Some cars are seemingly immortal, but the Studebaker Hawk had more reincarnations than the Dalai Lama. Originally developed by the design firm of Raymond Loewy as a show car, it became a highly acclaimed production model in 1953, and survived for another 11 years in a bewildering number of variations. This week, we take a look at the history of the “Loewy coupe” and its many reinventions, including the Studebaker Hawk, GT Hawk, and Super Hawk.
RAYMOND LOEWY AT STUDEBAKER
The late Raymond Loewy remains one of the most famous industrial designers of the 20th century. During his long career, the Paris-born Loewy lent his talents to everything from refrigerators to locomotives. Starting in the early thirties, he also became involved with the auto industry, first as a consultant for Hupmobile, then for South Bend, Indiana’s Studebaker Corporation. Loewy first approached Studebaker president Paul Hoffman in 1936 and the first production cars to show Loewy’s influence appeared for the 1938 model year. Studebaker would remain a major client of Raymond Loewy Associates (RLA) for almost 20 years and RLA would design nearly all of the company’s most famous and memorable cars.
Although Loewy is commonly credited as the designer of the cars styled by his firm, his role was primarily managerial. He was a fine editor and an excellent promoter, but he left much of the firm’s actual design work to his employees. Even so, his clients tended to promote Loewy as the sole designer, capitalizing on the value of his name. Some of Loewy’s staff (particularly Virgil Exner, Sr., who worked for him in the forties) chafed at that, feeling Loewy was too eager to accept credit for designs with which he’d had little direct involvement.
The 1947–1951 Studebakers’ dramatic backlight earned them the nickname “Coming or Going Studebakers,” and made them the butt of countless jokes. Early in its development, Studebaker considered making this a rear-engined car, part of the reason for its elongated tail.
Loewy also aroused the resentment of some Studebaker executives. While he got along well with Paul Hoffman and other board members, Hoffman’s successor, Harold Vance, was wary of Loewy while chief engineer Roy Cole was actively hostile.
Despite that occasional animosity, the Loewy team continued to do most of Studebaker’s styling until the mid-fifties. RLA’s Studebaker group was neither very large nor particularly well paid and their facilities were often poor. For many years, they were consigned to a tiny office on the second floor of a South Bend dealership located several blocks from the Studebaker factory. The group eventually graduated to an office in the engineering building on Sample Street, a half mile (0.8 km) from Studebaker’s administrative headquarters.
By the late forties, the head of the Studebaker team was Robert Bourke, who had come to RLA from Sears, Roebuck in late 1940. The first design Bourke directed was Studebaker’s 1950 “Next Look” line, which added a wild-looking airplane-inspired nose to Virgil Exner’s “coming or going” 1947 design. They were distinctive but very gimmicky and Bourke was never overly fond of them.
THE LOEWY COUPE
Around the beginning of 1951, Bourke decided that the best way to develop new styling themes to replace the Next Look was to create a show car, giving the design team the opportunity to explore different ideas without the constraints of designing for production. GM had recently launched its traveling Motorama show and Ford and Chrysler were beginning to roll out dramatic-looking concept cars of their own. Bourke suggested Loewy ask Studebaker for permission to do the same.
The 1950–1951 “Next Look” Studebaker kept the ’47 car’s wraparound rear window and added a jutting spinner nose. The 1951 Studebaker’s snout was somewhat shorter than that of the 1950. Bob Bourke, who oversaw the styling of these cars, didn’t like either version. The 1951 Commander introduced Studebaker’s new V8. It initially displaced 233 cu. in. (3,812 cc), was rated at only 120 hp (90 kW), and suffered serious reliability problems.
Loewy was not sure what the Studebaker board would say. The company had been in reasonably good financial shape in the late 1940s, but by early 1951, the future was no longer looking so bright. As had been the company’s wont since the 1920s, much of its profits were paid out in dividends, which was popular with stockholders, but did little to improve Studebaker’s aging facilities. The South Bend factory was antiquated compared to the latest Big Three plants, which had adverse effects on both productivity and production costs.
The outbreak of the Korean War made things worse, bringing with it new production restrictions and shortages of steel and other materials. Although Studebaker’s production volume rose dramatically in 1950 and 1951, its profit margins were already slipping. Studebaker was also struggling to correct the flaws of its brand-new V8 engine, launched for the 1951 model year, which had suffered serious valvegear problems and a rash of warranty repairs and running design changes. The latter episode had cost Studebaker more than $4 million, reducing their 1951 profits by almost 25% and taking a serious toll on public confidence.
