Peter recently submitted a comment that took to task our article, “1958 Studebaker: Honesty is the best policy.” One part of his critique was that I “mis-quoted facts.” I strive to be accurate — particularly when quoting others — so I sent Peter an email asking for more specifics. What follows is his response.
After careful consideration, maybe my “mis-quote facts” comment was a little short. It may undoubtedly be your initial research did not go far enough and lost many contributing factors your article clearly missed.
Clearly your research was slanted towards AMC, and not Studebaker. Nash-Kelvinator/Hudson’s merger into AMC was a series of divesting out of anything not automotive, doing the dance of the seven vails through the 50’s.
On the other hand, in the Studebaker-Packard merger it lost two of the driving sparks from the mid 30’s to government organizations. With Packard management taking over the reins, they mistakenly tried to compete with the big three [1956-58]. They were also initiating a diversification program into other than auto products which did not fully take over until upper management changed.
Your article clearly points out that it was stupid to go with the quad headlights and tail fins if they were going to the Lark in 1959. That assumption has nothing in truth. The Lark Project was headed by Churchill and not McCrey, which your article seems to take his quotes as gospel. They were competitors in styling at the time. What became the Lark for 1959, was just one of many different proposed projects going on at that time.
All the records early on in South Bend indicate 1959 should have been a continuation of the 1958 styling with some additional face lift changes. However, as the year progressed, sales dictated that their biggest seller was turning out to be their cheapest product, the Scotsman.
Big changes occurred in management and Churchill took over. The Lark became the top project for its simplicity and easy transition into a niche-field that the market was longing for late in the process. Cost was a major factor and the entire line of sedans was not dropped until the last minute. Do note, that while it took Ford another two years to drop its Edsel fiasco, Studebaker-Packard admitted that Packard was a brand that it was losing rather than gaining its traditional customers in 1958; and it had to go as well.
Also see ‘Five (arguably) unresolved mysteries of postwar independent automakers’
1959 was the first time since 1951 when Studebaker profits made it into the Black again with dropping everything but the Hawk and going full throttle with the small-car market Lark. Compact and Intermediate did not enter the automotive vocabulary until a few years later. Yes, VW was the growing king of this market and both AMC and Studebaker-Packard were its only direct US competition in the late 50’s into 1960 when the Big Three finally jumped on the band wagon.
As for the 1958 styling at Studebaker-Packard, they were quite in line with what they were mistakenly competing with that was offered out of the Big Three for that year. Show me one good design for that entire year out of any US brand?! AMC lucked out by going conservative while Studebaker broke the bank and found out they just didn’t have enough to continue that fight.
Looking at the whole picture, Studebaker-Packard entered the 1958 market with a line-up quite in line with the rest of the country. However, while the big three had the coffers to weather their mistakes, Studebaker-Packard had to make drastic changes to even continue.
While I do not consider myself an expert on anything, I am a more knowledgeable person on certain subjects. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions on research about Studebaker and its related companies or late 20th century. Thank you for your time.
— Peter
RE:SOURCES
- oldcaradvertising.com: Chevrolet (1958); Ford (1958); Plymouth (1958); Rambler (1958); Studebaker (1958)
- wildaboutcarsonline.com (Automotive History Preservation Society): Volkswagen (1961)
Indie Auto invites your comments (see below) or letters to the editor (go here). Letters may be lightly edited for style.
Peter, it may be helpful to know that Indie Auto is a journal of opinion. Also note that you are critiquing a “Fake Design” article. This is a counterfactual rather than a standard history piece. I get that the 1959 Lark was designed after the 1958 models; my point was that during the late-50s Studebaker styling lacked continuity – particularly compared to the Rambler and VW.
Your comment raises a number of questions for me. For example, you state that “The Lark Project was headed by Churchill and not McCrey (sic), which your article seems to take his quotes as gospel. They were competitors in styling at the time.”
How could Harold Churchill and Duncan McRae be “competitors in styling” when the former was the company’s president and the latter was in a subordinate role as head stylist?
My 1958 Studebaker story quoted McRae (from Richard Langworth’s excellent Studebaker book) as saying that the 1958 headlight pods looked “ridiculous.” Should I assume you disagree with that because you believe that Studebaker’s 1958 styling was “quite in line” with the Big Three’s?
