(EXPANDED FROM 4/16/2021)
One of my more unpopular takes is that Studebaker shouldn’t have assigned Brooks Stevens to restyle the 1964 Lark. He may have had a more mainstream design sensibility than Raymond Loewy, but he was also the guy who coined the term “planned obsolescence” (Adamson, 2002; p. 129).
Stevens was grounded in the Detroit way of doing things, such as an emphasis on annual styling changes and a revolving door of trendy nameplates. He was also an early champion of the brougham look.
His approach failed to revive Studebaker sales. By October 1963 the automaker had an 86-day supply of unsold cars (Bonsall, 2000). Two months later, production in Studebaker’s main South Bend plant permanently ended.
One could describe this as inevitable — and blame a long list of factors that caused Studebaker’s demise. However, Stevens’s handiwork arguably represented the final nail in the coffin.
Studebaker’s best hope was compact trucks
Studebaker fans may not want to hear this, but I think a reasonable case can be made for the argument that by 1964 the Lark’s body was so obsolete that nothing could have made it competitive — at least as a passenger car. However, it was surprisingly well suited for a line of compact trucks, four-wheel-drive wagons and taxis based on the Lark body but using somewhat beefed-up underpinnings.
In a follow-up piece I suggest that Studebaker had potential advantages over Jeep and International Harvester in the truck field. But even if Studebaker had still struggled financially after phasing out passenger cars, developing a line of compact trucks might have made it a more appealing merger partner.
Stevens’s final redesign of the Lark worked against the above a scenario. Thus, when sales faltered in the fall of 1963, there was no alternative to closing the South Bend plant.
That said, this was only the last of a series of wrong turns. Updating the Hawk and coming out with the Avanti in 1962 had already taken badly needed money away from a transition to trucks.
Stevens vainly tries to make Studebaker trendy
The 1964 redesign was heavily laden with trendy styling cues. Stevens slapped on a Thunderbird-style roofline and gave the front end a fairly generic, rectangular shape similar to many cars of that period. In back he fashioned a new horizontal treatment that made the deck flatter and more angular.
The overall result was not as bad as the “bug-eyed” 1958 Studebaker. Even so, the car still looked archaic compared to the brand-new compact Rambler American and mid-sized cars from General Motors, all of which had curved side glass — unlike the Studebaker.
Unfortunately, even older and more stolid competitors such as the Ford Fairlane and Chevrolet Chevy II had more contemporary styling, such as high-mounted bumpers and sculpted side sheetmetal. Those features made them look lower and wider than the Studebaker.
1964 redesign was a good two years too late
The fundamental problem was that the Lark’s body dated back to 1953, which made it even older than the venerable Checker. Although the basic design had been admirably adaptable, Studebaker still struggled to keep it up to date.
For example, it wasn’t until 1963 that a dogleg windshield and thick door-window frames were replaced with a more contemporary greenhouse. Meanwhile, the Lark’s weirdly stubby front fenders were kept in production for five years even though they were problematic when they were introduced in 1959.
For 1964 Stevens fixed at least some of the Studebaker’s biggest stylistic deficiencies, such as the stubby front end. Alas, this was what the Lark needed back in 1962 in order to have been reasonably competitive.
Stevens could have learned from Porsche
In the process of trying to make the 1964 Lark more like its Big Four competition, Stevens ran away from the automaker’s design heritage. This included a radiator-style grille, a tapered roofline and clean, rounded contours. Stevens presumably viewed these styling cues as too rooted in the 1950s, so he instead went for a much more angular look.
This was a very different design approach other smaller-scale automakers such as Porsche, where continuity was emphasized. Maintaining one’s “brand DNA” wasn’t viewed as a weakness dictated by meager resources, but rather as a crucial part of branding. I would suggest that the smaller the automaker, the more important stylistic continuity was for survival.
Continuity did not mean a refusal to evolve. The Porsche 911 was greatly changed from it predecessor, the 356. Those changes were partly functional improvements but also included some stylistic advancements. That gave the 911 a fresh appearance while still looking unmistakably like a Porsche (go here for further discussion).