To Loewy and Bourke’s surprise, the board agreed to authorize the show car, perhaps seeing it as a promotional opportunity for the company’s forthcoming centennial or just a way to generate some positive publicity.
After receiving the green light, Bourke and his team, which at that time included Ted Brennan, Don Bruce, John Cuccio, Holden (Bob) Koto, Ed Herman, Vince Gardner, and a little later Bob Andrews, set out to develop a sleek, low-slung coupe influenced by various recent European styling trends. With RLA still busy with their ongoing commitments to Studebaker’s production vehicles, the show car project took place mostly after hours and on weekends.
Although the production car is still often called “the Loewy coupe,” Loewy was actually in Europe during much of its development. His main contributions were to select which of the various competing designs he preferred. Each of Bourke’s team developed their own concept, but the final design was primarily Bourke’s.
The front end treatment of the original Studebaker “Loewy coupe” is arguably the most dramatic departure from the prevailing styles of the period, which emphasized an upright (and often bulbous) hood with a prominent grille. Ironically, Studebaker would later try to graft grilles onto this body shell with varying degrees of aesthetic success. (Photo: “53 Studebaker Commander” © 2012 Greg Gjerdingen; resized 2015 by Aaron Severson and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)
RLA originally assumed the coupe would be only a concept car, but a visit from Harold Vance one night while Loewy was out of town suggested to Bourke that it would be prudent to keep the design within the realm of what Studebaker could conceivably produce. He later mentioned that visit to Loewy, who began a lobbying campaign to get Studebaker to consider the coupe as a production model.
A few weeks later, Loewy and Bourke showed off the finished model to Vance, Paul Hoffman, and the Studebaker board along with the models for the other 1953 cars, which borrowed various cues from the coupe. The following morning, Vance called Bourke personally to say the board had decided to build the coupe as a regular 1953 model.
The coupe was an expensive investment for Studebaker. Although it rode the long-wheelbase chassis of the big Land Cruiser sedan, the body was unique, sharing some styling cues with the 1953 sedans, but no common stampings. The coupes also required chassis modifications to ensure adequate headroom beneath the low-slung roof, which was fully 5.5 inches (140 mm) lower than the sedan’s.
The original 1953 Studebaker “Loewy coupe” was only 56.3 inches (1,430 mm) high, making it one of the lowest cars in America. Most 1953 Studebaker sedans rode a 116.5-inch (2,959 mm) wheelbase, but the coupes shared the 120.5-inch (3,061mm) wheelbase of the Commander Land Cruiser, giving the coupes better proportions. Although the original photographer identified this as a Commander, the lazy-S emblems on the rear fender make us think it’s actually a six-cylinder Champion; Commanders had a “V-8” emblem in this area. (Photo: “53 Studebaker Commander” © 2012 Greg Gjerdingen; resized and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)
There were technically six versions of the coupe. Pillared models, called Starlight, were offered in both six-cylinder Champion and V8-powered Commander forms in either DeLuxe or Regal trim. The pillarless hardtops, offered only in Regal trim, were called Starliner, again available in both the Champion and Commander series. The wide selection meant that the coupe covered a rather broad price spread, ranging from $1,868 for the Champion DeLuxe Starlight (about $140 more than a Chevrolet 210 club coupe) to $2,374 for a Commander Regal Starliner, within $25 of a two-door Oldsmobile Super Eighty-Eight.
The public was quite taken with what Studebaker advertising called the coupe’s “European look.” In fact, many buyers preferred it to the comparatively dumpy-looking sedans, which debuted several weeks before the coupe. Studebaker had not anticipated that — at the time, coupes seldom accounted for more than 15-20% of total sales — and had not allotted enough production capacity to meet the demand. Worse, the stylish coupes dampened any appetite the public might have had for the rest of the Studebaker line. Some customers who couldn’t get a coupe simply walked away rather than settle for a sedan.
