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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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The diversification program started in 1958, but perhaps it didn't get into full swing for a few years. Egbert was put in charge of it in 1961, that's right, but it had been put in place before his ascendancy. This included, aside from the various accounting acrobatics, etc, Gravely Tractors, Onan generators, the Clarke Floor Machine Company, and STP oil treatment. Studebaker-Packard also distributed Mercedes-Benz and DKW---which might speak for the resemblance of the grillwork between a Lark and a Benz.
The problem, aside from Studebaker's failing image, was that it costs too much for Studebaker to make a car. Their plants were old, their tooling wearing out, and marketing budget pretty slim.
'62 Hawk sales were 9,335 according to factory records.
Of course, people (especially back then) were followers, not leaders. Heck, my own family only bought Chevys, and I still do as new cars. But as much as I enjoy certain Chevys, it is boring to go to shows and see so many of...the...same...old...model...same with Mustangs and Camaros. One reason I like Studes, besides that I can remember them...even though no one in my family would have even considered one...too 'out of the mainstream'...is that they are still a rarity at general car shows, and the international club support is second-to-none...still the biggest single-marque club, and lots of NOS still available for later model Studes. Production documentation for each car is still available, as are factory blueprints available for copy, at the beautiful new Studebaker National Museum in South Bend.
So really we're on the same page---it wasn't enough :P
In my small hometown (not a suburb), our little Stude dealer (really, looked like a garage with a two-car showroom) sold M-B. I've read that not every Stude dealer got to sell M-B. It probably cost dealers some $$ to add the line, although I don't know this. He did sell some. I have a color photo from '58 with a 190 convertible out front. Amazingly, he also delivered a new '56 Packard Caribbean convertible, serial no. 1258 (18 from the last), and I have seen several color photos of it on delivery day in front of the dealership (the selling dealer is a friend of mine).
Lon Fleener, who is known as the man who brought M-B into the Studebaker fold, was married to Martha Fleener, who was Studebaker President Sherwood Egbert's secretary. I've met her twice (now deceased)...both times she was in South Bend at Studebaker Drivers Club functions, although she lived in Long Beach, CA. Charming lady.
This turned out to be a lucky day for former Studebaker dealers, many of whom became Mercedes dealers after Studebaker left the automobile business in 1966.
It must have helped Mercedes somewhat, because it gave them access to a ready-made dealer network, which they did not have at that time. When Studebaker folded, they began to build their own network, and the rest is, as they say, history.
Source:
Turning Wheels magazine, June 1991, "Mercedes-Benz Sales, Inc., a Studebaker Subsidiary 1957-1965" by Fred Fox, long known as the foremost Studebaker historian extant. This excellent fifteen-page article, with many photographs, also has a sub-article by Harry Hawthorn, who was part of the M-B division at Studebaker, and information provided by Tom Torrance, who also worked in the M-B division while at Studebaker.
and just down the road, for sale, a 1970ish road runner. Also white, which seems to be pretty rare for these I think.
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"When Studebaker-Packard took on the M-B line in mid-'57, its initial dealership list was made up mainly of a few carryover Max Hoffman (M-B distributors) dealers and selected S-P dealers. As new dealers were signed up, the percentage of Mercedes-Benz Sales, Inc. dealerships that were Studebaker dealers became less and less. By the end of 1964, of 327 M-B dealers in the U.S., only 155 were also Studebaker dealers.
...(after the Feb. '65 separation) "...the new distributor re-evaluated all 300-plus M-B dealers in the U.S. and a few more Studebaker dealers were culled out, but even today there are still a few M-B dealers scattered across the country who once sold Studebaker-Packard products."
Even if your dealer didn't sell Studebaker, in the '57-65 period, M-B dealers were part of the Mercedes-Benz Sales, Inc., subsidiary of Studebaker-Packard. I've seen period photos from South Bend with a lot of Benzes there. I don't know, but wonder if they went there first, then were distributed around the country. Somewhere, sometime, I read that some tags on certain Benzes even say "Div. of Studebaker-Packard Corp." or something like that, but I've never seen one. I don't know much about Benzes. When I was at the Studebaker National Museum looking at retail sales cards for new Studes sold Sept. '63- April '66, I was surprised at how many (in my small hometown dealer) were sold with a Benz as the vehicle shown as being traded in.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Chevrolet-Impala-1970-Impala-Caprice-454-A-C-MINT- - -69-Forget-LS6-Chevelle-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem3f040e1029QQitemZ27065097015- - 3QQptZUSQ5fCarsQ5fTrucks
I'm loving the color, inside and out, and the 454 is just 'gravy' to me! And hey, it's not a Chevelle or Camaro!