In contrast, Stevens’s 1964 design was blandly generic. This problem was compounded by the demotion of the Lark nameplate.
Studebaker deemphasized Lark to go upmarket
Stevens was not just involved in updating the styling of the 1964 Lark and Hawk, which reportedly cost $7.5 million. He also “convinced management to de-emphasize the Lark” nameplate (Langworth, 1979, 1993; p. 150).
Back in 1962 the Lark’s number of trim levels was expanded to include the Deluxe, Regal, Daytona and Cruiser series. However, they all were still referred to as Larks. For 1964 the strategy shifted. The Lark nameplate prefixed the lower-priced Challenger and Commander, but the Daytona and Cruiser were made stand-alone nameplates.
The goal was presumably to move Studebaker upmarket while keeping a foothold in the bottom end of the market. For example, the Challenger competed against economy compacts such as the Ford Falcon. Meanwhile, the top-of-line Cruiser was priced above the mid-sized Ford Fairlane 500 but below the Rambler Ambassador.
The Daytona seemed to be positioned as Studebaker’s sporty series because it was the only one offering a two-door hardtop and convertible. But curiously enough, it also fielded a four-door sedan and wagon.
High-end models didn’t backfill drop in low-end sales
Placing a greater emphasis on upmarket sales arguably gave Studebaker a more profitable model mix. In 1964 the Daytona and Cruiser surpassed 18,000 units. That represented almost 40 percent of the automaker’s family car production. This was up from 8 percent in 1961, when the Cruiser’s output only reached 5,200 units.
The problem was that top-end models were not coming anywhere close to compensating for a collapse in sales of lower-priced models. As a case in point, the production of six-cylinder models fell from almost 100,000 units in 1959 to under 20,000 in 1964. This, in turn, was making it increasingly unlikely that Studebaker could reach its breakeven point, which was around 120,000 units (Ebert, 2013).
During the 1963 model year only 84,000 passenger cars left the factory. Much of the media attention focused on the Avanti and Hawk, but together they only tallied 10 percent of total output. Personal coupes could not save Studebaker.
The automaker’s board of directors quite rightly decided that the continuation of U.S. passenger-car operations depended on the success of a restyled 1964 Lark (Bonsall, 2000).
Stevens’s concept cars were unrealistic
The 1964 models were seen as a stopgap measure. Stevens also developed three concept cars — a sedan, wagon and coupe — with an all-new body. Although these cars were much more contemporary looking, they still apparently used Studebaker’s old engines and chassis.
In theory, Studebaker could have found another source of engines. However, the automaker would still have been stuck with a chassis that did not allow a “step-down” passenger compartment. This could have resulted in cramped interior accommodations because the new body was low slung.
Implicit in Stevens’s approach was that trendy styling could keep Studebaker alive in the passenger-car business. A big stumbling block was that an all-new body could have cost roughly $20 million even if it drew upon existing components, according to Thomas E. Bonsall (2000). Studebaker’s lenders weren’t keen on funding such a risky proposition.
So while Stevens’s concept cars are fascinating from a historical perspective, they weren’t a viable option (go here and here for further discussion). Neither were the Avanti-inspired designs that Loewy had developed.
Reskinning of existing body was too generic
If Studebaker had made it through 1964, a more plausible next step could have been Stevens’s proposed reskinning of the existing Lark body.
Perhaps the best part of the proposal was that it included the first full reskinning of the Studebaker body below the beltline since it was introduced in 1953. A more slab-sided look with a center crease would have been much more contemporary. However, that may have visually accentuated one of the biggest weaknesses of the Studebaker body — the lack of curved side glass.
The biggest downside of the design was that it was even more generic than the 1964 models. For example, the front lost its last vestige of Studebaker identity — the trapazoid grille.
Stevens also didn’t seem to care about the car’s practical attributes. He added trendy full-width taillights but kept an unusually high trunk liftover height. This was not a plus for the taxi market — which the car would otherwise have been well suited for because of its tall, roomy body with unusually flat floors.