Buyers who did get their hands on the new coupe were not necessarily impressed. The big Land Cruiser frame was not very rigid, which resulted in a disconcerting amount of chassis flex over large bumps. (Studebaker reinforced the frame for 1954, but its rigidity was still marginal; Bourke ended up beefing up the frame of his own car considerably before it was satisfactory.) Assembly quality was not the best either, so squeaks and rattles were common. Both the body and the frame also proved to be very vulnerable to rust.
A six-cylinder Champion Regal Starliner hardtop is 201.9 inches (5,128 mm) long and weighs around 2,900 lb (1,320 kg) with a full tank of gas; the V8 Commander is 360 lb (163 kg) heavier. Suspension is typical for the period: double wishbones and coils in front, a live axle on leaf springs in back. (Photo: “53 Studebaker Commander” © 2012 Greg Gjerdingen; resized and modified (obscured license plate and background details) 2015 by Aaron Severson and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, with this modified version offered under the same license)
The coupes eventually accounted for nearly half of all 1953 Studebaker passenger car sales. However, that total was only 166,364, down more than 100,000 units from 1951. The main reason was a fierce price war between Ford and Chevrolet (and, to a lesser extent, competition between Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac) that forced Big Three dealers to cut prices to the bone. Studebaker, with its higher production costs, simply could not afford to respond; each sedan cost hundreds of dollars more to build than GM would have spent on an identical car and the coupes were even costlier. Although the “Loewy coupe” was an aesthetic triumph, it was not a financial success.
THE STUDEBAKER-PACKARD MERGER
By early 1954, Studebaker was in very bad shape. Production for the 1954 model year was barely 50% of the already-depressed 1953 total: fewer than 80,000 units. The board started looking for partners.
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.
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.
My first car at age 16, was a 55 President Hard Top. It was customized with Frenched headlights, leaded in, 56 Packard tail lights, and candy apple burgundy paint. It had a floor stick from a jeep that bolted right into the Borg Warnner three speed. Orginally an automatic, it had high gears, but that did not slow it down with it’s four barrel carb and cam. It was very quick for the times and surprised many a pre muscle car such as the 270 hp Chevs. Like many 50’s cars with more power, it constantly blew tranys. It would look very slick to this day. Yes, it did have windows that would suddenly fall into the door and break. The doors could not be opened if it were on the lift and of course those rattles. Who cares at 16?
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.
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..
It would appear that George Romney had much of the same ego, pride and personality that his son displayed in last year’s Presidential election?
What a pity that George Romney could not had swallowed his pride and worked out a merger when it was still possible!
Well, in the case of Romney the senior, if you wanted to assign blame you’d really have to split it between him and Jim Nance. I don’t think there was an easy solution to that one: Both Nance and Romney were ambitious and the fact that they were roughly the same age meant that they were going to be rivals. For either of them to have a shot at running the merged company after Mason’s death or retirement, the other would have had to step aside; Nance had already taken one titular demotion prior to going to Packard, while Romney had been groomed as George Mason’s successor.
Also, it’s important to remember keep in mind that the Packard board was resistant to a merger with Nash, having become convinced that Studebaker was a better bet. Hudson was widely perceived as a terminal case and it was quite a while before the merged AMC was no longer hemorrhaging.
Honestly, I’m not sanguine about the prospects of a four-way merger. I’m very doubtful that a merged Studebaker-Packard-Hudson-Nash entity would have had the capital to create a viable Sloan-style brand hierarchy — the only way I think that might have worked was if it had happened right after the war, but at that point no one except Mason saw the need. I think if they had merged in ’54, it’s unlikely that all four brands would have survived into the ’60s.
I agree about the merger. If the independents had merged in the immediate post war years, when profits were good, the merged companies had a chance. By 1954 they were all broke and headed for oblivion.
These 53’s are still so stunning, it is hard to imagine everyone was not clammering to have it. It was the low, long look long before the Chrysler’s adverts ‘Suddenly its 1960’ in 1957! The chassis would have to be beefed up for a convertible, but that should have been a priority. Look at the competition, the T-Bird, the Corvette, the Darrin, all two seaters, but the Starliner could seat four. A terrible, missed opportunity, which Ford soon rectified in 1958 with the T-Bird. Studebaker’s top brass made a mistake on the sedan versions, another missed opportunity. America did not want something this advanced apparently and went right on buying their extremely boring Fords, Chevys, Plymouths and Dodges, and you can still buy a new Dodge today, which given the choices back then seems almost unthinkable now.
