Here we have another question of where to go between extremes. Normally it’s the retreat from extremes of excess when we think of cars from the 1950s. But when it came to where to move the ungainly standard sedans of 1953 from Studebaker, this was the boxy result.
There were few cars as stunningly beautiful right from the showroom floor as the 1953 Studebaker Starliners. All American Manufacturers teased the public with dreamy low slung coupes and convertibles, but Studebaker was the only one to put a practical one into production.
But something got lost in the translation of the dream into the reality of the bread and butter sedans. There seems to be more than just 4 inches of the wheelbase missing with the four doors. For one, the hood and the trunk being shortened to make way for the more upright passenger compartment seem puffy. The whole effect wouldn’t have been so bad if…well, if they didn’t have to share the showroom with showcars.
More radical two-toning for 1955 helps a bit. It gives the opportunity for the rear deck to not look as tall and ungainly in a contrasting color as it did in previous years (which meant lower trimmed Champions still looked ungainly). But the heavy chrome bumper grille assembly that was all the rage elsewhere gave the 1955 Studes of all stripes a very banana nose visage. It was like getting a reverse nose job.
Had Studebaker not be bleeding red ink as it merged with Packard in 1954, this is most likely what would have graced the showrooms in 1956 or 1957. Very 7/8ths 1955 Buick Century Hardtop coupe with more refined details. But just like the dreamed of 1957 Packards, these would never see the light of day.
Instead the 1953 central bodyshell got squarer fenders both front and rear, and like the Hawk, adopted a larger grille (although the Hawk would go full on Radiator style). And since wild two toning was still the order of the day, the upper level President gave the public a…well…bird wing? Lightning bolt? For customers to contrast color.
All in all the results were handsome, not nearly as European and Feminine as before, but compared to some quickly escalating questionable style choices (I’m looking at you Pontiac, Mercury, Nash and Hudson) It was a pretty graceful facelift of a chassis then in its 4th season.
But there were a bunch of limitations on Studebaker’s capabilities in 1956 besides the ability to completely redesign the bodyshell. Even years after quality issues dogged the 1953 cars, Studebaker could not shake the reputation of being only marginal in build quality. The tendency for just about all Studebakers to rust behind that fender vent didn’t help matters either.
And beyond that there were a few marketing problems. The biggest deficit might have come at the lack of Hardtop models. Although the Hawks valiantly tried to remain style leaders, the 4 varieties on offer that year only came to about 20,000 units.
The varieties of Hawk, from the economical Champion 6 powered Sky Hawk to the Baby Packard Golden Hawk, were basically what the Squarebird would become to the Ford line-up. But from a manufacturer that could barely afford to keep the doors open, let alone rely on a specialty niche coupe that didn’t fully tap an emerging market to bring home the bacon.
In contrast the standard line cars were roomier, but starting to be rather narrow by late 1950s standards, and priced a bit above the low priced three. And you didn’t get much more than what you’d expect from your typical Bel-Air, Fairlane or Belvedere, although the President was well trimmed and had decidedly decent performance with the newly upsized Studebaker 289 V8 with up to 225 horsepower. With curb weights barely tipping the scales at 3,300 lbs, only the clumsy Borg Warner “Flight -O-Matic” got in the way of them being at the head of their performance class.
And it got worse, as more chrome was globbed onto the bodies, and a badge engineered Packard Clipper appeared in 1957. And then the Amateur Desoto Fireflite look debuted for 1958.
The 1959 Lark actually proved to be a reprieve from all of the convoluted desperation that the former “almost” full sized Studebakers had tortured themselves with since the fall of 1952. All the more remarkable is that the Lark is nothing more than a shortened 1953 Champion, really.
So what was the point of this long dark age at Studebaker? Only in complete despair did they see the salvation in the Lark. But we can 20/20 hindsight ’til the cows come home about the independent Manufacturer that perpetually couldn’t see the forest for the trees, and look at their products and thank god that we never were in the shoes of Studebaker executives in the 1950s.
If not hell, it sure was purgatory.
