Thanks for the great story on the Hawk. The 64 is still one of my favorite cars. It's a shame these cars had the rust out and rattling problems as you noted. I remember my uncle saying to never open the door on a Hawk when it was being jacked up as it wouldn't shut from the weak frame taking a slight bend. They may have been willowy but they are still beautiful.

A nice overview on some really sharp cars. The 1953-54 Studebakers were really far ahead of their time in style.

The 1953 line was a fiasco on many levels. Studebaker essentially built two distinct car lines, but never received credit before it, because they shared so many design cues. The sedans were not very attractive compared to the coupes, and they looked rather small and unsubstantial compared to their Big Three competition (or even a contemporary Nash Statesman/Ambassador).

Someone wrote that, in retrospect, Studebaker should have continued with a heavily facelifted version of the 1952 model four-door sedans and Land Cruisers for 1953, with the Starliners and Starlights introduced as a speciality model.

The coupes were delayed because of the flexible frame. Studebaker didn't account for the weight of the V-8 engine when it developed these cars. When the bodies were developed, the front clip mounted fine with the remainder of the body. When the V-8 engine was mounted on the frame, it caused such flex that that the front clip no longer mounted properly to the body! The company scrambled to find a fix, but the delays kept the coupes out of the showrooms during a critical time.

Even so, the coupes still sold well for 1953. I remember reading the sales of the Starliner/Starlight actually were very high, and constituted a much higher percentage of Studebaker's production than was normal for those two body styles in the early 1950s. The problem was that the sedans were such flops.

Another Studebaker problem that presaged Detroit's 21st century woes was union trouble. During the lush postwar years, the company essentially gave in to union demands, instead of taking a strike (as GM had endured for months in 1946). Both Vance and Hoffman insisted that Studebaker avoid antagonizing the UAW, as they wanted to run "America's Friendliest Factory." Certainly an admirable view, especially since the bitter GM sitdown strikes and the brutal "Battle of the Overpass" at Ford were still fresh on everyone's memory.

But, as someone once noted, a company that doesn't turn a profit doesn't do the working man or woman any good, and Studebaker workers would soon learn that the hard way.

By 1953, Studebaker not only had far more workers than necessary to do most jobs, but they received a HIGHER rate of pay than the union members at the Big Three, and still managed to have a poorer productivity rate. Nance was willing to risk a strike to bring wage and productivity rates back into line, but by then it was too late.

My father had a 1953 Champion Starlight (light blue with a white roof). He still speaks fondly of that car. He bought it when it was a year old, and he was able to get over 100,000 miles out of it before he sold it. It didn't even have serious rust on it, which was quite an accomplishment here in southcentral Pennsylvania. But, looking back, I can see why many more people would have bought a better built, more thoroughly developed Chevrolet, Ford, Buick or Oldsmobile, even if the Studebaker was much better looking.

As late as 2000, large portions of the old Studebaker complex were still standing in central South Bend, although largely in derelict condition. Let's hope that the rest of the American car industry meets a better fate.

I tend to regard the anti-union stance of historians like Tom Bonsall and Rich Taylor with a great deal of skepticism. Studebaker's productivity levels had as much to do with the antiquated layout of the South Bend factory as with their UAW deal; their assembly lines were cumbersome, requiring more labor operations per car than any of the Big Three. That remained true even after Nance forced the UAW to accept sharp concessions in wages and hours.

Furthermore, given the number of strikes that the Big Three suffered during that period, I'm not convinced that S-P's efforts to make nice with the UAW was bad strategy at all. Unlike GM or Ford, Studebaker simply could not afford work stoppages -- even strikes at their suppliers were absolutely crippling. Paying a slightly higher hourly rate as insurance against debilitating strikes was a fairly reasonable decision.

The experience of BMC/BMH/British Leyland in the sixties and seventies demonstrates what can happen when an under-capitalized automaker with inefficient facilities and limited cash reserves tries to take a hard-line attitude with its workers. There were certainly points in the history of BLMC where the union's demands were unreasonable (and a lot of problems that took place at the level of individual foremen, not union management), but BMC/British Leyland's undisguised antagonism toward the union made it a lot worse.

Thank you for a well considered view on the unions. It's very popular to blame them for all problems -as they are among few workers who earn a living wage in America. This seems to madden management types and inspire mistrust in others.

There are no angels in the decline of the US auto industry, but, the unions are certainly not responsible for decades of poor decisions, hubris, and lack of foresight. This was purely management.

I've been in love with the lines of the '53 Stude since I was a kid and this article only serves to remind me how a once great car lost it's way due to budget-constrained remodels that left a once great car looking half-assed, with disparate elements from other marques incorporated in an attempt to lure buyers to the brand.

I realize that Studebaker was in financial dire straits for many of their last years, but I'm sure that their designs (engines notwithstanding) would have flourished had they possessed the capital to hang on until the late '60s when everyone wanted a racy looking car. History is one of those things that we only see in 20/20 vision, but I've always felt like Studebaker would have done alright had they been capitolized like the Big Three.