People did clamor to have the ’53 coupes; not so the sedans. Studebaker hadn’t anticipated that, so they couldn’t keep up with demand for the coupes and had unsold sedans mouldering on dealer lots. Admittedly, the sedans were undoubtedly hurt by the Ford-Chevrolet price war, which meant that it was often considerably cheaper to buy a ’53 Ford or a Chevy.
Great article, thanks!! I own a beautiful and very original, white with red interior, 1964 GT Hawk. It still stops traffic and turns heads after 50 years. The old bird gets surrounded with people at the car shows wondering what it is and admiring it’s clean lines and sporty interior and dash.
For MY 1957 and 1958, there was also the Studebaker Scotsman, a severely decontented sedan. Most parts that would be chromed on most cars (such as hub caps) were painted. No doubt the name was meant to evoke the stereotype of Scottish tightfistedness.
It doesn’t strike me that Packard would have lasted any longer than Studebaker, if they had taken the reins of the Studebaker/Packard merger and caused production to be directed towards revitalizing and keeping Packard a going concern. It’s an interesting path to try to peer at though.
Well, Packard WAS in the driver’s seat of the merger: Jim Nance was president of Studebaker-Packard from the merger until the latter part of 1956. It wasn’t that they decided to favor Studebaker over Packard, but that they reached a point where they had to dispose of the Packard engine plant and the only assembly plants that could accommodate the existing tooling. (S-P did intend to set up a shared-body plan for Studebaker, Clipper, and Packard — all-new, not a rehash of the existing stuff — but they never got that far because they couldn’t raise the money.)
I do think Packard would have been the more salvageable of the two brands, but Packard was already having trouble making ends meet (which is why they went looking for a merger with another company offering greater volume), so I agree that their future probably wouldn’t have been that rosy. Best case, they might have limped along into the early ’60s and then either folded or gone back to the table with AMC, perhaps after both Romney and Nance were gone. Packard might have survived as a brand in that scenario, but more likely as a restyled, fancier Ambassador than a really separate entity.
I agree that a merger in the late 1940’s would have made a difference. All four companies had cash and were selling well. Cash is what was needed and none of the independents had any by 1954. It was pure luck that AMC lasted as long as they did.
The blame for shutdown has to be mainly accepted by management. When the union is allowed to be unproductive then the company is going to suffer. Management allowed poor productivity to be the norm and accepted. when this happens there is no return from past practices. The union then relies on past practicies to protect the unproductive people and management usually caves in and tries to live with the situation.
This happened at a Carrier plant I worked at that was closed for similar reasons. Poor productivity was allowed and the union protected it.
I love my Studebakers and their forward design and wish a new restyled Hawk had been built. I also appreciate the super hawks. I hope to hear the supercharger whine on my 64 super Hawk some day. I also now loathe the Corvette because of what they (the ashtuaba body plant) did to the Avanti assembly. They purposely delivered late and poor parts and spelled the demise of the Avanti while filling all Corvette orders on time.
Sorry to rant but that all I have to say about that. Like a box of chocolates????
Another great article, thank you!.
I think the Hawk is one of the best looking cars ever produced. I wonder if the stylists had any connection with the British Rootes Group?. Certainly their late ’50s Sunbeam Rapier has an uncanny resemblance, as does the Sunbeam Alpine Sports car.
The woes of the BMC/BMH/BLMC/BL corporation is much more complicated than a simple union vs management conflict, Harold Wilson’s left leaning government was much involved in the vagaries of one of the nations most important exporters, its progress from the biggest vehicle exporter in the world to extinction within 50 years would make for interesting (if depressing) reading. It has a striking similarity to GM’s post war fortunes.
Funny how Mercedes has contracted with AM General in South Bend for the R series SUV in the past few weeks…..AM General was Studebaker’s military vehicle arm sold to Kaiser, to AMC and finally Renco.
Also, I did sit in a 1962 Hawk at my neighbors, along with a 1956 Packard Clipper.
Looking at hundreds of SCCA pit pix there seems to be a
Starliner in every one. The right folks wanted them, but
the concept of roll stiffness, braking and until the 352 V8
output, straight line performance were hardly addressed.
