Comments on: Why Studebaker Failed: In the End, It is Always Management

By: M. Villhard

M. Villhard — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 16:59:51 +0000

Pop owned a '53 Studebaker with "3-on-a-tree" and the "hill-holder" feature, where you could take your left foot off the clutch after setting it, as he described it to me. Genius!

By: Ted Steppe

Ted Steppe — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 08:14:14 +0000

I was Studebaker "nut." I owned almost every model since the '49 "bullet nose" except the Avanti. Most saw major modifications while in my care. But my two favorites were my '56 Golden Hawk to which I installed a blower, and the '64 GT Hawk with a 302 and blower. The '56 Golden Hawk amassed over 200K miles before I finally sold it. Even the Wagons and convertibles were great autos but prone to rattles! Some frame modifications helped. And I never had problems with the Borg-Warner tranny pulling a 16-foot boat and trailer. And you are correct, neither the sales team nor management had any idea of how to market these stupendous cars. - Thanks. My experience also. Studebaker designer Bob Bourke ('53 Starliner) referred to the 120-inch wheelbase as "the rubber frame."—RML

By: John Brodsky

John Brodsky — Sat, 29 Jan 2022 00:43:38 +0000

Soon after I obtained my driver’s license I asked my father to buy a Hawk. The standard paint job was white below black above. The dealer reversed this for us. Great car: electric overdrive, Hill-Holder, but the front end did not recover well after tight turns. It had a tachometer—that made all the difference for a kid.

By: Joseph S. Bonica

Joseph S. Bonica — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 20:49:53 +0000

Amazingly when Studebaker was developing its V8 in the early Fifties Cadillac actually let its engineers tour Cadillac's production facilities. The Studebaker engine was technically not bad and had a reputation for reliability, but was small bulky and heavy with limited room for development—which was also greatly, perhaps preeminently, restricted by lack of investment capital. In the end, if it wasn't for the war Studebaker would have failed much earlier. On the other hand, Studies were unusually attractive. Gotta love the Avanti. - True observations. The V8 was a big plus, and did evolve from 232 to 302 cubic inches, but they had to resort to supercharging to get more out of it. In the end, though, it was their enormous overhead that made it impossible to break even. —RML

By: Robert Harrison

Robert Harrison — Sun, 18 Jul 2021 22:43:16 +0000

I never owned a Studebaker. I was barely out if high school when they were gone. But I thought they were the class of the road in the early Fifties and had my heart set on a Hawk about the time they closed. While they were built awhile longer in Hamilton Ontario, they really never had a dealer network in Canada. They had beautiful half-tons that should have sold as well as GM or Ford, but there were few dealers that handled the Studebaker line. I'm told that was true in the States as well. That should have been addressed between 1933 and 1950. It's easy to look back and say they should have done this or that, and in this case I'm sure there were a multitude of bad decisions, but this company could have been prominent to this day with its styling and engineering. If I had the money to bankroll it, I'd buy everything that's left and revive it. It's the doing that counts, not the money. Great name, great waste.

By: Richard M. Langworth

Richard M. Langworth — Sun, 03 May 2020 17:49:10 +0000

In reply to Paul Cruce.

Indeed so. I only sold mine because it was not fun to drive and I needed room for a Packard! Don Vorderman told me: “You are not old enough to have experienced the impact it had on everybody who was into cars. How gorgeous! How un-American!” See: https://richardlangworth.com/don-vorderman.

By: Paul Cruce

Paul Cruce — Sun, 03 May 2020 15:16:47 +0000

IMO Bourke's Starliner is a timeless design that is as beautiful now as it was in 1953, I was six years old when this car was introduced and I was already a "Gear Head". When I first saw it I thought it was the most beautiful car I had ever seen. Nothing in the 67 years that have passed since then has changed my mind about that car. The one you owned is my favorite color combination for the Starliner. Bourke's fine design gave Stevens "good bones" with which to work in creating the Gran Turismo Hawk for 1962-1964.

By: Richard M. Langworth

Richard M. Langworth — Fri, 01 May 2020 19:15:46 +0000

In reply to Randy Otto. You should have been a poet, Randy.

By: Randy Otto

Randy Otto — Fri, 01 May 2020 18:53:41 +0000

The sun was slowly setting as long shadows lengthened that hot summer afternoon in rural Bradford, Illinois. Fortune found us standing in front of that old red barn, miles from nowhere. "Have you ever seen a Studebaker Avanti?" she asked as the barn door swung open. In the shadows were no fewer than eight of them—each Avanti a different color—gleamng in sun's golden shimmer. The owner, Leslie T. Welsh, owner of the Studebaker Worthington Company, had died several years before. He was the Arthur Anderson executive charged with breaking up Studebaker. He bought the heart and soul of the company, its engine division, and built an empire. She asked me if i wanted to drive one of the cars. I chose the red one. She smiled. I smiled too.