Studebaker’s production fell below the poor-selling Edsel in 1958. That was despite Studebaker offering more economical family cars than the Big Three during a sharp recession. I would suggest that part of the problem was that Studebaker’s styling was weirder than any of its direct competitors.
Your sequence of events is also confusing. According to Robert Ebert’s book about Churchill, he became president in July of 1956 and launched the Scotsman in the spring of 1957. Despite the car’s modest success, Studebaker-Packard was on the verge of bankruptcy by November. So in February of 1958 Churchill proposed to the board of directors a number of scenarios – all of which included a compact Lark. It was not “just one of many different proposed projects.”
Some find “glitz” attractive, some curse it’s presence. Studebaker cannot be condemned for “glitzifying” it’s ’58s – mainly the mid-range sedans. If Studebaker was seen to be doing nothing in 1958, the public would have taken it to mean the corporation had given up/was dead. It could get away with the glitzy add-ons because the rest of the industry was glitzifying just as much. True, the Big 3 could do horsepower bigger and bigger, glitzier bodies better (which changed EVERY year in the case of GM from ’57 to ’59). They did it because they thought they had to even if it was not “better”. They thought they had to, firstly because “glitzy” with some now-perceived “bizarre” became trendy – and then GM and Ford REALLY had change bodies fast and décor annually, thanks to the “Suddenly it’s 1960” surprise they got when Chrysler unveiled models for the ’57 model year. Studebaker couldn’t. So it had to try do something with what the Big 3 would likely think was almost nothing.
As Peter asked – “Show me a good one good design for that entire year” in US brands. Were some attractive? Certainly. Were many glitzy? You bet! Was there a truly BEAUTIFUL – not just attractive – design offered that year that has passed the test of time? Only a couple (l submit the Chrysler 300 D and the DeSoto Adventurer, with a possible good mention for the Studebaker Golden Hawk. And all three of those models had designs firmly rooted in the 1957 model year).
Studebaker-Packard was hanging on by it’s fragile fingernails in the spring of ’56 when the attractive, but mildly-facelifted ’57’s were being readied. Bankruptcy was only very narrowly avoided.
The ’57’s did ok sales-wise considering their situation, and the mission of the ’58s was to hopefully again “hold the line” in sales until the corporation had the approval of it’s board and it’s savior, Roy Hurley, President of Curtis-Wright, while the plans were being formulating for the “model X”, which became the ’59 Lark.
Designer Mr. McRae was likely told to make the “bread-and butter” ’58 sedans (if it was possible to contemplate the luxury of any butter on S-P’s bread) look as contemporary as possible on a very limited amount of money, hence the added-on pods and fins. l find it hard to fathom why S-P could not have spent some money in early 1955 to bring out a badly needed hardtop sedan for 1956, if they deemed it important enough for financially tight 1958, but at least the new hardtop inner structure and window mechanism was used beyond the ’58 “Starlight” Hardtop in the cute ’59 and ’60 Lark Hardtops. Totaling up the sedan add-ons already cited (plus other ’58 new features of flatter roofs, 14 inch wheels on V8s, bigger anti-sway bar, asymmetrically-mounted rear springs and a standard WCFB on Presidents) does seem to show that they were wanting to show their sedans in a better trendy light and showing folks that Studebaker was not down for the count just yet! And then the Lark surprised EVERYBODY!
I would suggest that Studebaker’s terrible sales in 1958 clearly show that the public wasn’t interested in more glitz. The two-door hardtop was an outright flop. In addition, output fell for the Champion (by 56 percent), Commander (by 34 percent) and President (by 60 percent). Only six-cylinder models saw increased production (by 16 percent), and that was because of the Scotsman series (which benefitted by being sold for a full model year in 1958).
Detroit groupthink held that an independent automaker needed to keep up with the Big Three’s annual model changes. In actuality, none of the independents had the resources to do so for very long. Their only real hope was to carve out unusual product niches where they could get away with fewer changes during the course of a production run.
An interesting example of that was the 1958 Rambler American. Here we have a dog-ugly car and by far the oldest design in the U.S. industry . . yet it outsold the Scotsman by a meaningful margin. Meanwhile, VW’s steadily increasing sales showed that you didn’t have to offer annual styling changes to keep the public interested in your cars. VW ads instead emphasized practical new features.
