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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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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
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.
https://studebakermuseum.org/?event=the-working-women-of-studebaker
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I plainly remember my hometown dealer was number 0097, a pretty low number, but they acquired the Stude franchise in 1926.
Nah, when I was in college it tended to be the jerk professors who drove Volvo's
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.
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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.
https://skoshi8.deviantart.com/art/Studebaker-1964-E45-Diesel-01-484784083
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They were still building large gas-powered trucks, with Studebaker engines, in the '64 model year too.