James Nance, who had become president of Packard in 1952, was in a comparable position. Packard was healthier than Studebaker was, but its profits and market position were slipping in a similar way for similar reasons. Even before becoming head of Packard, Nance had talked extensively with Nash’s George Mason about forming a conglomerate of the leading independent automakers — something that was beginning to look like the independents’ only hope of survival.
In early 1954, Nash merged with ailing Hudson to form American Motors. Although Nance had had discussions with Mason about joining Packard with AMC, Packard’s board instead set its sights on Studebaker, which it judged to have stronger prospects. Even before opening negotiations for a merger, Packard was exploring the possibility of a shared-body program that would allow Studebaker and Packard to share common stampings the way GM’s divisions did. By February 1954, the Packard board had snubbed Mason and the Lehman Brothers investment firm was acting as matchmaker in a union of Packard and Studebaker.
Packard and Studebaker stockholders approved the merger in September, so effective October 1, the two companies became the Studebaker-Packard Corporation, with Jim Nance as president. Talks with AMC continued, but the death that fall of George Mason ended any remaining possibility of Studebaker-Packard joining AMC; with Mason gone, neither Nance nor Romney was amenable to any merger that would leave the other in charge.
That winter, Nance and Packard finance VP Walter Grant took a hard look at Studebaker’s operations and found that the company was in far worse financial shape than the optimistic figures presented during the merger negotiations had suggested. By Grant’s estimates, Studebaker had actually been operating below its break-even point even in its last good years and was now losing money at a frightening rate.
Nance immediately looked for ways to economize. One of those moves was the termination of Studebaker’s consulting agreement with Raymond Loewy. Nance did not care for Loewy’s work, even the Starliner coupe, but the more significant point was that Studebaker was paying RLA about $1 million a year at that point, which Nance thought was excessive. It wasn’t really, considering the number of people Loewy had working on the Studebaker account (about 40) and the volume of work they were doing, but it was money Studebaker-Packard could ill afford. Nance told Loewy to wrap up their work, which included a facelift for the 1955 Studebakers, and turn over design duties to a new in-house department led by Bill Schmidt.
This 1955 Studebaker President State shows off the facelifted styling of the 1955 coupe. The President had previously been a senior Studebaker model from the twenties until 1942. (Amusingly, until 1937, Studebaker also offered a Dictator model, although the President always outranked it.) The President name was briefly revived from 1955 to 1958, replacing the previous Land Cruiser nameplate. The final Studebaker President rode the same long-wheelbase chassis as the Land Cruiser, but was offered in three body styles — four-door sedan, pillared coupe, and hardtop — and three trim levels: Deluxe, State, and top-of-the-line Speedster.
BIRTH OF THE STUDEBAKER HAWK
Jim Nance knew that both Studebaker and Packard desperately needed all-new bodies to have any chance of competing in the marketplace, but paying for them was another matter. Studebaker-Packard posted an after-tax loss of $26.2 million for 1954 and its creditors were wary. Nance paid Vince Gardner (who had left RLA to start his own firm) $7,500 to facelift the 1956 Studebaker sedans while Nance tried to raise enough money to finance new 1957 models.
The coupes were a greater challenge. Nance was eager to get rid of the Loewy coupe, whose body was expensive to build, but the Starliner was Studebaker’s only hardtop and the sales organization was reluctant to relinquish it. There was no affordable way to make hardtops of the facelifted sedans, which hadn’t been designed for that, and since Studebaker no longer offered a convertible, they couldn’t simply add a fixed roof to a ragtop body. It would have to be the Starliner or nothing.
Meanwhile, Studebaker-Packard had been busy rolling out Packard’s first V8 engine, along with a re-engineered Ultramatic transmission. Nance had previously made a deal with American Motors for AMC to underwrite part of the development costs of the new engine and then buy Packard V8s and automatic transmissions for the big Nash and Hudson lines. However, that deal collapsed by mid-1955, apparently due to the ongoing rancor between Nance and Romney. To make up for that loss, Nance decided to use the Packard engine and Ultramatic in a new flagship Studebaker, which was envisioned as a rival for the new Chrysler 300, Plymouth Fury, and Ford Thunderbird. (If Studebaker had been able to launch its all-new sedans for 1956, as originally planned, those would have used the Packard engine as well.)
This flagship became RLA’s final Studebaker project. Seeing no affordable alternative, Nance asked Loewy and Bourke if they could update the Starliner one more time. It was a difficult assignment both because of the very limited budget and because of demands from sales VP Ken Elliott, who wanted yet more chrome (on top of the slathering already added for 1955), side trim that would facilitate trendy two-tone paint jobs, and — to Bourke’s great exasperation — tail fins.
The biggest difference between the Loewy coupes and the Hawk line was the latter’s upright grille and nonfunctional hood scoop. This is a 1956 Studebaker Power Hawk, which was the low-line pillared coupe, powered by Studebaker’s 259 cu. in. (4,247 cc) V8. It had either 170 or 185 gross horsepower (127 or 138 kW).