I would go as far as to argue that the 1958 Studebaker family cars would have actually sold better if the automaker had made only trim changes rather than adding the ugly quad headlight pods and tailfins. It would have also helped if the Champion’s list price had not been jacked up to the point where it didn’t compete as well against the entry-level senior Rambler. Churchill apparently still saw the entry-level Chevy, Ford and Plymouth as the Champion’s primary competition. That was a mistake.
The 1958 models represented Churchill’s first chance to have a significant impact on Studebaker’s styling, product planning and marketing. My sense is that he mostly made counter-productive moves. Only the Scotsman showed a hint of promise, but prices were so low that it is hard to see how the automaker could have generated much of a profit on those cars. One could also argue that a less austere design might has sold somewhat better. Note that the entry-level 1959 Lark had a higher list price — and was better trimmed — than the Scotsman. Churchill appears to have belatedly recognized that the Scotsman went too far downmarket.
All in all, Studebaker’s close brush with death in 1958 was partly a result of beginner’s mistakes by Churchill.
Sorry that my comments yesterday look so poorly written today. No excuses.
But, Steve, l DON’T get your “continuity” problem. It turned out that Studebaker used designer Vince Gardner’s same basic body panels for ’56,’57, and ’58 – the late ’50s, right? And there was continuity. And l submit that Ford used the same basic styling on their ’57,’58, and ’59s for their proof of continuity. Chrysler ’57s and ’58s had continuity, but the ’59 sheet metal got changed a bit, although it was just a facelift of the 2 earlier years l believe.
Please explain your Studebaker complaint further.
I would invite you to reread my 1958 Studebaker story, where I compare the styling of the 1958 and 1959 models (go here). The latter represented a radical break with previous years.
At issue isn’t just the styling, but also product positioning and marketing. Rambler and VW were able to much more easily exploit the rise in public popularity of smaller cars because they had a consistent presence in that market. In contrast, Studebaker zig-zagged all over the place. For example, one year Studebaker’s family cars were competing directly against the luxury models of the Big Three’s low-priced brands, the next year they were competing against entry-level Ramblers, and a few years later they were repositioned as intermediates (go here and here for further discussion).
The basic problem with all of that zig-zagging was that an independent automaker like Studebaker had only a fraction of the resources of a Big Three automaker. Thus, it took longer to build brand awareness. One of the under-discussed advantages of VW’s brilliant ad campaign of the 1960s was that it kept the same theme year after year, which helped to make up for the automaker’s relatively small ad budget. And as discussed here, a key reason why VW’s ad agency could get away with such an unusual degree of consistency was because the car changed so little over the years.
I know why Studebaker had to drop it’s larger cars in 1959, but it did leave them with a very narrow market niche. Are there any sources showing what the 1959 larger cars would have looked like? The mind boggles thinking about what you could do next with the body.
Ed Reynolds’ “Studebaker Lark 1959-1966 Photo Archive” has a photo of the front of three clay models with different facelift treatments. Each maintained the big Studebaker’s long front overhang and moved the bumper farther down but experimented with the height of the quad headlights. Although the headlights were much better integrated than in 1958, all of these proposals had a chunky quality that vaguely evoked the 1958 Oldsmobile. To my eyes the senior Rambler looked better.
“I would suggest that Studebaker’s terrible sales in 1958 clearly show that the public wasn’t interested in more glitz.” No Steve, it shows they weren’t interested in Studebakers.The buying public went through 25 years of independent and marginal companion brands folding or being merged out of existance. Any auto buyer could see Studebaker was on life support for the last three years. The surprise is not that they sold so few, but so many Studebakers. I was born in 1951, so I can remember when these cars were fresh. To me they looked like misshapen Plymouths and Dodges. I was playing around online with various Studebaker concept, mockup, etc combos. I saw nothing on Lark development. Odd. The work on the Lark would have to be started no later than 1956.
Kim, I should have been clearer in that sentence by saying that the public wasn’t interested in glitzy Studebakers (the Scotsman was the only series that sold very well). However, in 1958 sales of the biggest, glitziest and most powerful Detroit fare did see dramatic declines.
