed to do something similar, with Studebakers in the mainstream market and Packards at the high end. Dealers would be pleased, right? Except Packard wasn't very good by then and buyers were hard to find. I'm not sure that M-B in the late '50s was a real competitor in the high-end market at that time as the cars weren't perceived the way they are today. It was more of a quirky Euro car, expensive but with few of the things customers in the luxo-market were looking for at the time.

fintail

I am kind of not surprised MB didn't want to link up with Stude by the mid 60s. There was overlap in terms of size between the volume models of both makers, and like most others, Germans like to do things their own way. MB had "world cars", and having a line primarily for NA probably seemed inefficient. Labor relations are another probable aspect - they are handled much differently and usually friendlier than on this side of the pond, working social democracy vs a softer version of Galt's Gulch. German managers might not have got along well with the UAW. I also think by the mid 60s, MB was planning their baby steps into the US high end market, with V8 cars by 1969-70. From then, a lot changed. It makes me think of "Driving Miss Daisy", where Daisy's son (Dan Akroyd) always has a late model Cadillac - except for the end, set in the early 70s, where he's driving a W109.

I've read the old time MB dealer in Seattle started as Chevy, and simply changed gears around 1959. They had the only local franchise until the mid 80s, a well-timed move.

uplanderguy

ab348, Packard bought Studebaker in the merger. They had more cash on hand for sure, and a better handle on labor; but for their price range had a fuddy-duddy image for the most part (MHO only) and hadn't had any significant styling updates since 1951 (until '55), and didn't have a V8 until 1955, late for that price range of cars. Studebaker had new trucks in '49, two new lines of cars in '53 (not one piece of sheetmetal or glass will interchange between a coupe and sedan, not very smart really!), and a new OHV V8 of their own design in '51, but their breakeven point was misrepresented to Packard--a bad thing of course. But by '56, survival looked most-possible by letting Packard go from the combination. Of course, this all can be debated forever and in car circles is something akin to still fighting the Civil War, LOL.

I like the Egbert era at Studebaker ('61-64 model years), but probably, Harold Churchill did more for the Company financially, with his idea of Scotsman, then the Lark. He kept telling people "We need something like the '39 Champion again". What was something new at the time, although it did the auto division in, was that Studebaker diversified into other industries in the early sixties, so successfully that when the auto division went away, their stock price actually went up.

berri

IIRC, Studebaker even owned STP (remember old Andy Granetelli!)

uplanderguy

They did indeed own STP in the sixties. I've seen cans that had the Studebaker name and logo on them. Gravely tractors also comes to mind.

ab348

fintail said:

. Labor relations are another probable aspect - they are handled much differently and usually friendlier than on this side of the pond, working social democracy vs a softer version of Galt's Gulch. German managers might not have got along well with the UAW.

Reading books on the Daimler/Chrysler marriage, many of the German managers had issues in the Chrysler world over here.

berri

I think Daimler got sucked in by the then in vogue world car strategy, and thought trucks and vans. Worked somewhat for Chrysler with the 300 platform though, as well as a cash infusion.

Mr_Shiftright

berri said:

I wonder if MB merged with Studebaker back in the old days, what the result would have been? Of course synergy doesn't always happen. But if you think about it, as Studebaker was running into headwinds in the 60's, MB was gaining traction in the US market. A successful top line product can sometimes generate increased interest in the rest of the product line, especially back in those days. Plus I think MB had become profitable in Europe by then and was increasing sales profit margins here. OTOH, an MB merger may have created more UAW issues for Studebaker and maybe MB to boot I suppose. Fun to speculate sometimes.

Probably the same clash of cultures that occurred between MB and Chrysler. Besides I doubt Benz would have taken on such an ailing company once they looked at the balance sheets. I guess you meant perhaps that they'd be interested in taking over the dealer network? I don't think so---Benz is a pretty conservative company and very protective of their image. They even stopped providing cars to movies that showed Benzes being driven by evil people.

uplanderguy

Supposedly the reason Benz was interested in doing business with Studebaker in the U.S. in '57 when the agreement was signed, was because of Studebaker's existing dealer network. I think we've discussed this here before, but the dealer count went from 1,915 in Dec. '63 to 450 in March '66.