What would styling continuity have looked like?
Studebaker’s best bet for staying alive in the automobile business could have been to buy some time for transitioning from a car to a truck manufacturer. This was more likely to have succeeded if the automaker had made a commitment to stylistic continuity with its 1964 Lark redesign.
Stevens was sort-of on the right track when he gave the fascia a more horizontal look, replete with higher-mounted bumper. However, the goal should have been to develop new front-end sheetmetal that was used on both cars and a redesigned Champ truck.
Meanwhile, why wasn’t the roofline carried over from 1963? The new Thunderbird-style C-pillar aaccentuated the car’s lack of curved side glass. More importantly, redoing the greenhouse after only one year was a waste of scarce resources.
Those funds would have been better spent redesigning rear-quarter sheetmetal, which had badly aged despite being in production only two years. The rear bumper needed to be mounted higher and busy side sculpting toned down. In addition, the gas cap needed to be moved to the side of the car to allow a lower trunk lid.
What if the Lark had been marketed as a compact?
Stevens’s facelifted 1964 Studebaker was a dishonest car. He tried to make it look like a high-end intermediate when its ancient body was better suited to being a utilitarian family compact. Stretching the car six inches didn’t mask that fact. Nor did demoting Lark name. Those changes may have even reduced the viability of lower-end models.
That raises a counterfactual question: What if the 1964 Studebaker had been solely marketed as a family compact similar to a Dodge Dart or a Mercury Comet rather than as a mid-sized car? After all, the Lark body was so narrow that it was more comparable in size to larger compacts. Nor did it hurt that competition in the compact field was easing as the Big Three focused more attention on the mid-sized field. With George Romney’s departure, even American Motors was losing interest in compacts.
Studebaker instead joined the race to make bigger, glitzier and more powerful cars. And after its 1964 models were introduced, the auto buff media applauded. For example, Car Life admired a Daytona R-4 two-door hardtop’s “striking new styling” and performance chops (1964, p. 190). But by the time that road test was published, Studebaker had closed its U.S. factory.
As a collector, one can enjoy a 1964 Studebaker but still take seriously the idea that the lineup’s redesign and market repositioning failed to revive the brand. Despite the pushback from some readers, I would still contend that Stevens led management astray.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted on April 16, 2021 and expanded on Aug. 27, 2025. Product specifications and production figures are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (1993, 2006), Automobile Catalog (2021), Flory (2004) and Gunnell (2002).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Adamson, Glenn; 2003. Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993, 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
- Automobile Catalog; 2021. “Full detailed specifications listing and photo gallery.” Accessed April 13.
- Bonsall, Thomas E.; 2000. More Than They Promised: The Studebaker Story. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
- Car Life; 1964. “1964 Studebaker R-4 Daytona Hardtop: A Lark With Class And Calories Turns Into a Bird of Prey.” Feb. issue. Republished in Studebaker 1946-1966: Ultimate Portfolio. Compiled by R. M. Clarke. Brooklands Books: pp. 190-192.
- Ebert, Robert R.; 2013. Champion of the Lark: Harold Churchill and the Presidency of Studebaker-Packard, 1956-1961. McFarland & Company, London.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2004. American Cars, 1960-1972. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised Fourth Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Langworth, Richard M.; 1979, 1993. Studebaker 1946-1966: The Classic Postwar Years. Motorbooks International, Osceola, WI.
