Having just arrived back in the QC from Indiana at the time of this writing, but not yet having loaded my pictures from the amazing day yesterday (Oct. 4) at the CC Meet at the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum, I nevertheless have Indiana on my mind. We passed within twenty miles of South Bend on the way home, and as much as I want to visit Studebaker Central and its amazing museum, we were all too tired to consider stopping. So time for a Studebaker break!
Studebaker’s a heartbreaker. So many amazing cars, but at the same time so many dumb decisions made. For better or worse, Studebaker was about half-past irrelevancy by the 1958 recession, and only the compact Lark’s success bought them a few more years.
Just before Christmas of 1963, the historic, amazing, but ancient and inefficient factory complex in South Bend was shut down. Daytona hardtops and convertibles were axed, as was the unforgettable Avanti (at least until Nate Altman saved the day with the Avanti II) and beautiful Brooks Stevens-designed Gran Turismo Hawk.
And so was it that the final Studebakers were technically imports, coming as they were from Studebaker’s satellite plant in Canada. Only two-door sedans, four-door sedans and station wagons remained in the lineup, in Daytona, Commander and Cruiser flavors. In addition, all 1965-66 Studebakers sported Chevrolet V8s, as the Stude engine plant–the lone operating part of South Bend after December of ’63–was shuttered after the 1964 MY run had completed.
Yet there was still a spark of ingenuity at work, for the swan-song 1966 Studebakers received an attractive facelift. Minor changes, certainly, but appealing nonetheless. And the Cruiser sedan remained top of the line, with a very attractively updated interior.
Studebaker interiors for 1966 were far more luxuriously appointed for the year, with upholstery choices being very Cadillac or Imperial-like. It makes one wonder what could have happened if Studebaker had held on just a few more years…
This gold example was the first ’66 Cruiser I’d seen in the metal, and I was impressed with the junior-Cadillac interior. Just look at those seats! Nice. And woodgrain also appeared–in tasteful fashion–on both the instrument panel and door panels. The effect was very much that of a luxury car, though still Studebaker Sensible with wind-up windows, simple armrests and no Automatic Climate Control. However, not bad at all for what was basically a compact car, sized much like–and priced within a couple hundred dollars of–the contemporary Valiant Signet.
At the same time, the very clean and functional instrument panel introduced for 1963 remained much the same–save the woodtone trim. I love the design. The Cruiser was the second best selling model of the year, but that only amounted to 2,901 of the top-tier sedans, at $2,610 a pop.
But Studebaker’s last champion of the auto division, Sherwood Egbert, had to step down from his position due to his declining health. Shortly after his exit from the company, the remaining corporate drones unanimously decided to kill the car division and focus on STP, Paxton, Gravely Tractors, and their other assorted recently-purchased divisions.
Too bad, to be sure, but who can, even today, be sure whether it was for the best or not? Sure, it would have been great to see Stude around a few more years, but no one can say whether it would have turned things around or not. All I can do is shake my head and say, Studebaker, I miss you, and I’m glad you were around–at least for a time.
Related:
Studebaker in South Bend: Going, Going…
The Canadian Studebaker Plant: The Last Studebaker Ever Rolled Off The Lines Here
1964 Studebaker Cruiser: Brooks Stevens’ Last Pass For South Bend
Whenever I read an article about Studebaker on here I feel like I should bow my head and take off my hat.
Me too.
Didn’t they make these until 1973 in Canada? Seem to recall hearing that once. Love these cars.
Nope, although production in Israel continued a little longer than in Ontario.
Production in Israel – imagine if that had taken off. My childhood neighbourhood would have been almost wall-to-wall Studebakers!
But the Israel “production” was of CKD kits, not from scratch.
I find it surprising that anybody bought a Studebaker in ’66. It must have been common knowledge that they were on the ropes, but I guess there must have been a few diehards who bought one to keep, because a Big Three conformomobile just wouldn’t work.
It must have been common knowledge that they were on the ropes,
My Dad had bought 6 Studebakers, 2 used and, starting with the 51 Champion, 4 new ones. Even he bailed on them and bought a Ford Galaxie in early 65…a left over 64 XL that the dealer really wanted to unload.