I can tell you, that interior is original or a PERFECT reproduction.
Too bad the car doesn't look nicer, under hood.
It's funny though, how sometimes a color can look so "right" on one car, but not on another. For instance, I think it would look great on any full-sized Chevy from about 1962-70, but I don't think it would work on a '71. For '71, they offered a darker greenish-blue called "Sea Aqua Poly".
I always loved those Caprice fabric interiors too. They look so beautiful when they're new (or well-maintained, or recently re-done), but I wonder how they held up over time? The fabric has a delicate look to it.
I'm sure that sucker will move, too, with the 454. I recall Consumer Reports testing a '71 or so model with the 454, and they got 0-60 in around 8.7 seconds. And that's in a heavier car that was probably de-tuned a bit!
The South Bend factory gets a bad rap. It could produce twice the number of cars that Studebaker could sell, and it did produce more than 268,000 cars in calendar year 1950. My grandfather, who worked at Studebaker from 1922-1963 (and was a foreman) blamed the UAW. I get E-mail from my web site from former Studebaker employees who say the same. There were both high labor costs and a lot of featherbedding going on there. Too many drones and not enough workers.
We had a '69 Impala coupe when I was a kid and it was not a very good car. The suspension was very soft (this one, with the F40, may have addressed that) and the dashboard was a disappointment compared to the '68 and especially the gorgeous '67 dash. I remember being surprised at the amount of painted metal they allowed given the safety standards that had just been introduced -- even the A-pillar covers inside were metal.
I may have previously mentioned that at a car show locally at the end of August there was an original owner there with his '70 Impala Custom Coupe that was in even more remarkable condition than this one. Unfortunately it was a low-option car and was in a very unfortunate color combination - fire-engine red with a black vinyl roof and a gold interior. Like this though, it was interesting to see such a well-preserved original car 40 years on.
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I've always wondered if those safety regs went a bit too far for 1968, but were then scaled back a bit for 1969? To use a Mopar example, I had both a '68 Dodge Dart 270, and a '69 Dart GT. The 270 had more padding on the inside. It had a thick padded tray-type thing that ran along the lower part of the dashboard, and even the a/c ducts were padded. But the '69 didn't have any of that. Also, the 1968 Dart had side marker lights, while the 1969 just had reflectors.
When I was a little kid we had a '68 Impala 4-door hardtop that was a greenish-blue sort of color. According to this color chart, I think it might have been the "Grecian Green Poly". We got rid of it when i was 5 though, so I don't remember it very well.
I think what ultimately killed Studebaker was price-cutting by GM and Ford. There was simply no value left in a Studebaker by the 1960s. You got so much more car from the competition, and for less or equal money. And besides, who wants to buy a car from a dying company? The public was well aware of Studebaker's history of distress. You see this reflected as early as the 1950s in auto mags.
You could say that Studebaker's coffin was nailed shut in 1946 and wouldn't be far off the mark.
Their factory was hopelessly outdated. It's funny; their newest plant was the truck plant on Chippewa. Why they didn't build cars there is beyond me.
The only reason Studebaker survived as long as it did was...well two reasons actually----one, the US government gave the "little guys" priority in critical materials that were in short supply after WW II and two, people were so hungry for cars in the postwar period that they'd buy anything on 4 wheels. You really didn't have to "sell" a new car to anyone in 1946---you only had to build them. Most "new" cars were just slightly re-bodied 1941 models, and hence old technology was kept into postwar cars a bit longer than it should have. So, too, old plants, old ways of building cars, and old labor practices------it took a long time to create the "modern car" as we know it today, and Studebaker never really got a chance to catch up to the big boys. Studebaker and Packard had a few interesting "swan songs" but there was never a chance of survival, really, once the automobile market became competitive in the 1950s.
True. it's often been said that Studebaker perhaps should have held off redesigning their 1947 models, which came out in mid-46. They used to advertise that they were "First By Far With a Postwar Car"--and that's true, if you don't count Kaiser-Frazer, which of course had to be a new car since they didn't make any pre-war models.