ADVERTISEMENTS & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Studebaker (1959)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Chevrolet Chevy II (1962); Studebaker (1961, 1963, 1964)
PHOTOGRAPHY & SKETCHES:
- Milwaukee Art Museum Brooks Stevens Archives
While this is an interesting perspective, I think one must go back to 1960 and 1961, when the designs and budgets were being planned. Sherwood Egbert was hired to revive Studebaker. He had the Lark and the Hawk, an update OHV-6 and a relatively modern V-8. Yes, the chassis architecture date back to 1952 (for the 1953 model year), but the banks refused to help Studebaker-Packard in 1956 and Curtiss-Wright controlled the purse-strings thereafter. Then Egbert became mortally-ill. I think Studebaker did the best they could with very little money. Abraham Sonnebend, Chair of Studebaker’s board of directors, drove the nails in the coffin. By the time the 1964 Studebakers were in the showrooms (Fall, 1963), it was over. The restyle made no difference. I have ridden in 1964 Studebakers, both the Lark Cruiser and the Hawk (and a 1963 Avanti). Yes, they were not as all-in-one-piece as the 1964 G.M. intermediates or the great 1963 Rambler Classic. But I think this is a hatchet-job on Brooks Stevens.
Restylings are generally judged by whether they boost sales or not. The 1964 models apparently did not. If you’d like to bring to the table additional data, that would be great.
I would also invite you to consider more seriously the core of my point: A fancier, upmarket redesign wasn’t going to solve Studebaker’s problem of deciining economy car sales. In a way AMC had a parallel situation a few years later with the Ambassador vis a vis the Classic/Rebel/Matador — the quest for higher profits ended up backfiring.
Stevens tried to design the car that he wanted rather than the one the situation needed. Look at the proposed 1965 reskinning — he tried to graft trendy styling cues such as full-width taillights on a body that was more appropriately used as a cab, SUV or truck. Now, perhaps that’s what Studebaker management wanted, but since he started working with the Lark in 1961 he was pushing the luxury look.
I agree. Stevens, and Duncan McRae did an admirable job in attempting to keep Studebaker’s styling fresh, with very little money.
Even if the $20 million for a new body had been found, starting in 1967 three were new EPA/DOT regulations that Studebaker could not have afforded to meet.
Studebaker’s vehicle business was doomed from the beginning of the 1960’s. The temporary success of the Lark in 1959 bought them 5 more years.
I think the article was well researched but too hard on Stevens. His redesign of the Hawk in 1962 was masterful. The ’64 Lark redesign was OK given with what Stevens had to work with and the money problems. There was really no way out for Studebaker when you looked at the Chevrolets and Fords of the same era—1963 Chevrolet Impala.
The Avanti was actually pretty well engineered and a terrific design (IMHO) by Loewy’s team. Again, nothing much really could save the corporation other than a merger with International and concentrating on heavy trucks but who would want Studebaker’s liabilities and union work force.
Overall, I think Stevens was a terrific designer who worked miracles with what he had to work with. His later Excalibur roadsters were pretty nice (the early ones before they went too neo-classic). I’m surprised that no one has written his biography because he produced some outstanding designs (re: the 1962-1964 GT Hawks).
I agree that Stevens was a talented designer. If you’re looking for a good biography about him, check out Glenn Adamson’s. Very nicely done, with lots of photographs of his designs (go here).
I would also agree that the 1964 Lark redesign wasn’t terrible like, say, the 1956 Hudson. The problem was that the board insisted that the redesign needed to revive sales. That didn’t happen. Of course, styling wasn’t the only factor in declining sales, but that was the biggest card Studebaker had to play in the fall of 1963.
In my article I suggest a different approach. Of course, it’s all speculation. I think what most matters is the underlying argument — that Studebaker’s most plausible way to keep its automotive operations alive was to pivot to producing compact cabs, SUVs and trucks. A more practical redesign could have helped make that pivot. Instead, the focus seemed to be on building sales of higher-priced sporty and luxury models.
I look at the 63 Lark side view and I am amazed they sold so many. The 64 was better looking. The article keeps coming back to the need for a modern step down chassis. The Avanti budget could perhaps have filled that budget gap. The proposed 65 redesign has AMC written all over it. A second tier Rambler Classic, just putting dollar store lipstick on a pig. How would Studebaker becoming a taxi, SUV and truck division work? IH had its own trucks and SUVs. Studebaker pushed compact taxis from 59 on, and they couldn’t draw flies. There is no way you could afford to keep a separate automobile line running on four figure annual production. You can’tjust take a rust magnet like the Lark, slap a taximeter on it,and expect to compete with Checker.