This may be my favorite Stude sedan from the 1950s. And how rare is this thing? I just looked it up – a bit over 18,000 Presidents were -uh- crafted.
The stylists (I believe it was Duncan MacRae) did a great job for little money. A significant amount had been spend on the wraparound windshield for midyear 1955, and the lower body was all new. But that greenhouse just screamed 1953. I have always wondered what would have happened if Stude could have done a new C pillar treatment. Unfortunately, this part of the car would remain into the 60s.
The car really had two other big problems. First, it really needed another 10 or 12 inches of width. The 53 Stude (and the 47 and the 39 Champion) had been a small car first, with the upper models made larger by stretching the wheelbase. But these were always unusually narrow cars, which never looked right as a “big car.” I always found it interesting that the wheelbase was so long (there is not even a dogleg in the rear door) for such a short car.
The other problem was inside. The dash was so very plain. This picture is of a Commander, but the President is really no better. Even a Chevy or Plymouth had a more expensive looking dash than this car. And the lack of suspended pedals by 1956 was another giveaway about the age of this thing. But for all of that, I just love these. What a fabulous find!
Thomas Bonsall’s history of Studebaker says that Duncan McRae was hired away from Ford as part of the effort to get rid of the Loewy team. McRae, in turn, handed off the 1956 redesign to consultant Vince Gardner. He charged a tiny fraction of what Loewy did.
The Studebakers tended to be around 70 inches wide — roughly the same as the 1956-62 senior Ramblers and reflecting what would long be a common width for American compacts. In contrast, large American cars had bloated out from around 76 inches in the mid-50s to 80 inches in the early-60s.
The lack of a dogleg in the Studebaker’s rear door was partly because of the swept-back c-pillar but also reflected the stretched-out look of late-40s “pontoon-style” American cars such as the Hudson, Kaiser and Nash. That’s why the Lark was almost as roomy as the 1958 Studebaker despite losing a whopping eight inches of wheelbase.
Indeed, the basic Studebaker body was so light and narrow that it was the only early-50s independent that could have offered a compact and a “family car” on the same platform. Hudson and Nash found out the hard way that they didn’t have sufficient economies of scale to maintain separate compact and full-sized platforms.
I agree about the dash: inoffensive, but rather bland.
That was an area where the Hawks did better — they had engine-turned dashboard trim and full instrumentation, including a tachometer.
Independent/free-lance designer Vince Gardner did the ’56′s. Legend has it he got “stiffed” on his fee (which for ’50′s standards, was ridiculously low). Duncan McRae took what change was left in the corporate top drawer and facelifted the ’57′s and ’58′s. The President Classic with it’s 120″ actually looked somewhat “big” . . . . but still small in comaprison with Ford/Chevy/Plymouth.
I agree with the dashboard. Rather low rent plain, although seat upholstery was fairly luxurious for a “low priced” car (President series anyway). Remember that Cadillac did not have suspended pedals until ’56, so the ’56 Studes would’ve carried this through (obviously) as James Nance & Co. still had plans to introduce a whole new lineup of Studebakers and Packards for what was to be an across the board line of new cars. The ’56 radical facelift was initially to have been a ‘stop-gap’ for the all-new ’57s. Unfortunately, S-P’s backers (the banks and Prudential Insurance Co.) refused to lend it anymore money, so the ambitious body program was D.O.A., taking Packard Detriot operations with it and the company falling into the hands of Curtis-Wright . . .
Do have to hand it to Dick Teague and Duncan McRae who passed the styling baton of the “stopgap” ’57 Clipper to finish. Not a bad looking car as a President that robbed the ’55-’56 Packard parts bin.
To put shopping for a Studebaker in ’56-’58 into perspective, it would be like being convinced to buy a Suzuki Kizashi today.
Even as a grade-schooler back in the ’50′s I could go to the local auto show, look at the GM cars, then sneak over to look at the Fords, go over to the Chrysler displays, and finally end up at AMC and Studebaker-Packard – and I’d look at the late 50′s Studebakers and realize that something wasn’t right with that company. At my young age I certainly didn’t understand business, but I could tell that the cars just weren’t as good as the competition. And after seeing the same cars for three years in a row, I really got the idea that something was seriously wrong.