For example, Buick sales collapsed to a third of their 1955 level (go here for further discussion). Premium-priced brands saw their share of domestic production fall from 44 percent in 1952 to 29 percent in 1958. Almost all of that market share went to the low-priced brands, which comprised a whopping 67 percent of the market in 1958 (go here for some interesting graphs). While it is true that the top-end models of the low-priced brands were inching up into premium-priced territory, the 1958 Chevy, Ford and Plymouth arguably had less excessive designs than their higher-priced sibling brands.
You make a reasonable point that the public was increasingly skeptical about independent automakers. Even so, the Rambler was the only brand in 1958 that actually saw a sales increase — precisely because it offered a more practical and economical alternative to the Big Three’s mansions of glory. Indeed, why did the Rambler American sell so well if the public insisted on styling that was “fresh?” The same question could be asked of the Volkswagen Beetle.
I would agree with you that information about the Lark’s development is sketchy. I wonder if work on the car’s design didn’t begin in earnest until 1957. That sounds late by the usual rule of thumb but may help explain why the Lark went in such a starkly different direction than the 1958 models (e.g., ditching the two-door hardtop’s greenhouse after only one year and reverting to single-pod taillights similar to those used in 1957). A quick redesign might have been more plausible because the Lark was essentially a glorified facelift, albeit mostly executed with a meat cleaver.
I would be surprised if development of the Lark began before calendar year 1957. It’s my understanding that James Nance had planned new bodies for Studebaker and Packard for the 1957 model year. When the insurance companies denied him the necessary financing (in early 1956), those plans went out the window due to a lack of funds. But the company didn’t automatically switch to the Lark. There was a fair amount of corporate chaos as the company tried to find a savior.
During that time, the plans for 1957 switched to a facelift of the existing Studebaker and a phase-out of the “real” Packards, with the latter replaced by a gussied-up Studebaker. The company was initially so pre-occupied with what it would offer for 1957 that it didn’t have the luxury of worrying about 1958 and beyond.
When looking at sales figures for 1958 and the premium-priced cars, it’s important to remember some key factors. By 1957, the Low-Price Three offered all of the performance and luxury features once reserved for more expensive marques. Some models of the Low-Price Three out-performed their more expensive corporate brethren, because they featured the big engines and hot performance options in lighter bodies.
Second, virtually every Big Three medium-price marque had experienced a quality disaster during the years 1955-57. For Buick it was in 1955 and 1956, while Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler and Mercury hit rock-bottom in 1957 and 1958. The only two marques that avoided a quality disaster during this period were Oldsmobile and Pontiac. Note that Oldsmobile suffered the least in the 1958 recession, despite offering some of the most gruesome styling to come out of Detroit that year (or any year). Olds moved from fifth to fourth in the sales race.
Customers figured out that they could order a Chevrolet, Ford or Plymouth with all of the goodies they wanted, and pay less than they would have for a medium-price model equipped in the same way. Meanwhile, the quality problems experienced by the medium-price marques during 1955-57 had seriously damaged the idea that moving up the prestige ladder meant buying a better car.
So while the public was rebelling against excessive glitz, there was also a recognition that it was possible to get the desired performance and features in a less expensive car. Customers also figured out that the medium-price Ford and Chrysler marques weren’t necessarily any more reliable or better built than the Ford and Plymouth. In the case of the Chevrolet versus the Buick, the cheaper car was more likely to be reliable.
It was obvious to everyone that not only was Studebaker an iffy proposition by 1957 or 58, but the cars were rehashed old designs with new stuff tacked on. The basic 1953 body still being used was about 3.5″ narrower than a 1953 Ford. Ford, Chevy and Plymouth had new bodies in 1955 and Ford and Plymouth again in 1957 (getting lower as well), each time gaining an inch or two or more in width. Studebaker was trying to look current, but they obviously weren’t.
Perhaps the worst of the ’57-58 Studebakers were the wagons with their 1953 greenhouses being at least a half foot too short for the fenders, resulting in a wide exterior step in the back.
The GM cars mentioned for 1958 had either facelifted 1957 bodies or new ones, and the 1957 Ford and Chrysler products had made the fat heavy looking chromed up Harley Earl style look clearly obsolete plus it was a recession year. GM of course did a rush job and all their cars were all new for 1959 (although the lower priced ones rode on their new for 1958 frames).