Funny that I met Sherwood Egbert's (and also Byers Burlingame's) secretary a couple times in South Bend, decades later. She told me she married "the man who brought M-B into the U.S.". His name was Lon Fleener. She probably meant the man who helped bring Benz under the Studebaker-Packard umbrella. They weren't married until after Studebaker automobile production was done. She told me he was a good bit older but they had 23 years together.

I smiled at bit when I saw her come into the Studebaker National Museum for a dinner, the second time I saw her there. She was on the arm of a priest from Notre Dame. At that point she lived in CA.

Mr_Shiftright

Well I don't know about THAT claim---Max Hoffman is really the star of the 3-pointed star in the USA. I suspect Benz courted Studebaker because they really wanted to get rid of Max and his two big dealership (L.A. and NY) and broaden their marketing. Also, Studebaker was affiliated with Curtiss-Wright aircraft and Benz was REALLY interested in a U.S. aircraft builder as a partner.

The Studebaker alliance didn't go well. Studebaker salesmen didn't know how to sell a Benz and Studebaker dealers didn't know how to deal with Benz clientele. Also Benz wanted Studebaker to feature their cars as "flagships" at the dealerships--but they ended up mostly as curiosities parked in a corner. Even worse, Benz wanted S-P to sell Auto Union cars, which were hopeless in the American market.

It just went sour because of cross-purposes. These were strange bedfellows.

There was sort of a happy ending though. As Studebaker was going belly-up, Benz bought out their contract with S-P, and then chose the very best Studebaker dealers to be the first M.B. of North America (formed in 1965) dealers.

So a few Studebaker dealers got real lucky indeed.

uplanderguy

Apparently Lon Fleener was president of Mercedes-Benz Sales Inc. in the U.S. in the early '60's. I'm sure he and Martha met by his coming in to see Egbert:

https://books.google.com/books?id=nUa2QpzPUDYC&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=Lon+Fleener&source=bl&ots=xdwOVEarqG&sig=zLWNEJAP-9Hi0IR1xbfz3uAeKo4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizl4zGzPHZAhVEuVMKHXDWCEcQ6AEITjAI#v=onepage&q=Lon Fleener&f=false

fintail

I've read there were a ton of issues when the Alabama factory was opened too.

ab348 said:

Reading books on the Daimler/Chrysler marriage, many of the German managers had issues in the Chrysler world over here.

uplanderguy

I have friends who teach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, in small-town Indiana, PA, hometown of Jimmy Stewart. Indiana Sales and Service was a Benz dealer there into the '90's, after being a Stude dealer. I'm thinking it's a used-car dealer now; must've had their franchise pulled.

fintail

I am surprised it lasted that long. Locally anyway, I can't think of a MB dealer in a town of less than 80-90K people,

berri

I was just to thinking, the movie Grease kind of immortalized a Studebaker with the pink ladies

uplanderguy

For me mostly, it's that I remember Studebakers (born '58), even as a kid I noticed they were different, they were built in comparatively small numbers, and I think they did a lot with what they had, particularly in the sixties. I like that they had a full truck line; even into the '64 model year they were building big diesel trucks as well as pickups, and I like that they were outside of Detroit. Although AMC's were built in Kenosha, their HQ was in Detroit. I'll assume (only) that was because of Nash's merger with Hudson and Hudson was headquartered in Detroit.

uplanderguy

I am surprised it lasted that long. Locally anyway, I can't think of a MB dealer in a town of less than 80-90K people,

Indiana University of Pennsylvania is located there, which as you'd previously noted may well have had something to do with it. Pretty large school in a small town. My friends who live and work there have M-B's now but they didn't back in the nineties. Now they get them worked on in either Ligonier or Latrobe (I get those two towns mixed up), IIRC, towards Johnstown, a ways away.

uplanderguy

Ironically, there's a talk at the Studebaker National Museum today about 'the women of Studebaker' and in the pre-publicity note there is a specific mention of Martha Fleener:

https://studebakermuseum.org/?event=the-working-women-of-studebaker

uplanderguy

Egbert's card. With a zip code on it, must be '63 for sure.

No phone number, as I've seen on other Stude business cards. Guess you weren't supposed to just telephone the president!