What dimwit thought the wheezy flathead six could power
the Starlight to any degree of prestige when the 232 V8
Itself had barely the grunt of a Chevy Stovebolt six?
stumbled across this old stude article and your comments today and
would like to e-mail you with a few stude questions. I am a long time
Hawk enthusiast having owned over a dozen of them and also an
Alfa Romeo owneer – mostly 116 cars – Studebakers would have
really benefited from the dedion rear suspension.
my e mail is alfabaker@southslope.net
While cash and facilities of Studebaker were doleful
there had been enough scraped up before Packard
to let Porsche develop a wide angle V6 and semi unit
bodied sedan for 1955. There were quite a few Indy
race drivers in their employ to have assisted in their
remaining development as well. The short lived V8
from Packard prevented a proper enlargement of the
Stude which itself had the expansion potential to 4 in.
bore and 390 inch displacement at reasonable stroke.
Packard could have spared themselves their not too
clever 374 entirely. The physically longer Packard
V8 was actually lighter than the Stude 289 with the
60 lbs of supercharger for the 1957 Hawk figured in.
There were three Gage’s of frame rails for the 120 in.
wheelbase car: .072 then .090 and eventually around
1957 a proper .120. Yet there was always the space
to have welded a collar across the forward upkink of
the rails where the cowl attached. Even the Avanti
used a silly little stirrup stool about two inches tall
and long at that still evident inflection point in the
flexure response graph they published for their intro
SAE paper. What feeble engineering savvy gave them
instead a 175 lb. X-member of 3/8 inch plate for their
eventual 108 inch Convertible or Avanti simply boggles
the mind. Either Budd or A.O. Smith were complicit!
Well, my experience and observation about contractors is that if the client makes demands you think are silly, unreasonable, or unworkable, you sometimes end up having to shrug and make the best of it. I think everyone who’s ever been an independent contractor or freelancer has run into times (maybe multiple times per job) where the client draws a weird line in the sand — it can’t cost more than this, it can’t weigh more than that, it must not be that color.
If there was provision to bolster it properly, I’d say that doesn’t evidence a poor engineer so much as a competent one who’s fought a losing battle with a bean counter or someone with odd priorities. Leaving provision for it implies somebody thinking, “Okay, I think this is silly/frustrating/incomprehensible, but the best I can do is leave room for somebody to fix it later if they come to their senses.”
Aaron, (and others) since you are following this and
want an image of the Mustang II — which I guess was
the name applied to a tiny mid engined roadster —
may I direct you to my Facebook blog “Looking Back
Racing.” There you will indeed find a recent post
which shows the side radiator intakes. As I noted,
my late, beloved boss at Ford is the chubby fellow
standing alongside. Ford Photographic took it.
Frame integrity, straight line stability and overdrive
cruising at 90 mph was demonstrated to me in a trio
of Starlight coupes owned by the late Hugh Studebaker
Of Elmhurst, IL. I judged those well fettled cars to be
equal or superior to the year old 1967 Cougar I was
driving at the time. Yes, he reassembled them from
different later cars to each have the 53 snout, no fins
and repowered them as 289 4v & 3 speed OD. But
aside from Land Cruiser rear sway bars, additional
spring leaves, Buick coil springs and HD shocks no
magic was required. The six steering box was quite
A bit more direct. The windows sealed fine and there
were no creaks or rattles. The tan and white car,
originally of ’61 vintage had the stoutest frame. The
Terra cotta color car I think was the one Ron Hall
later autocrossed, and much later managed to lap
with my Miata 1800 at Grattan Raceway in Grand
Rapids, meaning a pretty respectable 1:51 or so.