If I could figure this out as a 7-10 year old (admittedly with more inherent knowledge than most kids regarding the car business), I can only imagine how they looked to the adults who would actually be buying these cars.
I Had the same feelings in the 60′s-70′s regarding AMC/Rambler’s offerings.
Until 1955 Studebaker was my pick of the litter. The shoebox chevs and the 55-57 Fords were probably better. I can say that I would have bought the Studes anyway but in real life I bought a 55 Ford in 1960 so guess that’s just nostalgia. Makes you wonder what would have happened if they had received the treatment that Iococca got with Mopar, let alone what Obama did with GM. I wish Stude and Hudson had stayed in the mix. Don’t know that I care about the rest of them.
My real life memory of driving some of those old cars is that we look at them through rose colored glasses. As much as I hate to admit it the cars we have today are just better any any measurable way. Those two brands were always good compared to the competition so one must wonder what they would have become.
That back door window frame looked a bit melted and hurts the styling of the entire vehicle. Nope, no Studebaker for me.
Clearly, by that time, Studebaker couldn’t hold the big 3′s water.
I got curious about something and looked it up. Apparently, although the Packard 352 V8 was used in the 56 Golden Hawk, it was not put into any other Studes. According to Wiki, the Golden Hawk with the Packard 352 was faster in the 1/4 mile than either a Corvette or a Chrysler 300B, and the 300B was the only car made that could beat the Hawk’s top speed. The Chrysler was more powerful, but the Hawk was a lightweight.
Apparently, the Stude 289 was the biggest engine available in the President. I wonder if they would have sold more of these if they had used the 352? It would have been a real hotrod, that’s for sure. Imagine: NASCAR Studebakers! But it would have only been for 1956, because when they shut down Packard’s Detroit operations, the Packard V8 went away as well, and Supercharged 289s were all that was left for the 57s.
A nice thought, but highly doubtful it would have had any positive effect. By 1956, Studebaker was definitely starting in the final tailspin. In retrospect, the one thing they could have done that would have had a positive effect on the books would have been to shorten the Champion down into the Lark for the 1956 or ’57 model year rather than waiting until 1959. And that would have been a (not easily seen at the time) risk, as Rambler was just hanging on with their compact cars. Rambler didn’t get it’s vindication until the 1958 model year. And we tend to give Volkswagen sales in the 1950′s way too much credit – to most auto manufacturers, that level of sales didn’t matter and inexpensive foreign cars were only for the weird-by-intent crowd.
And there was already some enthusiast complaints that the 352 made the Golden Hawk too nose heavy (especially for the brakes) so the same would have applied to the President Classic sedan (the President on the 120.5 inch wheelbase span of the Hawks).
Ironic though, from the same Wikipedia article it claims the supercharged 289 was even heavier than the Packard 352, which made me remember somewhere that the Studebaker V8 was just as heavy as the Cadillac 331 V8 when it was introduced. I don’t think the people (Studebaker loyalists) that bought the President necessarily missed the extra 50 horsepower or 3 seconds off of the 0-60 time.
The Packard V8 also didn’t have a great reputation when it first appeared the previous year. A lot of the teething problems were addressed fairly quickly, but I don’t know that it would have been considered a big plus. Likewise the Twin Ultramatic, whose torque capacity was probably not up to the job.
The Studebaker V8 had problems when it first appeared in 1951, but Studebaker had fixed most of them by ’56-’57. It didn’t have the breathing or growth potential of the better GM V8s and it was quite heavy, but it was a fairly sturdy lump.
A story that I read said that Studebaker had anticipated higher octane rating in future fuel, so that higher compression could increase power levels. That’s supposed to be the reason they didn’t allow much space for larger dispacement engines. I don’t remember if they were ever able to get more than 289 ci out of that block.