Michael, that’s a good overview of the situation. The only caveat I would offer is that in 1958 the Rambler American was one of the few U.S.-built cars that sold well. How could that be when the American was clad in the oldest body among U.S. passenger cars and its maker, American Motors, had — like Studebaker-Packard — seen plenty of negative press coverage from 1954-57 about its financial struggles?
Also note how dramatically Studebaker sales took off in 1959 once it offered a product more attuned to a fast-changing market. Presumably everyone knew that the Lark was a shrunken Champion. In addition, few of Studebaker’s chronic deficiencies had been fixed, e.g., the squeakiness of the “flexible” frame and lack of an OHV six. (However, they did improve the wagon, whose side styling was arguably better suited to the short-and-boxy body than even the original 1954 models.)
l like Mike’s overview too.
But Steve, your caveat needs a touch-up. l think that you should have said “Rambler brand” rather than “Rambler American”. The Rambler American did NOT sell in exactly huge numbers for the ’58 model year! The ’58 Rambler (Six, Rebel and Ambassador) got a dramatic aggressive facelift for that year and THAT is where there big sales numbers were. The American was only introduced in January 1958 and sold just under 30,000 units for that model year. The Studebaker Scotsman (so abhorrent to all of you!) sales for the model year were just under 21,000 (and over 22,000 if the Scotsman-derived taxi-model Y1 bodies are also counted). Industry sales were generally so poor for 1958 – and Studebaker’s introduction of the Scotsman so timely – that Studebaker actually gained market share, moving from 13th to 11th place. All is not what it seems, Kim.
The Lark product development meetings started in the summer of 1957 and was able to go very quickly because those involved were focused, quite brilliant at their task, and knew it was Studebaker’s only hope. The chief engineer, Mr. Hardig was a true star, and brought the Lark “from clay approval to introduction in less than 9 months – timing unheard of in those days”. The Lark introduction was a bit of a shock at the time because Studebaker had been able to keep the development quite. l’m not sure why, except that they didn’t want the concept scooped by anyone, l suppose. After all, EVERYTHING was riding on it!
And it was a good product. With a body 3 inches SHORTER than an American (and a wheelbase 8.5 inches longer), it was “the only small car…to offer genuine comfortable seating for six adults…an excellent ride, good handling and performance superior to anything in its size and price range” according to a test of the Lark line in Speed Age magazine.
Stewdi, I agree that the sales of the senior Ramblers are relevant to this discussion. It is worth remembering that despite the car’s facelift for 1958, the Rambler had an older body than any of its Big Three competition — and it did not possess the trendy lower, longer, wider look. And, as previously discussed, some folks might have been hesitant to buy any AMC car because of the automaker’s financial difficulties, which didn’t start to lift until the summer of 1957.
I still think that the American is a useful case study. Production handily surpassed the Scotsman in 1958 and topped 91,000 units in 1959 — which was substantially higher than the Thunderbird as well as the Chrysler brand, DeSoto and Edsel. For 1960 the American even ran neck in neck with the Lark. That strikes me as pretty incredible given how old and ugly the American looked compared to any other U.S. car on the market.
I would agree with you that the Scotsman helped Studebaker sales, but how much? At least according to the data I have, in 1958 the Studebaker brand’s market share of the domestic low-priced field only went up by one-tenth of a percent — from 1.8 to 1.9 percent. In contrast, the Rambler brand saw its market share triple from around 2.2 percent to 6.6 percent. More significantly, the Studebaker brand’s total U.S. passenger-car production didn’t even hit 54,000 units in 1958. That was apparently around half the volume needed to break even. To make matters worse, the Scotsman was priced so low that it is hard to see how Studebaker made much money on it. That Studebaker may have edged out the dying DeSoto brand in output doesn’t strike me as something to brag about.
I don’t consider the Scotsman “abhorrent” — I prefer the 1958 model’s styling over that of the Champion’s. I do think that the Scotsman might have sold better if it had been positioned a bit higher in the marketplace and was less austere. I also wonder whether it might have made more sense to use the Champion name, by repositioning it downmarket.
Ok – then l guess l’ll just brag about Studebaker ALSO edging out Cadillac for that year! Even Eleanor Roosevelt bought one (a Scotsman)!
It seems that you almost got your wish – Studebaker’s first advertising of Scotsmans called them “Champion Scotsman”, but that was dropped (l wonder if the dealer body preferred to insulate the bread-and-butter Champion name from the starkly-plain Scotman).