I REALLY HAVE ENJOYED THE STORIES OF WHAT MISTAKES THE THE TOP BRASS AT BOTH STUDEBAKER AND PACKARD MADE -HOWEVER THE ONE FACTOR THAT COULD HAVE SAVED S-P WAS TRUCKS–STUDEBAKER MADE MAGNIFICENT TRUCKS THAT WERE REVERED WORLDWIDE-ASK THE RUSSIANS IF THEY COULD HAVE INVADED GERMANY IN WW2 WITHOUT THE HELP OF THE FAMOUS STUDEBAKER US6 MILITARY TRUCKS THAT PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ‘GAVE’THEM UNDER THE ”LEND LEASE” ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME.-BOTH STUDEBAKER AND PACKARD TOP BRASS WERE CAR PEOPLE OR SALESMEN –NOT TRUCKPEOPLE//-ASK ANOTHER QUESTION–WHERE WOULD FORD BE WITHOUT ITS F150–WHERE WOULD FIAT-CHRYSLER BE WITHOUT ITS RAM TRUCKS??–EVEN MERCEDES BENZ WITH ITS TRUCKS–IN THE U.S ALONE I AM WILLING TO BET THAT DAIMLER TRUCKS MAKES MORE MONEY THAN THEIR MERCEDES-BENZ CAR RANGE–TALK ABOUT ANOTHER SUCCESS STORY THAT IS PACCAR-BUILDERS OF BOTH KENWORTH AND PETERBILT TRUCKS–NOT CHEAP BY ANY MEANS–HOWEVER USING PACKARDS SLOGAN ASK THE MAN WHO OWNS A KENWORTH OR PETRBILT–LOYALTY BASED ON MERIT//–VOLVO SOLD ITS ENTIRE CAR OPERATION TO THE CHINESE[GEELY] TO CONCENTRATE ON ITS TRUCK RANGE FOR THE INEVITABLE SHOWDOWN WITH MERCEDES AND THE WINNER WILL BE PACCAR AND THE DIVIDENDS WILL STAY IN NORTH AMERICA AND THAT IS GOOD NEWS
One of my first cars of lust, Hawk GT. Didn’t care for the Hawks with Fins. Now looking at the ’53 a little closer/longer I think that body styling would sell today, much nicer that the GT.
Found this place via Chase Moresey’s book “The Man Who Saved the V-8”
Fabulous Studs March 1, 2016 4:33PM
I was a proud owner of a 1960 Stud Lark wagon, today this would be a collectors dream. Its sad in reading the trials and tribulations this company went through. I grew up in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and later in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). The Studs set a bench mark no matter what year or model one had. One often comes across a Champion, Hawk,Lark or a Daytona, each owner shows his pride and joy as a proud new father.
If you look up on Google, Cars of Rhodesia should interest you.
can any body help me with this? 1958 silverhawk. did it have a silverhawk nameplate on trunk? if so, was it located on the right side of trunk? thank you
Yes, that sounds right.
Aaron,
I understand contemporaries thought the ’57 Golden Hawk was the stronger performer than the ’56 though I have struggled to understand why. Maybe the answer lies in the automatic transmissions the two engines were attached to…….and I know you have interest / expertise in that topic?
A supercharged Studebaker V8 engine was ~700 pounds, as was the Packard V8, so weight of the engine can’t explain things. While both engines claimed the same hp, the Packard had better torque. The limited advancement in hp / torque claimed by the R2 of 1963 with more compression and a 4-bbl carb tells me the ’57-58 supercharged engine claims were probably inflated.
An interesting question is if the 310 hp 400 lb-ft Caribbean tune Packard V8 had been prototyped, or optional in the Hawk. The Hawk was almost 1000 lbs lighter than the Caribbean, so the power-to-weight would have made such a Hawk a legitimate Chrysler 300B competitor.
There’s a detailed article by Frank Ambrogio in the June 2005 issue of Turning Wheels (which I hadn’t seen when this article was originally written) that talks about the weight issues at length and finds that while the ’57 did have slightly better weight distribution, the difference was fractional (less than one percentage point). The ideal way to compare performance would be to look at comparative quarter mile times conducted by the same people (comparing quarter mile times from different publications isn’t always illustrative), which I unfortunately don’t have. However, the figures I’ve found strongly point to the transmission being the main difference.
The 1956 Golden Hawk had Twin Ultramatic, which was a two-speed automatic with a low gear of 1.82:1 plus the torque converter stall ratio. The 1957 typically had the three-speed Flight-o-Matic, which had a low gear of about 2.31:1 and a second gear of 1.44:1, again plus converter stall. (I don’t have stall ratios handy, but I think the ’56 was something like 2.9:1 — a lot for a street car — and the Flight-o-Matic probably about 2.2:1.) Hot Rod‘s March 1957 test found that for optimal performance, you needed to do some jiggery-pokety with the transmission (starting in Low, shifting to Drive, and then shifting back to Low, an old trick with these early Borg-Warner automatics, including the three-speed Fordomatic) to hold second as long as possible. Doing that trimmed quarter mile ETs by almost 0.3 seconds, which was a lot. If you did that, the ’57 was quicker than the ’56; if you didn’t, they came up about the same through the quarter and the ’57 was slower up to about 60 mph.