I like the '71 Sea Aqua color. I've only ever seen one though...on a Bel Air in our dealer's stock that stayed there a LOOONNNNG time! The only interior color that looked good with that color was black, though. Although, the '71 Chevy probably looked best with black interior as so much of the instrument cluster, and steering wheel, were black no matter what color the rest of the interior was. My grandparents had a plum-colored '67 Impala Sport Coupe, 283 with Powerglide (of course), full wheel covers and blackwalls (Grandpa hated whitewalls) until they sold it outright to buy our dealer's first new Vega in inventory. Sad, but true. It was dark green, a sedan, pumpkin-colored vinyl inside, rubber floor covering, and a 3-speed.
I like the '71 exterior styling better than the 70, but definitely think they spent more money on the interiors in '70.
Someone mentioned the '67 Chevy instrument panel. I think it's the best panel ever in a full-size Chevy, and as a friend commented only yesterday to me when we were discussing this same thing, "it's probably the biggest fuel gauge ever put in a domestic car!". I like the round gauges behind the clear plastic lens overtop.
My dad, by the way, never considered the Studebaker-Packard merger as anything but a rapacious looting of a noble company by a thoroughly dishonest and corrupted one (his opinion, of course, concerning the Board Room, not the workers). As he used to say "They couldn't engineer a Packard, but we taught them how to make some very good Studebakers."
The fact that Studebaker threw most of Packard's historical data into dumpsters does say something about attitude I think.
You've mentioned this before, but you might be very surprised how many pre-merger Packard records, and blueprints, exist for the looking at the Archives center of the Studebaker National Museum. Most of these were not donated at some later point, but were the existing records of Studebaker at the time Studebaker dropped out of the auto business.
What remains today were rescued by Packard employees and much of it was donated to the Detroit Library, thankfully.
Originally, a biography of George Romney written in the 1960s blamed James Nance of Packard for the destruction,but this proved to be untrue, as later confirmed by Stuart Blond from Kanter’s Packard Dept and Rachel Lauver, the assistant executive director of The Citizens Motorcar Company,( “America’s Packard Museum") who both confirmed S-P's board as the guilty party, as eye-witnessed byRichard Teague, head of Packard styling and Ed Cunningham, head of color and trim.
The actual disposal was done by a local company hired by S-P, not by S-P employees, which further distanced them from the "crime" so to speak. (if not a crime of intent, then certainly of neglect).
It remains one of the darkest and most dastardly deeds in a long line of dastardly deeds in American automotive history. Let's be kind and say "negligence".
You can see the actual photos saved from the dumpsters by going to THE MAKING OF MODERN MICHIGAN website and typing in the word "Packard" in the search box.
Why should we, after all, attempt to apologize for SP by showing what they didn't destroy? You don't get less time in prison for the people you didn't rob, in other words. :P
Anyway, it's certainly not the Studebaker Museum's fault. Those people probably weren't even born then.
Besides, your Archivist friend knows the real story I'm sure.
My Dad saved boxes of stuff from the Apocalypse, which, after he died, I distributed to Packard people all over the US. Mostly valuable technical manuals, not sales stuff.
Someone mentioned the '67 Chevy instrument panel. I think it's the best panel ever in a full-size Chevy"
I agree with you on the 71. I particularly liked the sportier, less formal roofline on the Impala coupe that year. However, I don't agree on the 67 IP. While I thought the car had great exterior lines, I thought the IP was even chintzier than the 65/66; I much preferred the earlier ones. In all fairness though, Ford was putting out some real cheapo IP's during that period.
I know it was a safety feature, but I always remember (not fondly!) the '67 Ford steering wheels--with that huge, padded center section that stuck way out. I also remember the '69 full-size Ford instrument panel, with the radio to the left of the steering wheel. Ick.
How did this stuff get there?
It's part of the original Studebaker archives donated to the City of South Bend.
Spotted an early 90s Toyota Paseo. Paint was faded and dull but no obvious rust or dents. It reminded me that Nissan had their fling with "sporty" econobox Pulsar way before Toyota's Paseo. They were both a puzzle to me though. If you wanted decent performance to go with "sporty" looks then you were better off moving up to another model in the car line.