I have seen varying estimates of how much the Avanti cost, but I suspect that it wouldn’t have added up to enough money to do a new chassis, e.g., a fiberglass body was used to keep the costs down.
I’d agree that Studebaker couldn’t survive solely on cabs — they would have needed to be matched with sales from compact trucks and wagons, the latter of which could have been offered in two- and four-wheel drive. Studebaker could have also come up with a short-wheelbase Scout-type vehicle using the same front end as the rest of the lineup.
Studebaker could have carved out a decent market niche, particularly in the 1970s. The Studebaker body was smaller than the big Jeep and more car-like than the Scout or first-generation Bronco.
Note that unlike Jeep or International, Studebaker would have had only one modular platform, which would have contributed to a lower breakeven point. Studebaker also had other advantages, such as more dealers in the suburbs, which is where truck and SUV sales were growing the fastest.
You make a good point about Studebakers being rust magnets. Surely it wasn’t rocket science to fix that problem. Assuming quality glitches could have been addressed, in the long run the Studebaker’s more compact body could have been more viable than the Checker’s.
I’m not sure how a compact cab would work. I don’t think cab riders of the 60s would accept the limited rear seat leg room we have resigned ourselves to today. What was the legroom of the Lark compared with the Checker or the low priced 3 full size cars?
According to Consumer Reports, a 1963 Studebaker Lark four-door sedan had as much “rear effective room” (a proxy for legroom) as a Buick Electra 225 — and considerably more than other compacts or intermediates of the time.
It actually wouldn’t have mattered much how well Studebaker did in the cab business in the late-60s. The automaker would have succeeded or failed largely on truck and SUV sales. Also note that Checker ultimately went out of business because its cabs were too big. At that point the Studebaker could have still had a viable entry.
I disagree with this. I live in Louisville, and am old enough to remember the many Studebaker Taxis around downtown, and on the X-ways. They were very common right up to 1966 models. They were not cramped, but spacious cars for their outside dimensions. Of course they weren’t Checkers, but then nothing matched those rolling tanks. This fanciful idea of SUV’s, and taxi’s only tho is pure hogwash. Strictly 2021 thinking, not 1964. International Harvester couldn’t survive, nor would have Studebaker. It would take several decades to get to the point where Jeep was a profitable and growing concern we know today. Back in the 50’s and 60’s, they were very rare vehicles on the highways of any major city.
Neil, I agree with you that Lark body styles with the 113-inch wheelbase were pretty roomy for smaller cars. Indeed, I wrote in the story that the Lark was “well suited” for the cab market “because of its tall, roomy body with unusually flat floors.” I was expressing a concern about the roominess of Brooks Stevens’s proposed new body, which appears in photos to be both sleeker and less roomy (go here).
International historian Patrick Foster has argued that a big reason that the company did not keep up with the tremendous growth in the truck market during the 1960s was because it didn’t have enough suburban dealers (go here for further discussion). He thought that buying Studebaker could have helped to resolve that problem. That makes sense to me. And in order to fully integrate those dealers into its own network, International would presumably have had to maintain the Studebaker brand for at least a few years.
So under that scenario, it was much more likely that the Studebaker brand could have survived in the market place longer than if it had continued to focus on passenger cars. I have no idea how long that might have been. My meta point is that by the mid-60s Studebaker’s basic components were too obsolete to be competitive as passenger cars but arguably still had some potential viability when used for a line of compact trucks, four-wheel drive wagons and cabs.
You say that it would “take several decades” for Jeep to be profitable. Patrick Foster’s books on American Motors suggest that profits from Jeep carried the company after passenger-car sales collapsed in the second half of the 1970s. By 1977 Jeep volume had surpassed 150,000 units per year (go here for further discussion).