Although I wasn’t around at the time, I’ve heard told that they sold very well in Canada the last two years. This is because they were really pushed with a patriotic theme, with ads boasting “Canada’s Own Car” and “Built In Canada, For Canadians, By Canadians”. I remember meeting the retired dealer owner from Camrose, Alberta, some years ago. He told me he sold every one he could get his hands on, and as other dealerships wound up they sent their unsold inventory to him and he claims he turned a tidy profit on each one. An interesting side note, he had the last operating Studebaker franchise in the world as he had just renewed prior to the shutdown announcement. He proudly kept his sign up and sold low mileage original and whatever old leftover dealer inventory he could find into the early 1970s.
Kliment Brothers in Forest Hills, PA, just east of Pittsburgh, was still in operation selling parts and servicing Studebakers until the late 1990s
I remember a story about the last Studebaker dealer/dealership I read in a second hand copy of Car & Driver (I believe) from 1970. It was the same mag that had the Pinto/Vega comparison in it. I’ll try to dig it up and post it on here sometime.
I saw one of these somewhere in the last week or 2 as I remember thinking how interesting and yet how plain those tail lights looked. (The back of this metallic turquoise/teal? Studebaker was all I saw.)
Studebaker puts me in mind of the kid on your block who had a new football for Christmas but when spring/summer rolled around and everyone else switched to baseball he refused to give up that football…knowing that at some point football season would return.
The real shame in all of this is that the BoD of Studebaker Corporation decided to exit the auto manufacturing business and refused to find or fund any further developments for the auto division. One can debate the merits of diversification, it may have been the gospel of the 1960’s, but shuttering the core company is like losing your identity, IMO.
Since I was just a tot in 1966, I have no idea how competitive these cars would have been. With the perspective of time, we can see how events played out; had these cars had a better reputation they may have sold better. Especially coming from a low-cost assembly plant in Canada and using McKinnon-Chevrolet engines, the combination of price and reliability would have played well then as today. But with the general reputation as a flailing and failing automaker, they had to be a hard sell.
Truly, the US domestic automotive landscape would have been more interesting had the Studebaker brand survived the mid-60’s diversification elimination rounds. The cars that were on the drawing boards would have been rather innovative, but it would be hard to say how they would have been able to react to the upcoming safety and environmental standards.
If they could have survived with the same pluck as AMC did…
Yes, if only Studebaker could have bought Jeep. 🙂
Unfortunately, by this time, they weren’t competitive at all. Dealers had fallen by the wayside over the previous two years. Wonder how many picked up the new imports coming in? Total sales for this point would probably have been the truly hard core who wanted one last Studebaker, and a (very rare in those days) types who bought one with the hopes of future collectibility. And while that attitude existed, the car collecting hobby was only starting to take off, basically it was still taxiing down the runway and hadn’t hit flight yet.
Anyone else thinking of the car dealership in Back to the Future that sold Toyotas in 1985 and Studebakers in 1955?
What great irony if the producers had gone with Oldsmobile or Pontiac or Mercury for the 1985 iteration. lol.
But I’m guessing with Marty’s tricked out Toyota pickup in 1985 they were commenting on the differences/similarities between teenagers 30 years apart.
What’s funny is that the same dealership is selling Pontiacs in the year 2015 in Back to the Future II.
The dealer in Vincennes, Indiana was a Stude only franchise and was open until the end in 1966. They were a very small operation on an out of the way street near the university. I was in there shortly before they closed and picked up some literature as I used to collect it. Of course my mom did away with the Stude stuff along with all my Big Three collection of early sixties brochures and German language VW stuff when I was away at college. I remember a student on campus at Vincennes University who had a new ’66 Cruiser.
After the dealership closed the university used it for a time and then it was torn down for expansion.
The problem was that Studebaker had already been a hot mess for over a decade. Studebaker’s labor costs were the highest in the industry; they avoided strikes by giving the unions whatever they wanted. Also, Studebaker never really recovered from the big mistakes they made in 1953, when they had major iassues getting the Loewy coupes into production and instead of designing an entirely new line of cars off that sleek platform, they tried to graft its styling cues onto a taller modified ’52 sedan, with mixed results at best. Those two cars were what Studebaker was stuck with until the better end. The coupe became the Hawk, and every other Studebaker was basically a derivative of the ’53 sedan, first stretched and then shrunk, and eventually disguised with some nice Brooks Stevens bodywork, but still having a whole lot of ’53 bones, yes even the Avanti used a modified Lark frame.