Bourke and his team gritted their teeth and complied, adding a new hood with a stand-up grille, squaring off the rear deck, and giving the new top-of-the-line model small bolt-on plastic fins. There was also a revamped interior along the lines of the previous year’s Studebaker President Speedster, which had featured full instrumentation on an engine-turned metal panel.
From the rear, the low-line Hawks differed little from the 1955 coupes save for the reshaped decklid and some changes to the side trim. Despite the higher deck, 80% of the inner stampings were the same, so the Hawk had no more trunk space than the earlier coupe.
To support the pretense that the restyled coupes were all new, they were renamed Hawk. There were now four models: the six-cylinder pillared Flight Hawk; the base V8 Power Hawk; the upper-series Sky Hawk; and the top-of-the-line hardtop, the Golden Hawk. Except for the Golden Hawk, the new coupes were little changed mechanically. The Golden Hawk, however, had Packard’s Twin Ultramatic transmission and 352 cu. in. (5,766 cc) V8 with 275 gross horsepower (206 kW). Combined with its tail fins, plastic side spear, and higher standard of trim, it came closest to being a new car, although it was still the same 1953 Starliner body underneath. The big engine gave it strong performance — 0-60 mph (0-97 km/h) in around 9 seconds and a top speed of 117 mph (189 km/h) — although the car’s nose-heaviness and strong low-end torque made it easy to overload the rear tires in hard acceleration.
The 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk traded its Packard engine for a supercharged version of Studebaker’s 289 cu. in. (4,737 cc) V8 and exchanged the Packard Twin Ultramatic for the three-speed Borg-Warner Flight-o-Matic. The vertical chrome bars in the grille openings (and the mesh insert, not visible here) were new for 1957, as were the colored insert in the newly enlarged tail fins. Slightly better weight distribution, rear suspension changes, and the option of a Twin Traction limited-slip differential made the ’57 Golden Hawk somewhat more wieldy than the ’56.
Studebaker sold almost 20,000 Hawks in 1956, accounting for about a quarter of the company’s dismal total volume. The company’s fortunes were still deteriorating and rumors were flying that Studebaker-Packard was not long for the world. Studebaker’s sedans had not been startlingly competitive back in 1953 and the mildly facelifted ’56s looked and felt very dated next to newer rivals. Even the coupes looked awfully familiar and their prices were none too enticing. The Golden Hawk, for instance, was within $100 of a Chrysler Windsor hardtop and about $100 more than a Buick Century Riviera; both rivals had a far more upscale image than did the Studebaker.
THE PACKARD HAWK
In January 1956, Studebaker-Packard’s principal financiers flatly refused Jim Nance’s request for a $50 million long-term loan to fund future tooling and operating expenses. That refusal meant Studebaker-Packard was living on borrowed time. Unless the company could find another partner, it was doomed.
The Studebaker-Packard board spent the spring frantically courting potential buyers. Talks with Chrysler and Ford came to nothing and George Romney refused a merger with AMC. The board finally negotiated a management agreement with Roy Hurley, president of the aviation company Curtiss-Wright, giving Hurley operational control over the company in exchange for S-P’s remaining defense business (which was spun off into a separate company called Utica Bend) and promises from the Defense Department of more government contracts. It was not a great deal for Studebaker-Packard, but it provided enough cash to keep the doors open.
Nance resigned after the deal was signed in early August and Studebaker chief engineer Harold Churchill took over as Studebaker-Packard’s president. The board had already decided to consolidate all production at Studebaker in South Bend; production at Studebaker’s facilities in Detroit had ceased in late June. Ironically, Packard had originally been the stronger partner, but Studebaker’s losses became a black hole it could not escape.
The 1957 Golden Hawk’s fins were steel rather than plastic and noticeably bigger than the stubby fins of the ’56 model. Like Studebaker sedans, the Hawk had Hotchkiss drive rear suspension and drum brakes, although its ratio of curb weight to brake area wasn’t bad for the time. Golden Hawks had finned drums for better cooling.
The Studebaker Hawk continued into the 1957 model year, but the model line was greatly simplified, leaving the Golden Hawk and a new pillared Silver Hawk. Since Studebaker-Packard gave up its Utica factory as part of the Curtiss-Wright deal, the 352 cu. in. (5,766 cc) Packard engine and Ultramatic were gone, so the Golden Hawk was now powered by Studebaker’s 289 cu. in. (4,737 cc) engine, fortified with a McCulloch supercharger. It claimed the same 275 gross horsepower (206 kW) as the departed Packard engine, but it was more expensive, which raised the price of the 1957 Golden Hawk by $121.