On another site some years ago, I saw a day with JFK's schedule on it and it said "Meet with President Egbert of Studebaker". I thought that was interesting. In my mind, I sort-of link JFK with Egbert; both were presidents from 1961-63, both died young, and were notably younger than their predecessors.

fintail

There was a time when MBs in general were for the elbow patch jacket professor and engineer crowd rather than middle managers and Kardashian followers. I'd believe the school was a big part of it.

Reminds me of a story I remember from one of my college profs, told nearly 20 years ago now. Back around 1970 or so, he was looking to buy a new car, and had decided on a very sane rational Volvo. The dealer also sold MB, and he examined a bottom of the line 230. He fell in love with it and bought it on impulse, the jewel-like build quality fascinated him. I don't recall how long he said he kept it, but he had no problem admitting he was smitten with the car.

uplanderguy said:

Indiana University of Pennsylvania is located there, which as you'd previously noted may well have had something to do with it. Pretty large school in a small town. My friends who live and work there have M-B's now but they didn't back in the nineties. Now they get them worked on in either Ligonier or Latrobe (I get those two towns mixed up), IIRC, towards Johnstown, a ways away.

fintail

This now classic video and hit song mentions Studebaker, they should have flashed a bullet nose or Speedster in the video - I think I was in 7th grade when this debuted, I thought it was very cool then, and it has held up well.

uplanderguy

fin, before I even opened your link I knew it'd be that Billy Joel song! I will definitely listen to it again soon as I haven't heard it in a long time. Really, the whole song is pretty clever I think.

Speaking of the elbow-patch crowd, on the Studebaker Drivers' Club forum a couple years back, I remember somebody saying they remember a college professor buying a new M-B from the local dealer and buying his wife a new '64 Daytona Hardtop at the same time from the same dealer. He must've done pretty well wherever he taught, LOL.

Mr_Shiftright

In a way, if you switched from a Studebaker dealership to an M-B, you probably lost most of your customers. That wouldn't be an easy transition, especially in the mid 1960s, when Mercedes were quite expensive for the average working man.

Also the driving characteristics of M-Bs then were so alien to the American habits. If you went from a Studebaker to a Mercedes, you got something and you lost something.

fintail

Here's a nicely done homemade slideshow based on the song, with a bullet nose

I remember the song clearly from when it was new. 1989 was quite a time, and I was very interested in current events - I remember getting up early to watch the news and see the latest events in the fall of the eastern bloc, and the fall of the Berlin wall, and getting into shortwave radio at that time. A different world in terms of information dispersal.

In the early - mid 60s, most MB sedans weren't insanely expensive - my fintail, a higher range SE model, cost the same as a nicely equipped Buick, and 4cyl cars were cheaper. Coupes and cabrios were always expensive, and when the V8 cars came along, those along with currency issues inflated MB MSRP a lot, I think.

uplanderguy said:

fin, before I even opened your link I knew it'd be that Billy Joel song! I will definitely listen to it again soon as I haven't heard it in a long time. Really, the whole song is pretty clever I think.

Speaking of the elbow-patch crowd, on the Studebaker Drivers' Club forum a couple years back, I remember somebody saying they remember a college professor buying a new M-B from the local dealer and buying his wife a new '64 Daytona Hardtop at the same time from the same dealer. He must've done pretty well wherever he taught, LOL.

uplanderguy

I'd mentioned this here before, but when I was at the archives of the Studebaker National Museum a few years back, they had retail sale cards filed by month, by dealer, starting Sept. '63 and ending April '66 for my hometown dealer, and I was surprised to see a couple M-B's traded in on new Studebakers. those last couple or three years. In a small town like ours, I think people bought the dealer as much as the car.

I plainly remember my hometown dealer was number 0097, a pretty low number, but they acquired the Stude franchise in 1926.

berri

Reminds me of a story I remember from one of my college profs, told nearly 20 years ago now. Back around 1970 or so, he was looking to buy a new car, and had decided on a very sane rational Volvo.

Nah, when I was in college it tended to be the jerk professors who drove Volvo's

fintail

I suspect some MBs didn't age well in that climate at the time, they were far from rustproof. And if they didn't have a good mechanic, they might not have aged well with some American driving styles. I suspect diesel models fared best.

uplanderguy said:

I'd mentioned this here before, but when I was at the archives of the Studebaker National Museum a few years back, they had retail sale cards filed by month, by dealer, starting Sept. '63 and ending April '66 for my hometown dealer, and I was surprised to see a couple M-B's traded in on new Studebakers. those last couple or three years. In a small town like ours, I think people bought the dealer as much as the car.