Nissan's Sentra SE-R was a better mix of sporty/econobox than the blocky Pulsar. And the Toyota Paseo never got the Corolla GT-S/FX16 engine did it? At least Honda gave CRX buyers the Si option. Now that's an obscure 80s car which was/is a cult favorite if not "classic."
The South Bend main Studebaker factory was not only an assembly plant, they made the engines, frames, body stamping and interiors all at one location from raw materials. Most modern auto assembly plants get all their components from other locations. The Chippewa plant was saved for trucks and military contracts including 2 1/2 ton ("deuce and a half") military trucks and the first postal zip vans.
All the independent automakers had a hard time competing with the Big Three in the 1950s. . Packard, Hudson, Willys and Kaiser were out of the passenger car business by the end of the decade. Nash was saved by the small Rambler. These cars did cost more than the Big Three. Studebaker did not confront the UAW until 1954 when James Nance arrived from Packard. A second confrontation with the UAW took place in 1962, but it was too late by then. The union would not compromise on wages or the pension plan. That was too much for a company that was operating at less than half its capacity for ten years. Don't blame the factory for that situation.
Although there were many reasons for Studebaker's demise, they had to sell 165.000 cars to make a profit in 1954 but only 100,000 to make a profit in 1959. That was a big improvement that can only be explained by reduced labor costs.
The blocky Pulsar was succeeded by the NX around the same time as the 91-94 Sentra that spawned the SE-R, and by that time the Pulsar and Sentra were almost identical mechanically.
One of the more disagreeable new trends in historical research is to attempt to look at THEIR world with OUR eyes---this simply isn't fruitful, because we in the 21st century know how it all worked out. Those people, operating in their own time, didn't know the future like we do.
Yes, Studes were expensive compared to Fords and Chevys, but Packards were expensive compared to Buicks and Cadillacs while being much less reliable in 1955-56. Since Packard waited so long to produce its V-8, (seven years after Cadillac) it should have been the best V-8 of 1955.
Here is a great web site about the ruins of Detroit auto factories. http://detroityes.com/industry/22packard.htm I picked the Packard part of the site, but there is so much more to see there.
I always thought it was interesting that many automakers who went belly up produced some of their most interesting cars right at the end of the road.
Packard V-8: Quite true---their 55-56 V8s suffered from hydraulic lifter problems/upper engine oiling issues.
Ultramatic: quite a bit ahead of its time. Now many cars have lock up torque converters and electronic shifting.
The one big difference I think between Packard and Studebaker was that Packard had a far superior engineering department but not as efficient (even if it was old) plant set-up as Studebaker.
Studebaker built trucks for US and Allied forces. So many went to the Soviets that I've read they are still a common sight in Russia.
It's too bad that those two companies didn't invest their wartime profits in new postwar designs.
Kaiser-Frazer had a connection to the Arsenal of Democracy as well. Kaiser Shipbuilding made Liberty Ships and Escort Carriers by the dozens. Edgar Kaiser also built housing for wartime workers IIRC.
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There is a reason why Detroit is an industrial wasteland now. Many new auto assembly plants have opened in the US during the past 30 years, but Honda, Toyota, Nissan and even Hyundai knew better than to invest in the Detroit area because of the high labor costs. This is nothing new. Studebaker saved about 15% on hourly labor costs moving all production to Canada in 1964.
The two-door Lowey coupes and hardtops of 1953 served Studebaker well considering they evolved into the Speedster, and the various Hawks. By them time Hawk production ended in 1964, they were competing with four-passenger Thunderbirds and the Buick Riviera - cars that were only available as 2-door models with V-8 engines in the tradition of the Golden Hawk. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
As for Detroit, it's a wasteland because the people who ran the companies were by and large incompetent at what they did. Even the US Navy does not blame the crew when the ship hits a reef.
In a way though, I think the Hawk paved a way for cars like the 4-seat T-bird and the Riviera. Studebaker might not have intended it that way, but I think they might have accidentally invented the personal luxury coupe! Not in the same price class as the T-bird, Riv, Toronado, etc, but more like the predecessor of more affordable styles, such as the Monte Carlo, Cutlass Supreme, downsized T-birds, etc.
The '58 T-Bird definitely tilted to the luxury market, but the Hawk didn't, so maybe they are the same tree, but not the same branch, we could say.
It really took the Mustang to put it the idea of the 4-seat sporty coupe together--and at a most attractive price!