What this strongly implies is that having the extra gear — provided you were willing to shift manually to get best use of it — helped to keep the supercharged engine in its optimum rev range (which Hot Rod found was between 2,500 and 5,000 rpm) for longer. If not, the transmission’s deeper first gear wasn’t enough to entirely mask the engine’s lazy low-end response and reduced torque compared to the bigger displacement Packard engine. In other words, in ’56, the engine’s torque was making up for the transmission, whereas in ’57, the transmission was at least partially making up for weaker low-end punch.
The other consideration that shouldn’t be overlooked is that the ’57s had the option of Twin-Traction (limited-slip differential), and I would bet most of the press cars were so equipped. The limited-slip would let you punch it off the line in a way that on the ’56 car would have sent the wheels up in smoke, something that would almost certainly contribute to the impression of the ’56 as being much more nose-heavy.
There’s a site on the McCulloch supercharger, http://www.vs57.com, that includes a recap of road test impressions. The general consensus of contemporary reviewers is that the power claims were reasonably accurate, but peak power is not the end-all, be-all of engine performance. Hot Rod‘s remarks on the relatively narrow power band are revealing in that respect and help to explain what otherwise look like anomalous performance figures.
The Starlight coupe was a styling breakthrough in the industry. The other manufacturers were not doing anything like it. If more money had been available to solve the quality problems they might have survived. Since my Dad was a Chevy, Olds, Cadillac dealer he didn’t want to hear that I thought the Studebaker was a great design & wouldn’t let me have one which had been traded for a new Chevy. “It would look bad to be driving a competitors car”. Never did get one, but still admire them.
Many years ago. My Uncle had one of the rare.1958 Red with leather interior.588 Studebaker Packard Hank 289 Super Charger Car. And what I found great.About one of its small options. Was the outside upper doors.Had leather padding on them.So your arm would not get.Burned on the metal.
It was a neat idea from that respect, but the obvious problem was that the padding was exposed to the elements. I always wondered what you were supposed to do to keep it from getting soaked in the rain or rotting in the sun!
On the Studebaker V8 engine, have read they were looking to go even smaller than the short-lived 224 engine.
Is it known exactly how low Studebaker were looking to go in reducing the displacement down to some 200 cubic inches before they settled for the 224 as a compromise solution?
I haven’t specifically heard of anything smaller than the 224, but combining the original 85.7mm bore of the 233 V-8 with the 224’s shortened 71.4mm stroke would have yielded 201 cubic inches, or just fractionally under 3,300cc, so that would certainly have been within the realm of possibility. With contemporary technology, it would have been a fairly gutless thing at that point and there were probably manufacturing advantages to retaining the same bore dimensions. (Ford did that sometimes as well: keep a constant bore and vary displacement for different applications by changing the stroke.)
I see, while a 201 Studebaker V8 is indeed likely to be pretty gutless at the same time could it have actually been a suitable replacement for the 185 / 185.6 Flathead Inline-6 had the V8 been properly developed and lightened similar to its closest competition later on?
Also been reading about 343 Studebaker V8 prototype engines being tested that featured a 98.42mm bore, yet a 92mm stroke would equate to 341.7 cubic inches / 5599cc.
Were any other displacements considered between the 289 and 343 engines aside from the 304.5?
The problem with replacing the L-head six with the V-8 is that it would have been perceived, not altogether wrongly, as less economical than the six. Whether it would have been in fact is not necessarily clear, since it wasn’t an all-else-being-equal situation, but in a product like the Scotsman, that might have been a handicap.
I don’t know of any beyond the 343 (which by my math would have been 342 cubic inches or 5,604cc, since a 3 5/8-inch stroke is 92.1mm), but I don’t think they got terribly far with the thinwall project, so anything else would have been pretty notional at that stage. A 342 cu. in. engine would have been a more commercial proposition insofar as it would have given Studebaker a nominal edge over the Chevrolet 327 and the iron B-O-P engines.
Apparently there has been mentioned on the Studebaker forums where the max displacement without major core and machinery line rework would be around 340-360 cubic inches. It appears the practical cubic inch limit for a good real-world Studebaker V8 bloc via .187″ over bore to 3.7495″ combined with a 4.00″ stroke would produce 353 cubic inches.
