(UPDATED FROM 6/20/2022)
Documentary films contribute to automotive history in a different way than words on a page (either paper or electronic). In general, film can capture much better the human elements of a situation, such as through interviews, historical video footage and music.
The downside of film is that even a lengthy documentary doesn’t contain as much information as a book. This inevitably means more superficial analysis. In addition, automotive films are usually produced by people who are not specialists in the industry, which can result in fact errors that undercut a documentary’s credibility.
The 1983 film, Studebaker: Less Than They Promised, fits those strengths and weaknesses pretty well despite receiving a prestigious Peabody Award. Producers Scott Craig and Michael Beatty were strongest in showing the human impacts of Studebaker’s closure of its South Bend, Indiana plant in 1963. However, their analysis of what killed the automaker was superficial and suffered from niggling fact errors.
Film tracks what happened to a Studebaker family
Less Than They Promised focused on one family, the Bokons, who had appeared in a 1950s Studebaker film that emphasized how the corporation treated its employees like an extended family. The Bokons were reunited to discuss how their lives had changed since they were originally filmed — and Studebaker’s main plant closed.
Perhaps the film’s most poignant moment was when it noted that all of the Bokons seated at the table shown below had lost their pensions. One family member talked about how he would have retired by now if he had received a Studebaker pension because he had “20-some years” with the company. Instead, he had to start over.
Also see ‘A nostalgic look back at Rob Moore’s postmodernesque Studebaker history’
Less Than They Promised juxtaposed these personal stories with corporate documents that reportedly showed that the board of directors “discussed the possibility that, if they continued making cars and trucks in South Bend, they would have to put millions of dollars in the pension fund. Obviously, if they did not, the money could be used in other corporate divisions.”
This is illustrative of why the film’s producers chose the title, Less Than They Promised. The core premise of the film was that Studebaker violated a principle that the company had espoused over its long history — to give “more than they promised.”
An even-handed take on Studebaker’s demise
The film attempted to offer an even-handed analysis of why Studebaker died. The usual factors were mentioned, such as a weak dealer network, aging products, inadequate marketing and quality issues. Less Than They Promised also waded into the most contentious factor: labor-management relations.
The film offered counterpoints to arguments that Studebaker employees didn’t work hard and were not committed to its products. However, Less Than They Promised also interviewed a labor leader who stated that workers went on strike in 1962 because “we were unsure of what (management’s) agenda really was and it almost became a matter of preserving honor.” And when asked whether Studebaker’s union was too strong, the labor leader’s response was, “many times my own belief is that a union is as strong as the management is weak.”
Also see ‘Might Studebaker have survived if Sherwood Egbert had stayed healthy?’
The film concludes by arguing that the factors which led to Studebaker’s death were “chickens that later came home to roost” for its larger American competition. “It was as if the Big Three learned absolutely nothing from Studebaker’s mistakes.”
Interspersed throughout the film is historical video footage such as television commercials and a Studebaker film portraying the company’s history. This part of Less Than They Promised is a particularly valuable contribution to Studebaker history because the producers reportedly sifted through a vast archive of videos.
Fact errors undercut film’s value as historical record
Fact errors begin showing up in the second scene, which was supposed to be from 1962 but was actually a film clip of a man driving a 1963 Lark convertible.
Less Than They Promised then suggested that most Americans thought that Studebaker was doing pretty well in 1962. The evidence included that “the company had almost one fifth of the independent car business” — a data point which is neither very flattering nor meaningful. The film then pointed to how only one year later the South Bend plant was shut down. This implied a more rapid fall from public grace than what actually happened. The relatively good sales of 1962 were a respite from the previous year, when the company’s automotive operations were in a tailspin not unlike 1958 . . . or 1956 or 1954.
Also see ‘Car Life speculates about why Studebaker shut down its South Bend plant‘
A quick overview of Studebaker’s history was then presented. For example, a merger with Packard was described as an “unmitigated disaster” because the “Packards were fraught with quality problems and they were ugly.” Yes, they had quality issues, but I would flatly disagree that the Packards looked bad. They were easily the most normal-looking cars of any American independent brand in 1955-56 — including Studebaker.
When discussing the botched launch of the Avanti in 1963, Less Than They Promised stated that “there were (still) no Avanti’s and the Lark was failing. Only this car, the Hawk, was selling but it couldn’t carry the company.”