Despite Studebaker-Packard’s financial crisis, Hawk sales were little changed in 1957, still hovering under 20,000 units. The Silver Hawk and Golden Hawk soldiered on into 1958, now joined by a new Packard version, called simply Packard Hawk.
The Packard marque had only barely survived the end of production in Detroit. There were initially no solid plans to continue it until Harold Churchill discovered that it would only cost about $1 million to create a Packard-like sedan using a Studebaker body and chassis. In 1957, the “Packard-baker” had only been available as a four-door sedan and wagon; the Packard Hawk coupe was not launched until 1958.
The Packard Hawk was originally created as a one-off for Roy Hurley. With the management agreement between Studebaker-Packard and Curtiss-Wright, Hurley had become a frequent visitor to the South Bend offices. On one visit to the styling studio, Hurley asked Studebaker chief stylist Duncan McRae, who had replaced Bill Schmidt a year earlier, to build him a car that looked like an Allemano-styled Maserati 3500 GT he had seen on a recent trip to Europe. It was a pointless indulgence for a company on the brink of collapse, but the board could not afford to antagonize Hurley, so they raised no objection.
The car McRae created for Hurley was basically a Golden Hawk that had been heavily customized in an effort to emulate the Maserati’s styling cues on the existing body shell. McRae and his team added a bolt-on fiberglass nose with a fish-mouthed grille and Cadillac-like bumper overriders along with a fake spare tire bulge in the rear deck like that of the contemporary Imperial. Hurley’s car also had a lavishly trimmed interior with real leather upholstery.
The Packard Hawk’s fiberglass nose makes it slightly longer than the regular Hawk, but its overall dimensions were otherwise similar — not surprising, given that it shared the same body. The Packard was 205.2 inches (5,212 mm) long on a 120.5-inch (3,061mm) wheelbase, weighing a bit under 3,700 lb (1,675 kg) all up. With its supercharged engine, it was capable of 0-60 mph (0-97 km/h) in around nine seconds and a top speed of nearly 120 mph (193 km/h).
Like its 1953 ancestor, the Packard Hawk was never intended as a production car, but someone — perhaps Hurley, perhaps the board — decided it would be a logical way to fill out the now Studebaker-based Packard line. It went on sale for the 1958 model year with a wince-inducing price tag of $3,995, $364 more than either a Corvette or a Thunderbird hardtop.
If the Hawk was supposed to add luster to the dying Packard brand, it failed miserably. Sales totaled only 588 cars and Studebaker-Packard almost certainly lost whatever modest sum they’d spent to produce and market it. Even if it hadn’t looked like a mutant catfish, the Hawk was too expensive to sell in meaningful numbers and the Packard-bakers had robbed the Packard marque of whatever credibility it had left. The coupe died with the Packard nameplate at the end of the model year.
The Golden Hawk did little better. Sales fell from around 4,300 in 1957 to fewer than 900 for 1958. Silver Hawk sales, meanwhile, fell to around 7,300, half of the 1957 tally. The recession that began just before the ’58 cars went on sale didn’t help, but the bigger problem was again price. A fully equipped Golden Hawk ran to around $3,500 and buyers with that kind of money were not inclined to spend it on a Studebaker, especially with the company’s future in such doubt.
Golden Hawks had a well-trimmed dashboard with engine-turned metal trim (attractive, but distracting on sunny days), full instrumentation, and a tachometer, which were rather rare at the time. Contemporary critics were not fond of the pedal placement, which caused drivers to bump their knees on the steering column when moving from accelerator to brake. Note that the ignition key is to the left of the steering wheel, as in older Fords.
FLIGHTLESS HAWKS
Even before the demise of the Packard Hawk, Harold Churchill was working on transforming Studebaker’s 1953-vintage sedans into the compact Lark, which went on sale for the 1959 model year. Like Jim Nance in 1955, Churchill initially wanted to kill the Studebaker Hawk, betting everything on the new Lark. Since the Lark lineup would finally include a hardtop model, the Hawk had served its original purpose and it was still too expensive to sell well.
Churchill’s arguments were logical, but the sales force balked. By American standards, the new Lark was a very small car and the sales organization feared that having no full-sized models in the showroom would be a disaster. The tenacity with which they clung to such a moribund model speaks volumes about Studebaker’s desperation at that point. The sales force was reluctant to give up anything that was selling, however poorly.
Churchill eventually relented, granting the coupe a second reprieve. The slow-selling Golden Hawk was canceled, leaving only the pillared Silver Hawk in six-cylinder and V8 forms. Sales fell to 7,888 units. In 1960, the Silver Hawk was renamed “Hawk” and the six-cylinder version was dropped, leaving a single model with tidied-up styling and the 289 cu. in. (4,737 cc) V8. Sales continued to decline each year, falling to 4,507 in 1960 and 3,929 for 1961. The Lark had been quite successful, so the salespeople no longer needed the big coupe as a fallback plan. It appeared that the Hawk had outlived its usefulness.
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.