Am intrigued though by the recent Curbside Classic article on the Studebaker V8 experiencing a different develop trajectory, since the limitations of the engine were one of the many problems that had a negative impact on the company.
From what can be made out, the gist of the article is that the company should have gone much further in copying certain key elements from the Cadillac V8 that specifically gave the Cadillac many of its inherent qualities and scaled it down to reduce the deck height of the block, save weight, and create a more compact engine. One ideally resembling an early downscaled precursor of the Chevrolet Small Block V8.
If that is correct, then it potentially opens up more options for this hypothetical what-if Studebaker V8 engine (including a 90-degree V6*) though it depends on whether it was achievable at the company or requires further pre-war or post-war historical points of divergence to be realized beforehand.
*- Such a variant removing the necessity of the 120-degree V6s in the Studebaker-Porsche Type 542 project, yet not quite making the 2-litre 2-door Type 633 project redundant.
I hadn’t read the CC article until just now. A couple of points: First, one item the CC article doesn’t mention is that the Studebaker V-8 used rocker shafts, as did many of the early OHV V-8s. Chevrolet had rocker studs (an idea developed by Pontiac that Chevrolet decided was too good to pass up), which provided some additional weight savings. Second, I’m not sure I would characterize the SBC as a thinwall engine in the sense that term was used in the sixties; thinner wall, sure, by the standards of the mid-fifties, but it still weighed significantly more than the later Ford 260/289 or Buick 340.
This is an important point in general about the “thinwall” concept: It didn’t represent a single specific technological change or feature, but a progressive improvement in foundry techniques and casting precision that made it feasible to reduce the thickness of the major castings without dangerous sacrifices of structural integrity. My limited knowledge of the 343 project is that it involved a thinwall revamp of the existing architecture that would allow the bore dimensions to be taken out to 3 7/8 inches or more without having to carefully hand-select the best block castings to accept a maximum overbore. It would have been beneficial for Studebaker to update its foundry procedures to facilitate that sort of thing, but only if they were going to stay making their own engines and stay in the auto business, which became the big sticking point.
I have a hard time envisioning Studebaker seriously exploring a V-6 in that timeframe. Even if someone had proposed it internally, I think it would have been perceived as too weird, and not really in a salable way. There was of course an argument to be made for cost-savings of making a six that shared V-8 tooling, but someone would almost certainly have said, “Look, wouldn’t it be cheaper still to just see if we can buy some sixes from outside?” which of course they eventually did. I could more easily envision a mid-sixties Studebaker lineup with an in-house 343 and the Chevrolet six, since demand for sixes was soft in the mid-sixties anyway.
A differently developed Studebaker V8 engine that manages to trim some 100-115 lbs off or so of its original 650 lbs weight to match (or even exceed) the later 535 lbs SBC would have still done wonders for the company.
A later thinwall version that achieves a weight range of 440-480 lbs as was roughly the case for the 340 Buick V8 and 260 Windsor would be altogether more ambitious (plus the 470 lbs in the 221 Windsor as a benchmark for a thinwall 201) and likely more achievable as part of a bigger company (do not know what weight reduction was achieved with the thinwall 343 project).
The 343, to my understanding, amounted to a handful of bare test engines — not even as many as the R3, which was already rare — so how much weight they saved and whether that would have been representative of regular production examples is hard to know.
My guess is that they would not be able to shave 100+ pounds off the original engine without a substantial revision of the basic architecture. As a point of reference, for MY1963, Cadillac revamped its V-8 (then still the 390) to take advantage of newer casting techniques. The result was a weight savings of about 55 lb, to a dry weight of 595 lbs. (That’s in the same realm as the 43 lb BMC was able to cut out of the 2.9-liter C-series six a couple of years later.) Cadillac in the sixties was not notably shy of money or technology, and I have a hard time seeing Studebaker-Packard bettering that without a substantial redesign. I definitely can’t see them getting it down to the same 485 lb of the Ford 289 Windsor, not with the original architecture.
Would it have been beneficial if they could have? Sure. Would it have been beneficial enough to overcome the sense that Studebaker was not long for the world or that it was warming over the same leftovers because it couldn’t afford to start from scratch? I have many doubts.