The engineers experimented with a larger displacement, around 305 cid or so during the end of the Avanti era. From what I can recall, that cylinder bore was so close to the theoretical maximum that they kept scrapping blocks because of slightly imperfect castings. I think that this engine was the basis of the R3 and R4 cars of 1964. These are really scarce. A quick check of a Stude forum indicates a concensus that there may have been 9 R3 cars made and No factory R4s, although a handful of R4 test engines/parts were in existence and have found their ways into some cars. I believe that the R3 was a Supercharged 305 with a 4 bbl carb, and the R4 was a Supercharged 305 with 2 4 bbls, but I am open to correction on this. There was a specially designed head for use with the R3 and R4.
Part of the deal for Curtis-Wright to acquire S-P and keep it (somewhat in business as an automaker) was to dump/fire sale all of the Detroit assets including the fairly brand new state-of-the-art for its time Utica V-8 engine plant.
Considering Studebakers market niche, offering the Packard 352 in ’56 or ’57 would’ve not happened even then as the (already to costly to build and market vis-a-vis Ford/Chevy/Plymouth) would’ve made an already higher priced car more expensive. Also, Studebaker would’ve been to cheap to upgrade the brakes and suspension in a President to accomodate the weight and torque of the 352. Economically and from a marketing standpoint, it wasn’t feasible.
In the late 1970s, the daily driver for my school’s driver-ed teacher was a plain-jane, gold, 1957 two-door sedan. What I remember most vividly about the car was the speedometer. The “Cyclops Eye” speedometer may have been easier to read, but it also made the dashboard look very plain. When Oldsmobile tried a similar approach with the first Toronado, GM made sure that there was plenty of decoration and detail to compensate for the smaller speedometer.
To me, these cars always had a clunky appearance, which was accentuated by the center strip between the two doors. Combined with the heavy upper door frames and two-tone paint strip, it just gave the car a “cobbled together” look. “Craftsmanship with a flair” couldn’t hide the fact that Studebaker had to cut a lot of corners with its cars.
These cars were a terrible mistake, and so sad. After the beating they took from GM and Ford in ’53, how could Studebaker think they could compete with mainstream bread-and-butter sedans from the Big Three?
By ’59 with Lark and Hawk they had the right mix. The two emerging markets, compact and personal luxury cars, ahead of time. If not for Studebaker’s ugly fifties sedans, they could have been a contender.
We had a ’55 Champion two-door. What an ugly mask on the pretty ’53. Why didn’t my folks get a nice ’54? Did they really think that looked good? I’ve never had the heart to ask.
James Nance, the head of Studebaker-Packard at this time, went head-to-head against the Big Three because he probably felt that he had no other choice. AMC was ready to bet the farm on the compact car, but AMC lost a lot of money in 1955-56, and its position was only a little less precarious than that of Studebaker-Packard. AMC’s strategy didn’t necessarily look like the winning one in 1954-55.
It’s also important to remember that, in 1955-56, the old “low-price three” hadn’t super-sized yet, so large numbers of customers weren’t complaining about excessive bulk and low gas mileage. Even today, many people point to the 1955-57 Chevrolets as the “perfect” car when it comes to exterior and interior dimensions.
GM, Ford and Chrysler unintentionally helped AMC by blowing up Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth, respectively, during 1957-58, and pushing far too many of them out the door with lousy workmanship.
Nance, however, had no way of knowing how this would play out in 1954-55, when these cars were planned. AMC’s success after 1957 was attributable as much to luck (a severe recession in mid-1957) and the Big Three’s mistakes as it was to George Romney’s foresight.
Studebaker could have survived by downsizing in ’54, and could have earned higher profits than they turned out to get. Probably impossible in the expanding economy of the American 1950s. Breaking commitments to workers, shareholders, suppliers would have been very hard.
Just checked, dictionary.com says “downsize” wasn’t even a word before the 1970s.
Well, until after the S-P merger, even Studebaker was apparently not clear on exactly what their financial position was. They had apparently thought that while things were down somewhat, because of the Korean War and the price war, the situation wasn’t that bad and could be rectified with a couple of good years. When Nance sent his finance VP to look over their operations following the merger, they estimated that Studebaker’s break-even level was more than 70% higher than Studebaker had reported on its proxy statement, which meant that it had probably actually been operating at a loss even in its better years.