I plainly remember my hometown dealer was number 0097, a pretty low number, but they acquired the Stude franchise in 1926.

fintail

Funny - many saw him as a jerk. I tolerated him, as his rambling stories were amusing, I had him for two classes - I think the highest I eked out was a B+ or A-, and I was pleased with that.

I still remember three things - he took attendance; the entire grade was based on two tests and a final exam - the latter was worth like 60% of the grade; and you'd have a much better chance if you bought the study guide for the textbook. Guess who wrote the study guide? The professor. I don't recall what he drove at that time, probably minted enough with the book gig to buy a new MB.

berri said:

Nah, when I was in college it tended to be the jerk professors who drove Volvo's

ab348

fintail said:

1989 was quite a time, and I was very interested in current events - I remember getting up early to watch the news and see the latest events in the fall of the eastern bloc, and the fall of the Berlin wall, and getting into shortwave radio at that time. A different world in terms of information dispersal.

I was the same way back then and even a decade or so earlier. When I was still living at home with my parents I was a bit of a TV/radio news junkie. I had a big Radio Shack shortwave receiver in my room and Dad strung a long-wire antenna from a bracket outside my bedroom window to a tree at the end of the backyard, and I picked up all sorts of things. I listened to a lot of Armed Forces Radio in the '70s because they carried lots of baseball games which I could listen to in the afternoon. And they carried a variety of '70s US network radio news and commentary programs. In the '80s I used to watch the early morning US TV news programs like NBC News at Sunrise as I got ready for work in the mornings. A bit different from today when I avoid most network news and especially CNN..

fintail

I got into it right about that time, which was good with the collapse of the eastern bloc. I was already very interested in Germany and the USSR, and knew this was the historical time of the generation. I had found an old vacuum tube shortwave radio at a yard sale, (I think a Philco, 40s era with a wood case), my dad and I set it up, and I would play with it at night. I was always amazed at the power had by that old set, it could get AM as far as New Mexico, and shortwave from everywhere, with just a wire strung along a wall. I also remember listening to the collapse of Soviet control in the Baltics, and the Russian coup attempt in 1991. The local radio entities had live coverage out in the streets, broadcast for the world to see. Much more interesting than most social media-based news today.

I keep away from most corporate news save for catching up with local events. It's all pretty awful in varying degrees, from CNN to loathsome FOX, and even local news is not immune - Seattle has a Sinclair station which airs some questionably relevant material.

ab348 said:

I was the same way back then and even a decade or so earlier. When I was still living at home with my parents I was a bit of a TV/radio news junkie. I had a big Radio Shack shortwave receiver in my room and Dad strung a long-wire antenna from a bracket outside my bedroom window to a tree at the end of the backyard, and I picked up all sorts of things. I listened to a lot of Armed Forces Radio in the '70s because they carried lots of baseball games which I could listen to in the afternoon. And they carried a variety of '70s US network radio news and commentary programs. In the '80s I used to watch the early morning US TV news programs like NBC News at Sunrise as I got ready for work in the mornings. A bit different from today when I avoid most network news and especially CNN..

berri

I think I once saw that Sinclair station. Is it the one with the Ruskie like accent guy spouting off editorials in the middle of the news? I'm not sure this guy has much influence with viewers because of his accent and delivery. Badly needs some speech and broadcasting training.

uplanderguy

Getting my entry in today! Oops, I'm not Canadian.

uplanderguy

And at the same time and in the same neighborhood, these were being built--when's the last time anyone saw a '64 Studebaker Diesel Tractor, 96BBC model for states with restrictive lengths of cabs and trailers--front end was basically sawed off!

https://skoshi8.deviantart.com/art/Studebaker-1964-E45-Diesel-01-484784083

ab348

I knew that Studebaker made medium-duty trucks but must confess I had no idea they produced over-the-road diesel-powered tractors. Learned something new!

uplanderguy

They used GM's Detroit Diesels, but were the only ones offering diesel power in one-tons at the time too. Probably to the Company's financial detriment, but they were the small guy trying to reach several parts of the market.

They were still building large gas-powered trucks, with Studebaker engines, in the '64 model year too.

fintail

I wonder if anyone won that Avanti, and if the car still exists.