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February 25, 2007 Collecting Coming or Going, Studebaker Sold Style to a Postwar Generation By DAVE KINNEY

THE military victories of 1945 that ended World War II were also a starting gun for the American auto industry, setting off a scramble to resume production of civilian vehicles. New cars had not been available for years, and with a stream of G.I.?s returning from overseas, automakers sensed a sales boom in the making.

Like most American industries, car companies had focused on supporting the war effort, making not only the jeeps and trucks that their factories could readily build, but also huge, complex machines ? tanks and bombers ? that required major plant overhauls. Eager to restart assembly lines as quickly as possible, automakers rushed modestly freshened versions of their 1942 cars into showrooms as ?46 models while the styling departments went to work on all-new designs.

?First by far with a postwar car? was Studebaker?s advertising line when it introduced its 1947 models. The innovative company beat its competitors with cars that were a stark departure from the upright designs of pre-Pearl Harbor days.

The corporate roots of Studebaker, which run deep in South Bend, Ind., were established decades before its competitors. Its predecessors included Studebaker Brothers, a maker of the Conestoga wagons used to settle the American West. Studebaker celebrated its 100th birthday in

1952, and its design influence is felt even four decades after it stopped making cars.

With capricious management, a disastrous merger and an overly ambitious appetite for acquiring other companies, it seems something of a miracle that Studebaker managed to survive into the 1960s as an automobile producer. Unable to compete on cost with the so-called low-price three ? Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth ? the company stayed afloat building cars that were among the most beautiful and functional of their day. It also, before its demise in 1966, made some of the most ungainly and controversial automobiles of the mid-20th century.

Studebaker resumed production at the end of the war with the 1946 Skyway Champion, a slight revision of a prewar model. That all changed in 1947, when the Champion and Commander lines were redesigned with new bodies, giving Studebaker a marketing jump on Detroit?s Big Three automakers.

Auto design in the immediate postwar era was strongly influenced by the streamlined shapes of fighter planes and bombers. Studebaker pointed the way with design cues like bullet-nose front ends (a shape meant to suggest aircraft engine housings), gun-sight hood ornaments and the wraparound rear windows of the 1947-52 Starlight coupe. The windows, along with other details, make the car?s front and rear ends look so similar that it was often called the ?coming or going Studebaker.?

The company hired some of the best design talent available, including famed industrial designers like Raymond Loewy and Brooks Stevens. Loewy, who had designed many prewar Studebakers, solidified the relationship with his execution of the Starliner and Starlight of 1953-54. Among the cleanest designs in a period known for garish chrome and soaring tailfins, these cars are known today as ?Loewy coupes.?

Not that all Studebakers displayed such restraint: in 1955, the President Speedster, a European-influenced design based on the Loewy coupes, arrived with an extra helping of chrome and a distinctive interior featuring diamond-pleated vinyl upholstery and an instrument panel finished in the swirls of engine-turned metal. According to the Cars of Particular Interest price guide, a Speedster in excellent condition is worth slightly more than $40,000.

The Hawk series was introduced in 1956, yet another variant on the Loewy coupe. Lasting until 1964, the Hawk was refreshed on a yearly basis like most domestic cars of the ?50s. They also varied in name and trim level ? Golden Hawk, Sky Hawk, Flight Hawk, Silver Hawk, Power Hawk and finally, the Gran Turismo Hawk ? throughout the eight-year run.

Though a 1954 merger with Packard ultimately soured, the newly formed Studebaker-Packard Corporation, lacking money for new production tooling, managed to keep the basic Hawk body shell fresh with styling tricks. Studebaker even added tailfins to the previously understated Hawks, bolting them on top of the existing fenders.

Studebaker-Packard?s board hired a management team from Curtiss-Wright, the military and aviation supplier, to run the company. A decision to diversify left Studebaker-Packard the owner of Trans International, an airline; Onan, a generator manufacturer; Gravely, a tractor builder; and Clark, a maker of industrial equipment. Paxton, the supercharger builder, was purchased, and later the oil additive STP.

Management also made moves that gave dealers a safety net when Studebaker production ended in 1966. A mid-1950s deal to distribute Mercedes-Benz cars provided financial security and sales growth for many dealers.

The Packard nameplate survived through the 1958 model year. The most notable Packard after the merger was, in fact, a Studebaker Hawk with a high trim level and some rather distinctive features, including a fiberglass front end and vinyl exterior trim just below the driver and passenger windows ? a bit of flair that practically came and went on that one car.

Just 588 Packard Hawks were built; they were quickly nicknamed Packardbakers. A 2005 sale of a Packard Hawk at auction in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., brought $33,480.

The brightest days of Studebaker?s final 20 years involved the Lark. Introduced in 1959, the compact Lark beat the Big Three to small car production and was a huge seller in its first two years. A brilliant design that used many components from existing Studebaker models, it proved a versatile platform in Studebaker?s declining years. It even served as the basis for a truck called the Champ. The Lark, in Daytona convertible form, also provided the frame for the most advanced Studebaker design, the Avanti.

The last of the line, the Gran Turismo or GT Hawks, were restyled by Brooks Stevens with a squared roofline that copied Ford Thunderbirds of the era. The GT Hawks, like all Hawks, are highly collectible; examples in excellent condition are listed in contemporary price guides for up to $35,000.

The Avanti was a fiberglass-body coupe designed as a halo car for the struggling corporation. Introduced in 1962 as a 1963 model, it was well received by the public and the press. In two years of production, just

4,643 production Avantis were built by Studebaker.

In December 1963, Studebaker?s board decided to halt production in the United States, moving assembly operations to an existing Studebaker plant in Hamilton, Ontario. The South Bend factory was shut.

Hawk and truck production ended, leaving only the Cruiser line, which grew out of the Larks. The 1965 and 1966 Studebakers used Chevrolet in-line 6 and V-8 power plants, earning them the nickname Chevybakers, echoing the Packardbaker label of a decade earlier.

The Avanti lived on for many years, as two South Bend auto dealers, Leo Newman and Nate Altman, continued production of a car they called the Avanti II. Using the same frame as the original Studebaker Avanti, the brand persevered under a new owner, Steve Blake, and with only cosmetic changes until 1985.

Production restarted with a 1987 model based on a Chevy chassis. Automotive News, a trade weekly, reported last month that the company, under new management, planned to start making cars again ? about 200 a year ? in Cancún, Mexico.

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