The ’56 cars were a holding action — Nance was trying to come up with the money to do all-new bodies for ’57. (Part of that would have involved some GM-style sharing of body shells between Packard and Studebaker, allowing the company to get some of the cost savings that were supposed to be the point of the merger.) That effort failed completely, so they had to make do with the existing shells.
As Geeber notes, in 1954-1955, compacts were not looking like a good bet. Even Rambler sales were nothing great, and the Willys Aero, Henry J, and Hudson Jet were all in their death throes. The Jet was widely perceived as having killed Hudson as an independent company, so telling the S-P board that was the direction they should go probably wouldn’t have gone over well.
I’m skeptical about that break-even point number. It sounds too high and there was ample motivation to spice it up.
One area where I’m not clear is whether Nance intended for the proposed 1957 platform to be built at both the Packard and Studebaker plants. If so, not as much money savings as the situation might have demanded . . . and wasn’t a common meme that the Studebaker plant wouldn’t fit the production of a big car?
A shortened version of the Studebaker would have been a low-cost, low-risk opportunity. Rambler sales may not have been huge during 1954-55 but they saved AMC.
The primary reason the Aero and Jet died was because they couldn’t be profitably sold at a low enough price. Studebaker’s better economies of scale and stronger dealer network could have helped in this department.
Interestingly (and Nance didn’t object), the Packard Board took the Studebaker board’s word that the “books were OK” – a gentleman’s agreement. In hindsight, Packard should’ve insisted on a complete audit of Studebaker. It chose not to do so. That, I believe, was the biggest set of nails in the Packard coffin.
A guy I golf with occasionally has a 54 (Commander) and a 56 President. The 56 is a 4 door sedan, two tone green with dual dummy antennas in the back. A nice car, he paid $ 10,000 two years ago. My personal opinion of his two Studes is that they seem very light. The doors of the 54 (a 2 dr) seem so light as to be hard to close, and the 56 isn’t much better. The seat material on the 56 is original, very nice, but cheap. It’s a sure thing it had plastic covers on it since 56.
There is no way these cars can compare to the cheapest new cars available. A one hour trip must have been painful, not only in Studes, but most other cars of the fifties era. While I was growing up, I never rode in a 50′s Cadillac or any luxury model. They probably were comfortable. But back then, people wanted transportation and flash. Comfort came in last.
Studebaker was the USA seller of Mercedes, who had some similar speedometer, although I think it was more on the line of a thermometer.
CC has already covered the bare-bones model-
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/1957-1958-studebaker-scotsman-discount-life-preserver/
Studebaker even dug out the old dies for the 1949 truck to keep prices down-
http://www.oldcarsweekly.com/news/hobby-news/saving_a_buck_with_a_1958_studebaker_scotsman_truck
They didn’t actually become the Mercedes distributor until early 1957 — they had initially discussions probably around the start of the ’57 model year, but until March 1957, Max Hoffman was still the exclusive U.S. distributor.
You are correct about S-P being the Mercedes distributor after Max Hoffman. S-P threw a lot of $$$ at Hoffman to get the rights to market Benz in America. To S-P’s advantage, they had a broader dealer network, and vestiges of the old Packard business and clientele still remained. In fact, S-P did market it as the prestige car it once had – it filled in a “hole” so to speak.
S-P lost a lot of $$$ on Mercedes in the U.S. in ’57 and ’58 as with increased volume, the means to ‘mass ship’ such expensive vehicles resulted in many of them being damaged in transit; damages that S-P had to rectify at their cost to makes these cars saleable. Dozens of Benzes were coming over instead of the five or six Hoffman would order at a time to fill his New York and Los Angeles showrooms.
Laurence, where did you find that photo of the ’56-7 proposal? Great looking car, now I need to see the front!
Sterling article and unique photos as always. The way you treat the pictures puts them into the haze of memory of their own time.