A fan. Studebaker really stepped up its game on interiors in its final few years. As a northern Indiana boy, I like these better now than I did in earlier years. I have tried to view these less as Pseudobakers and more as a Stude that’s simpler to keep running, especially as a six.
The 1964-66 Studebaker makes me think of a slow, un-athletic kid playing baseball. After multiple seasons of strikeouts, he has a breakout performance by fouling out instead. Same result, but he tried really hard.
I’m with you on the interiors. The one in this feature car looks subtly ornate, not an easy look to pull off but very tasteful. And that instrument panel is gorgeous.
As a kid in the early sixties, ’63 and ’64 Studebakers were really popular here (Australia). Even the police used them. It was a real shock to hear they had closed.
And the final refresh was quietly the most attractive of the bunch. Still hard to believe that this is (essentially) a redone 1953 sedan.
The last Cruiser doesn’t seem so much a brougham-mobile as an American Mercedes, which is appropriate considering that there were a few Studebaker dealerships that doubled with Benz (at least Freeman-Spicer in South Bend did). Don’t have the cash for an expensive Mercedes? Well, have a look at this Cruiser…
But the company was definitely doomed. I mean, this was the go-go sixties, a time in which you really had to try to fail in big-business. Even AMC was expanding all over the place. In the remote chance that Studebaker had made it into the seventies, well, they never would have survived during those belt-tightening years with the pricey emission and safety regulation mods. It’s tough to tighten your belt when you’re already on a starvation diet.
Same here in Miami, LP Evans Studebaker added a Mercedes franchise and then later a Datsun franchise in the late 60’s. Their old Studebaker dealership served as the Datsun and then Nissan dealer until the mid 90’s when they tore it down and built an all new showroom.
there were a few Studebaker dealerships that doubled with Benz (at least Freeman-Spicer in South Bend did).
Studebaker had the North American distribution rights for Mercedes. iirc, the M-B hookup was part of the backdoor Eisenhower bailout of Studebaker-Packard. Curtiss-Wright was given a contract to manage S-P, and C-W President Roy Hurley wanted to diversify into offering Daimler Benz heavy diesels through C-W, so he offered Daimler access to the Studebaker dealer network as a sweetener to get the heavy diesel business.
Yes, the Stude dealer in Fort Wayne remained as the Mercedes dealer well into the 1970s. The building’s most prominent feature was that it was mostly a corrugated steel qwonset hut, which always seemed a bit down-market for a M-B dealer to me.
The Studie dealer in Kalamazoo had a pretty nice building, with a big round area on the front facade that held the S logo.
After the dealer closed, a VW dealer moved in, and that round area on the facade was the perfect place to put the VW logo.
I see these and remember as a small kid (I was in the first grade when Studebaker quite building cars in April, 1966) and I remember “Rossi Motors” in San Rafael selling Studebakers to the bitter end (they were also the Mercedes-Benz dealer and their successors are R.A.B. Motors, Marin on the West side of Francisco Blvd., San Rafael. The end really came when the Canadian operation was denied funds for R&D after South Bend shut down. Things may have been different had Sherwood Egbert not fell ill and had to leave . . . . . Byers Burlingame was the guy who ended up executing the actions of the board to hurry up and wind down car production.
Beautiful car .
I well remember Studebaker , solid , well built .Coil seat springs in 1966 ? only Studie! .
-Nate
Gotta have respect for the last of its kind. Never seen the interior of these — it’s ok, though that seat fabric is a bit granny-paisley. I assume that was what was left at the Hamilton branch of Curtains-R-Us. Zombies can’t be choosers.
It looks old-fashioned now, but that type of upholstery was au courant in U.S. luxocruisers then. For instance, this 1966 Fleetwood Brougham.
Actually, Tom, I think I prefer the Stude’s interior. If only there was a bit more legroom. The Cadillac of compacts?
Nice-looking Ford/Rambler mash-up!
What a piece of out-dated junk. Looks like it was designed to go to market in 1960. Nothing to like about these. One has to wonder why it took so long for Studebaker to go belly-up.