Uh, no — Hawk production in 1963 plunged 50 percent to under 5,000 units. Meanwhile, the Lark’s output fell only 19 percent to roughly 75,000 units. The problem was that overall Studebaker production was now well below the company’s breakeven point of upwards of 100,000 units (Ebert, 2013).
Discussion of worker pension losses too vague
Less Than They Promised was also rather vague about why a Bokon family member who worked “20-some years” for Studebaker was ineligible for a pension. A scholarly article by law professor James A. Wooten offered more specifics:
On October 15, 1964, after several months of negotiations, the company and Local 5 executed an agreement that terminated the (pension) plan along the lines set out in the 1961 collective-bargaining agreement. The first three classes of beneficiaries — retirees, retirement-eligible employees over sixty-five, and retirement-eligible employees over sixty — received their full pension. Vested employees less than sixty years of age, a few of whom had forty years of service with the firm, received a lump-sum payment worth about 15% of the value of their pension. Employees whose benefit accruals had not vested including all employees under age forty-got nothing. (2001, p. 731)
This agreement was tilted in favor of older workers. As Geeber notes in a comment below, someone who joined Studebaker at age 18 and had worked for the corporation for 20 years when the South Bend plant closed would not have been eligible for a pension because they had not yet reached 40 years of age. The film could have explained this with a fairly simple graphic, but perhaps producers assumed that getting into labor-contract technicalities would have interrupted the narrative flow of the story.
All in all, Craig and Beatty made an important contribution to American automotive history by focusing on the experience of rank-and-file employees — who arguably don’t get the attention they deserve in the field’s literature.
This is but one reason why the Peabody Awards (1983) quite rightly concluded that this film was “an exceptionally well-done effort.” My only caveat is to view Less Than They Promised more as a mood piece rather than a definitive historical record of Studebaker’s last years.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted Sep. 1, 2019 and updated on Jan. 29, 2021; June 20, 2022; and June 20, 2025. Production figures are from Gunnell (2002). The film is related to a book with the same title, which was written by Michael Beatty (1984). The book represented the first effort to reinterpret “the Studebaker tradition in terms of betrayal and managerial incompetence,” noted Critchlow (1996, p. 187).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Beatty, Michael (1983. Less Than They Promised. Distributors.
- Beatty, Michael and Scott Craig; 1983. Less Than They Promised. Scott Craig Productions Inc. Posted on YouTube Oct. 14, 2019 by Damian Penny.
- Critchlow, Donald T.; 1996. Studebaker: The Life and Death of an American Corporation. Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, IN.
- Ebert, Robert R.; 2013. Champion of the Lark: Harold Churchill and the Presidency of Studebaker-Packard, 1956-1961. McFarland & Company, London.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised Fourth Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Peabody Awards; 1983. “Studebaker: Less Than They Promised.”
- Ward, James A.; 1995. The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
- Wooten, James A.; 2001. “‘The Most Glorious Story of Failure in the Business’: The Studebaker-Packard Corporation and the Origins of ERISA.” Digital Commons@University of Buffalo Law School. Spring issue: pp. 683-739.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Packard (1955)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Studebaker (1955)
Regarding which employees were eligible for a pension – the company and the union, in October 1964, came to an agreement that terminated the plan.
Three groups of employees received a full pension. Those three groups were employees who had already retired; retirement-eligible employees over the age of 65; and retirement-eligible employees over the age of 60.
Vested employees under 60 years of age received a lump-sum payment worth about 15 percent of the value of their pension.
Employees whose benefit accruals had not vested – including all employees under age 40 – got nothing.
Some of the employees who were denied any pension had more than 20 years service. (A worker could have started at Studebaker at age 18, worked there for 21 years, and been 39 when the plant closed in South Bend. He still would not have been eligible for a pension under the termination plan.)
Mr. Critchlow got that part wrong. That is most likely why Mr. Bokon did not receive a pension, even though he had worked more than “20 some years” at the company.
The details are found here: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1147&context=journal_articles
Good point — and reference. I have updated the text. Thank you.
To me an absolute red flag would be as shown on the green 1955 two door sedan. The seams where the rear door replacement meets the body aren’t filled. This to me screams not so much cheapness but no one from the boardroom to the shop floor caring. Believe me this came from the top. Were I on the line my thought would be management doesn’t give a rat’s butt about the project. Were I a potential customer I would wonder what cost cutting I couldn’t see.