I remembered the clays from a Hemmings scan of Special Interest Autos (or whatever that magazine is called) and cropped the rear 3 quarter shot because it’s the larger/undivided of the two.
Thank you Laurence! The grille on that upper version is pretty scary, but the one at the bottom is classy.
The whole SIA article at Hemmings is here:
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2007/05/20/sia-flashback-more-stude-studies/
Here’s another SIA on Studes that never were:
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2007/05/06/sia-flashback-stude-graveyard-and-before-the-new-wore-off/
It doesn’t pay to get too sentimental about orphan cars. Stude had more than financial troubles. Build quality was poor.
I had a chance to sit in a ’53 Coupe once. I was thrilled at the chance. I slid in and found -unbelievably- that my thighs had to be forced under the steering wheel. I could stand to loose a few pounds, but I’m not a fat man. Stude made the damn steering wheel so close to the bottom seat cushion that a normal person had to sit bow-legged. But to sit bow-legged you had to get your right leg on the other side of the steering wheel.
One of my brothers had a ’62 Lark. At the same time, I had a ’63 Rambler. There was no comparison in the quality. The Rambler was a much better built car, with unibody, and just generally better fit an finish. When your product doesn’t stack up well against Rambler, you’re in trouble.
But since we’re playing “what if” – what if Stude had taken all the development money thrown at the Avanti and put it into improving/modernizing the Lark, what might have been?
It wasn’t for lack of trying. The SIA article Laurence got that ’57 from goes on to cover the ’62 New Lark program that got all the way to die stampings before it was cut.
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2007/05/20/sia-flashback-more-stude-studies/
Taken in historical context these cars are rather sad, but I always liked them anyway.
Back in the 60s our neighbors across the road had a mint 1956 Champ two door sedan, white with the black “lightening bolt”. Eventually we wound up with the Champion, which by then had developed rust problems. My dad cut off the roof and body behind the A-pillars, shortened the wheelbase to about 80″, and built a wooden pickup box for the rear, then used it for a farm vehicle. That thing would go absolutely anywhere,
and lasted until about ’91. Durable little thing…
Didn’t like the look of these cars at all. Even the Lark looks better proportioned to me, to say nothing of the Starliner. The ultimate Stude for me remains the GT Hawk.
I have a soft spot (in my head, some would say) for postwar Studebakers from the bullet nose all the way through to the ’66s that marked Gordon Grundy’s last stand after the retreat to Canuckistan. Once I can get the scratch together, I want to find a ’56 sedan and wagon to use as nice-weather drivers.
I have a 1956 Studebaker President Classic which i restored a few years ago. Perhaps the person who wrote this hit piece, as well as many of the writers who allegedly don’t care for these cars or think they are poorly made, might care to sit behind the wheel of my car and take it for a spin, not that any of you deserve such a pleasurable experience. It is delightful to drive, nicely proportioned, and handsomely styled. To me it is amazing what Vince Gardener did to transform the ’55 sedans into the ’56 models — a complete transformation on very little money. EVERYBODY who sees my car loves it. As for the narrowness, compare the proportions to the monstrosities produced at the same time by Detroit, all of which are fat by comparison. The car is particularly enjoyable on the highway, especially when I kick in the second pair of barrels and pass an unsuspecting Toyota or Ford. As for quality, everybody I have ever talked to who has owned one of these cars says the same thing: the best car they ever owned, many tireless miles, extremely reliable. My car has NEVER let me down. So perhaps if one plans to write comments about a certain vehicle, it might be wise to drive one first.
I have always found the 56 Studes to be fascinating cars – they did the best they could with what they had. I, for one (as CC’s resident Stude homer), would love the opportunity to see your car. We are always looking for someone with an interesting car to submit a “My Curbside Classic” piece. Drop me an email at [email protected] if you are interested. I would happily help.
There’s a big difference between critiquing the history, design and success of a car at the time it was new, and how we feel about a car today. I realize that difference can easily be misinterpreted. We’re talking about it from the perspective of 1956, not today. Please don’t let your car take our comments personally; we all love it.