Gee, Zackman – it’s hard to handle such a large dose of cold, hard reality on a Monday morning. 🙂
Ha ha, JP!
Didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but after seeing one of these at the Studebaker museum in June, Wifey and I thought no wonder they went out of business.
Don’t get me wrong – I like some Studebaker models, and I suppose I could fine something to like about these if one dropped into my lap, but a Lark is my favorite.
And now we know where Opel got the original front-end design for the Ascona A/1900. Just get rid of the vertical divider in the middle, and there you have it!
Definitely a good-looking car, but very rare. I’d never even seen a photo of one until last year.
A nice article, sometime you should do a retrospective about the career of Brock Stevens, he was obviously a very talented designer looking at what he was able to do with the Hawk GT and the Lark on what was almost certainly a very limited budget-probably less than Bill Mitchell’s liquor budget. Unfortunately the mechanicals were all
virtually 1953 vintage, by the time management got through paying the workers and the
stockholders there was little money left for product development. Studebaker had been on the ropes for so long, potential buyers were worried about getting parts and service and went elsewhere.
Don’t forget the Weinermobiles!
That’s a pretty good line about Bill Mitchell’s liquor budget being greater than the money Studebaker had allotted for their entire styling department. Sadly, it’s probably right on the money.
Love Studebaker, but must jump in–my 1966 AMC Marlin (and other AMC’s) has coil spring seats. And they recline. With factory headrests. I adore Studebaker, but it’s true–I cannot imagine them surviving the seventies. By 1966, they had no engine, no R and D department, and only a secondary plant…Not to mention the lack of development funds. At least they DID survive, in spirit, with the Avanti!
And a Studebaker is seen by millions every year during Budweiser commercials(the wagon the Clydesdale horses are pulling is a Studebaker)
Our local Studebaker dealer began selling Mercedes-Benz and Datsun alongside the Studies, in the early sixties.They became a full-fledged Datsun dealer when the Canadian Studebaker factory closed. I read somewhere (Ate up with Motor, maybe?) that Studebaker execs were negotiating to import Datsuns labelled as Studebakers, but on the the advice of a corporate lawyer, they also talked to Toyota and caused such offense to the Nissan execs that the negotiations collapsed. Supposedly that corporate lawyer was Richard Nixon.
Imagine…if that were true, we could have had a badge-engineered version of the 240Z as the return of the Studebaker Hawk!
What a great story. The new, Studebaker 240Z!
Assuming that final line is true, if the negotiations had succeeded, Richard Nixon might not have re-entered politics. Now, that’s what you can call history shattering.
With that kind of improvement, a Studebaker Fairlady Hawk would have been the proverbial icing on the cake.
Ahead of its time. The Nova Concours, Granada Ghia, Valiant Brougham; eight, nine, years early.
Studebaker had the freedom so say what the hell, let’s offer a compact luxury car. The big guys all had big car profits to protect, so the small = cheap formula stayed in place until OPEC I and the Japanese forced their hands.
The brochure page is kind of funny, it mentions the fold down rear armrest in both paragraphs, just in case you missed it the first time.
That pretty much says it all when the most noteworthy thing the marketing department (whomever was left doing it) could come up with for the new Studebakers is that it had a folding center armrest. Imagine the Studebaker salesmen (the loneliest guys in America before the Maytag repairman?) trying to sell the last Studebakers with only that one thing to say about the new features.
“Studebakers have wheels and tires!” 😉
“Studebaker’s a heartbreaker.” You’ve really coined a phrase there.
First with a personal sports coupe, then alongside Rambler with a compact, then a luxury compact. Detroit naturally followed and took over each segment. Stude was doomed, unless they came up with the right new niche every three years. Heartbreaker.
(Graphic from Studebaker Stickers)
Film of 64s being trucked across the bridge to Detroit from Canada, and a few glimpses of the Hamilton plant.
The Hamilton plant was just recently torn down.
Very cool. Those white painted wheels that Stude used until the end always mystified me.
Using one color for the wheels was probably simpler than trying to match wheel to body color. iirc, my 70 Cougar, which was white, had black wheels under the wheel covers. Whitewall tires were so common then that white wheels probably made as much sense as black.