All that aside, I'd like to provide some praise for Aaron Severson, the fellow that provides us car junkies with a weekly dose of well thought out history and thoroughly researched history to read up on and marvel at. Thanks, Aaron-you are completely awesome and wiser than I can ever hope to be.

Thanks for the kind words.

I don't think Studebaker could have survived much longer than they did. They just never had the capital they would have needed to stay competitive in engineering, and that was before federal safety and emissions standards. They didn't lack for talent, but their resources were just too limited. It went beyond the engine -- for instance, the final Studebakers still had kingpins, a decade after other automakers had switched to ball joints. Probably the only way they would have had a shot would have been if they'd joined Hudson and Nash in AMC in 1953, which didn't happen because of the mutual animosity between Jim Nance and George Romney.

Certainly, a lot of the people involved were capable of better, and many of them went on to bigger and better things. Duncan McRae, for instance, became the chief designer of Ford of England in the mid-sixties, with great success. It was just that Studebaker never had the resources to make it.

Part of the reason Studebaker's plant was outdated was that management paid out high wages to employees and lavish dividends to shareholders instead of updating the plant.

It's also worth noting that Studebaker wasn't just handicapped by lower productivity. Studebaker paid higher wages to its workers than those earned by Big Three workers.

By the time Nance brought wages more into line with industry standards, it was too late. There was no money to invest in either new vehicles or the plant. Studebaker could not afford to update the plant. The company was too far gone at that point.

I agree that deliberately antagonizing the UAW was not a good idea, but rolling over and playing dead, as Studebaker management regularly did when faced with a UAW demand or possible strike, was not a good strategy, either. There should have been a middle ground - explaining the hard economic facts of life to the union would have been a good start.

Studebaker's factory was notorious for overstaffing. It was not uncommon for several workers to sleep on the job (with cots in full view of foreman!), or read books while other workers took up the slack. That has nothing to do with the plant being outdated.

The strategy of Vance and Hoffman was a ticking time bomb. Companies with smaller production bases need to keep a very close eye on labor costs - more so than larger companies - because they can't spread the cost over a larger number of vehicles.

There was also another designer who tried some ideas for Studebaker. Bob Marks did some nice renderings of proposed Studebaker for 1967 and beyond. Brook Stevens also suggested some ideas.

Yup -- Bob Marcks actually did the facelift that turned the Lark into the 1965-1966 Studebakers (mentioned in the article on the Lark), and Egbert had commissioned Brooks Stevens to develop concepts for both future Hawks and future sedans.

As a kid my favorite toy car was a 1955 President State Studebaker. It was cream white and blue. To protect from chipping the paint of the bumpers when hitting a wall I wrapped a rubber band around it. I immediately preferred the original 1953 design when I saw it. I never saw one in France.
It’s in my top ten most beautiful cars of all times along with the Jaguar XK120 and MKII, some Ferraris and Maseratis, a couple of vintage Packards. I have mixed feelings about the Avanti but it’s quite deserving too.
The story of Studebaker and Packerd is too sad.

Nick

Looking at the 70's Firebirds, it's obvious they borrowed heavily on the almost twenty year old Stude styling.

Aaron,
Do you know if this car had any influence on the original Mustang? To me, the stying cues are just about unmistakeable. Long hood, short rear deck and the "scoop" line on the side.
Your thoughts?

I don't know that the Hawk was a direct influence on the Mustang; I think it was probably more a case of both having common antecedents. The long-hood/short-deck proportions were a prewar thing, of course. I think both the Mustang and the GT Hawk owed something to the Thunderbird, as well, both the '55 and the '58 Square Bird.

As for the Mustang side scoop, it looks to me like an offshoot of the '62 Mustang I show car, and the 1963 Mustang II, which is kind of the missing link between the Mustang I sports car and the production model. I don't have any photos of it, but if you do an image search on "1963 Mustang II," you'll see what I mean.

Thank you, Aaron, for putting together the best pieces on the Studebaker Hawk,Lark and the legendary Avantu that I've ever come across; well researched and with enough interesting anecdotes to make them required reading by anyone, anywhere, interested in good writing.

When I was just getting into my teen years, I wrote a hand-written letter that I addressed simply to the "PR department, Studebaker Corporation" using an address off the back of a sales brochure. My intent was to get more information on the Granatelli's efforts at Bonneville.

Someone at the Studebaker facility in South Bend was kind enough to photocopy a company newsletter with a report in it on those efforts (no name, no cover letter). It meant a lot to me and secured me as a Studebaker fan. So there were people, even in those last dark days, who were believers in what they did. Long may the marque survive, because of them.

Just watching Barrett- Jackson with a 57 Golden Hawk going for $135k.
Comparing this car to it's 57 contemporaries is no contest design wise, the later versions with Modernizations mods were too far from Loewey' original Starliner Coupes but the grille treatment lends it a surprisingly contemporary relevance, and makes the Chev/Fords contemporaries look bloated and trite.
Too bad they didn't get the chassis right, if they had had the later day Avanti chassis/suspensions the car would have earned the undisputed bragging rights for the best looking car from the 50's to the end of the century and arguably up to the present..