By the way, you forget that many 10’s of thousands of ’59-’61 Larks were very lively V8 cars, not just powered by “Champion” sixes – and long before V8’s were available in the big 3’s compacts. So Larks were “shrunken” Commanders, too! My own example has the factory Carter WCFB and dual exhaust, its 259 engine making 195 horsepower in a car just 33 pounds over 3,000 and a respectable-for-the-day 0-60 time of just 9.5 seconds. Fun!
Thank you for not considering the Scotsman abhorrent. But good grief, it sure was plain-jane! A price that was $220.00 (in 1957) less than the cheapest Chevy was, l guess, a price worth thinking about. And thank you for correctly saying the Rambler brand greatly increased it’s 1958 market share as opposed to your previous no-so-accurate statement saying that the 1958 Rambler American was one of the few American cars that sold well that year.
Not sure how you get that Studebaker edged out Cadillac in 1958, which according to my data almost hit 122,000 units. Cadillac also out-produced Studebaker passenger cars in 1959, albeit by a narrow margin. Indeed, Cadillac consistently bested the Studebaker brand after 1953.
Regarding the V8 Lark: This is a comment thread; I’m responding to specific comments. Perhaps you have forgotten that my story about the 1959 Lark even includes a graph that breaks out production of sixes from V8s. The latter proved to be particularly popular in 1960.
I don’t think it is controversial to say that the American (along with the Thunderbird) were relatively rare bright spots in the U.S. auto industry in 1958 — particularly given the American’s upward trajectory. In 1959 production would triple. And in fixating so much on landing a “gotcha” you ignore my overall point: An independent automaker didn’t need to have snazzy new styling in order to compete with the Big Three. They instead needed to offer products that were considered uniquely valuable.
The American’s 1958 output was higher than the Scotsman and Champion put together. I would argue that this was because the American — unlike Studebaker family cars — offered a clear alternative to standard-sized Detroit fare. Note that even the entry-level Scotsman was longer than the weirdly stretched Rambler Ambassador. Indeed, the Scotsman was slightly longer than a full-sized Ford. Trying to make their cars look big would prove to be a disastrous strategy. As I have argued here, Rambler’s success could have been Studebaker’s if it had focused on space-efficient cars earlier.
OK – l’ll settle for this : l got you and you got me!
You’re right about the Cadillac figures. l was going by memory (boy, that’s a dumb thing for me to do when replying to you!) and thot it was Cadillac. Actually it was “Chrysler”-branded cars that Studebaker also passed besides De Soto. Well at least it started with a “C” too.
My books showed that Scotsman/Champion model year output was just higher than the Rambler American. But, after closer examination, l saw that one book was including Champion-six-powered Silver Hawks in it’s “Champion” total, which is technically true. But after removing 2,442 six cylinder Silver Hawks, yes, the Rambler American out-produced the Studebaker Champion 2 and 4 door sedans – but not by much.
Still, l must say that it was a good showing for the 2-door-only American in production for only part of the model year. Too bad that Studebaker was so busy with plain surviving after it’s too-close brush with bankruptcy in ’56 to effect super-fast new product roll-out. A Rambler American-sized car was certainly not in the plans at Studebaker-Packard at that time – and perhaps American Motors was not even sure of it’s small car success either, since it had ceased production of that body just the year before.
However, S-P got it’s new management working again and a new direction was taken and the Lark developed and introduced very quickly once the direction was chosen and funding possible.
At AMC, they had the advantage of a popular and competent chief executive with a strong right-for-the-times image that promoted that company’s new message very well to a very receptive media.
And all I’m really arguing is that Studebaker could have been AMC if it had played its cards better throughout the 1950s. The early postwar Champion should have been been viewed as their golden goose. Studebaker should never have allowed that car to grow in size and price to the point where it no longer offered much of an alternative to the Big Three’s low-priced cars.
1958 was perhaps a call to action for the automotive industry. That larger, more expensive brands fared poorly and the Scotsman performed well, as did Rambler signaled an interesting market dynamic. Churchill was perceptive and in fact extended the life of Studebaker’s automotive history through the Lark’s introduction. It was a turnaround model, much like the Champion was in the late 30’s for Studebaker. The market was clamoring for right sized, right priced cars.