Must have gotten complicated when the car only had hubcaps though. My Dad’s last Studie was a 60 Lark, with hubcaps. I don’t remember the color of the wheels, which would imply that they didn’t make an impression, so they might have been red. I think I have a pic or two in color that show that Lark, but only the back end of it.
GMH did the same wheels were white until 1968, Studes were sold in OZ until the end and used as police patrol cars in Victoria I guess because they came with a V8 and none of the local stuff did, though in NSW the highway patrol used Mini Cooper S
Those white painted wheels that Stude used until the end always mystified me.
JP. I made a point of looking at the wheel color when I was at the museum today. It looked like everything up into the 50s, the wheels were body color. It was just the 60s models that had white wheels, whether they had wheelcovers or hubcaps. I sat down and watched an archival video introduction of all the 64 models, in color and the Challenger and Commander, which were the cheaper models that came with hubcaps, all had white wheels.
The white wheels, rather than body color. must have been a cost cutting thing as the company gasped it’s last.
The exterior details on these ’65s are much better than ’66, the front of which could be described as Soviet inspired.
The video (had to go direct to you tube) makes it feel as though this is as close to an indigenous car company as Canada has come, even if headquarters was in Wisconsin.
Did the ’64-’66 Studebaker predict the downsized ’77 GM B-Bodies? Their wheelbases are only three inches apart.
Where’s the appeal? They should have gone away. Ugly and using GM engines?
You, sir, are not a Studebaker connoisseur.
Sad story the way Studebaker slowly and painfully faded away. In it’s heyday there were some really great cars and the owners loved them.
I was just a little kid when Studebaker died and only really knew them as the occasional Lark puttering about, and late in the 60’s as a locally famous magnificent Golden Hawk that had a Chevy 427 Chevy stuffed in it -a great muscle car that looked totally different than everything else but not really dated, even then. The word I was taught on Studebakers was that it was their engines that made them undesirable buys -new rings every 30K miles because of soft blocks? Is there any truth in this? I have always wanted a Silver Hawk or Golden Hawk……
The V8 was very hardy, as were the flathead 6s. The engines may have been the most durable part of some pretty tough cars. The 6 that was converted to ohv around 1961 had trouble with cracking heads.
We had Temple Motors in Tacoma, Washington – they took on the Mercedes when Studebaker picked up the distributorship of same and of course, didn’t know what to do with such a line of cars – then moved across town in the sixties & took on Toyotas – the old man that owned Temple kept the Studebaker neon on the side of the building for years ! I bought three Toyotas from them – good cars – the service dept was run by Jesse James, I believe – strange bunch ! Hey – Studebaker forever – had a ’46 and a ’52 !! Peace and Goodwill !!
One thing that might not have been mentioned: in the pic above of the taillight, you see the new for 66 flow through ventilation exhaust. On the 64-65 models the space where the exhaust grill is, was the taillight, with the lower half the backup light
One of the interesting prototypes, in the basement of the Studebaker Museum in South Bend
so….what’s so interesting? Look at the doors. When I first saw it 2 years ago, I e-mailed the museum’s archivist and he replied it was something Brooks Stevens was working on.
What’s in the basement? A couple Hummers, a Weasel, a couple army wagons, and a few odds and ends they don’t have room for upstairs.
This appears to be an early 1966 Cruiser. If I recall correctly, later 1966 models produced sometime in January 1966 or afterwards had chromed housings above the tail lights instead of the painted ones seen here.
Mr. Bill
I owned one of these from1972-75.283 V-8,disc brakes electronic ignition (of some sort).really nice daily driver and nearly bulletproof.from what I can deduce the company would have had little trouble in emissions or safety compliance since they used outside suppliers for nearly everything.It appears the final finish of the company hadmore to do with the better ROI on other investments they were into.
Loved these since I was a kid. Don’t know why – my Mom thought I was crazy. Then it was Mustang’s and Camero’s, just like today.
So, I ended up owning 3, 2 Cruiser’s and 1 Daytona. They were very fine cars, had they been building this luxuriously, I think it may have made a difference. The quality was always there. I remember a kid in geography class saying out loud, “Who wants a Studebaker”? I had an answer to that but kept quiet – that’s how people thought about Studebaker’s then, also Rambler’s. Read ‘My Father the Car’, Studebaker almost survived, and could have, and with the Avanti back on the same showroom floor,