A fancier 1955 model had a huge vertical chrome band that covered most of the door seam, but it doesn’t strike me as working very well aesthetically.
I would assume that the reason for this unusual example of cost cutting was the high expense of the low-slung coupe/hardtop, which shared few body parts with Studebaker’s taller family cars. I have argued that the automaker simply didn’t have the volume to support two separate bodies (go here).
In 1956 Studebaker would come out with a “real” two-door sedan, but that was arguably too late.
Either Thomas Bonsall or Richard Langworth suggested that, for 1953, Studebaker should have facelifted the basic 1947-52 body shell, and then rolled out the Starliner and Starlight coupes as a separate model line.
The 1947-52 body shell was modern enough that it could have remained current with a comprehensive facelift. The big question is whether the coupes would have been able to sufficiently sustain their initial sales level to justify the additional tooling expense.
Sporty coupes are a very style-driven segment. Studebaker would have been faced with eventually needed to completely revamp the sedans…while the coupes would have eventually gotten stale, and also needed a revamp.
An interesting exercise would be to give the whole fender area abaft of that vertical chrome motif a different colour, effectively visually approximating the impression of a separate rear fender. It would have even preserved some degree of stylistic continuity with the 1947-52 models and, thinking about it, in 1955 the two tone schemes proposed by Chevrolet were somewhat similar.
The collective-bargaining deal shows one of the great points in favour of a mainly centralized social security system: whilst in my country private pension plans do exist and are actually in expansion, the brunt of retirement is borne by compulsory contributions to the country-managed social security institute. Such a system would have avoided a situation such as that of Studebaker’s younger workers, because even if they lost the complementary pension it would have been only an addendum to the main thing.
In the U.S. we do have Social Security, which is funded through payroll taxes. However, it is unlikely to provide sufficient funding for most retirees. In addition, the program has sustained enough political attacks over the years that a meaningful number of people do not expect that they will be able to get full benefits by the time they retire.
I taped this show in 1984 when it was on my local PBS station. It was one of the first shows that I recorded on my then brand new VCR that I could finally afford. It piqued my interest in Studebaker. I still have the tape on my shelf. On my first and only trip to the Studebaker National Museum in 2000, I asked if they had this one for sale, they told me that they wished they could get it, but it was unavailable to them.
I had read before (here?) that the two-door sedans simply used the four-door stampings (1953 & 54 too?). Seeing the illustrations is eye-opening. It must have been fun climbing into the back seat around a folded front seat through the small opening afforded by the narrower four-door front door style. Kids only!
Mike, the 1953-55 two-door sedans used the same greenhouse and rear-quarter sheetmetal as the four-door sedans but the doors were longer. This allowed the usual amount of egress to the back seat for a two-door sedan. So functionality was fine but the styling was funky because of the telltale door seams.
In theory, Studebaker could have turned that into an advantage by pioneering clam-shell rear doors (like what Saturn would eventually offer). I throw that out there with the recognition that it might not have worked very well with the Studebaker’s “flexible frame,” which undercut the car’s rigidity.
Thanks. I guess the back side window does look a little narrower (thus a little wider door). Did they do some kind of double strike on the rear back door skin to make it narrower and then weld it in without smoothing the back seam? (Top & bottom seams are, of course, less jarring.)
That’s a cool idea. How about an optional passenger-side third door? Stude needs a better idea.
Company pension schemes failing with the collapse of the firm has sadly been a reality for many years. Pension protection only arrived in the UK in 2004. Up until then your entire pot could be lost when a company folded. But this looks very callous, especially for those under 60.
Agreed. What makes Studebaker particularly tragic is that until late in the company’s life its management displayed an unusual commitment to its community. Critchlow’s book does a good job of documenting the shift.
According to at least one historical account, Nash’s George Mason wasn’t keen on bringing Studebaker into a grand merger because it was too anchored to South Bend, Indiana. I assume that he saw plant consolidation as essential and that Studebaker’s facilities were not as modern as other options.
We have discussed how Studebaker could have plausibly stayed in the automotive business if it had concentrated on developing a line of compact trucks, SUVs and cabs and seeking a merger with another independent truck manufacturer (go here). Perhaps the best prospect would have been Kaiser-Jeep, but shifting all production from Toledo to South Bend might have been needed to achieve adequate economies of scale.