This letter is a response to our story, “1959 Studebaker: Throwing the baby out with the bath water.” With all due respect I’m guessing that you have never driven a V8 powered Studebaker Lark. Much […]
“Proud, that’s what the industry is — proud of itself. And with reason. It proved its vitality, its flexibility. It proved that it responds to public demand, after all. Sure, there was a period of […]
In retrospect, Studebaker shouldn’t have assigned Brooks Stevens to restyle its Lark for 1964. He may have had a more mainstream design sensibility than Raymond Loewy, but Stevens was also the guy who coined the […]
(EXPANDED ON 1/27/2023) Many books, magazine articles and blog posts have been written about the independent automakers’ struggle to survive in the 1950s. Even so, I have come across a number of unresolved mysteries relevant […]
“George Mason’s invitation to Packard to join AMC was lost in Packard’s and Studebaker’s rush to embrace. Mason knew about the negotiations, but gamely showed up at East Grand to make a formal presentation to […]
When viewed from 1951, Studebaker was the independent automaker most likely to succeed. The South Bend, Indiana-based automaker generated unusually high sales by inventing the family-sized compact. This allowed Studebaker to invest in both a V8 engine and an automatic transmission well before […]
The failure of individual automakers is invariably grounded in an inability to maintain adequate economies of scale. However, debates about what is the ideal shape of the American auto industry are heavily informed by competing […]
“. . . 1950/’51 — was the first time that Studebaker had a V-8 engine, and it was a catastrophe. They had a terrible time. They kept eating up camshafts and millions of dollars. Studebaker never […]
Halo cars tend to quite popular — even wetness inducing — among auto enthusiasts. That’s because the mission of halo cars is mostly to generate a positive buzz about a brand rather than high sales. So […]
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