Well IH had more problems than a stagnant light truck line. They had many irons in the fire, and around 1980 they were shedding and selling subsidiaries to stay alive. I lived a few blocks away from their steel mill and a couple people I knew lost their jobs when it just up and closed. My guess is they decided to get out of the SUV light truck business when the big 3 got serious with SUVs and consumer grade pickups that could be purchased at the local car dealer. The best time for IH to have purchased Studebaker was year 1962 at the latest, just to get their better located dealerships. The Wagoneer had just hit the market which was jujst as great a leap of faith by Kaiser as the Rambler was for Nash. Kaiser had been working it since the late 50s and debuted to the sound of one hand clapping. I wasn’t able to find a trustworthy answer but one figure I got was 3000 sold in model year 1962 and 5000 in 1963 which must have had a lot of Kaiser execs sweating bullets. Considering the length of development for the Wagoneer the financial commitment needed, and the conpany’s lukewarm enthusiasm for for cars there was no chance Studebaker would even think of it.
I did a follow-up story that offers more details about how Studebaker might have approached a truck-focused product line (go here).
I don’t know where you got your production figures, but Gunnell’s Standard Catalog of Light Trucks stated that Jeep’s calendar-year production for 1963 surpassed 110,000 units, and roughly 55,000 were sixes (which I would guess were mostly the new Wagoneer). Patrick Foster’s book, Jeep: The History of America’s Greatest Vehicle, concluded that “Jeep sales and profits rose strongly for 1963, with dollar volume of $320 million and an operating profit of $9.3 million before interest and taxes.”
In 1964 total production went up to almost 121,000, with a bit more than 62,000 sixes. In 1965 total output fell to under 109,000 units, with roughly 51,000 sixes and 17,000 of the new V8s.
So does that reflect “lukewarm enthusiasm” for the Wagoneer? I would suggest that the sport-utility vehicle sold fine initially in light of Jeep’s size. Remember that the truck maker didn’t have even Studebaker’s breadth of dealer network.
Your figures make more sense. My figures came up from an AI blurb that I got in the midst of my futile search for Wagoner production figures. The AI answers I get always seem like a book report from someone who only read the Cliff Notes.
I use AI pretty gingerly because I have found it unreliable for auto history purposes. It might get some general points correct but be wrong in specific areas that hawk-eyed readers would quickly point out. So if I track down a piece of information with AI, I will try to double check it with other sources . . . such as books in my automotive library.
Kim, you’re looking at the wrong movies (New York City with Checkers as far as the eye can see!)! In ’59 and for a coupe of years, the Studebaker heavy-duty 113-inch wheelbase Y-body made really significant in-roads in the taxi bizz in NYC and elsewhere. It was second in taxi fleet sales in that city in ’59 (up from third the year before when the Scotsman-based models were used).
l look at ANY side of a ’61 Plymouth and am amazed that ANY were sold! The side view of an early ’60s Falcon is dumpy – look how they sold!
I think the 61 Plymouth looks great except the angry eyebrows and the grills texture. They’re so terrible that they ruin the rest of the car.
The discussion is interesting (l’m a self-confessed Studebaker enthusiast), but it leaves out a big important point. Sherwood Egbert fought for and promoted the automotive division, but many on the board of directors were not of the same persuasion. Since 1959, the profits of the corporation were made thanks to their subsidiaries and not the automotive division, whose business swings over the previous decade had become too boom/bust/close-call for corporate management. The investments they had made in the subsidiaries were doing well and the long-term survival of the corporation looked better without the cyclical “albatross” of vehicle manufacturing. So, now it’s the fall of 1963, and yes, l’ve previously read that the 1964 model year, on the back of much-improved styling of the “Lark-types” and good performance and other innovations throughout the line, it seemed competitive, but was to be a make-or-break year.
THEN its dynamic president, Sherwood Egbert, was forced to resign due to his on-going cancer, so a big advocate for automobiles was “gone”. THEN a certain guy named John F. Kennedy was assassinated and the entire North American continent did not buy cars for a whole month and Studebaker’s launch of their important ’64’s got “broadsided”. The new president, Mr. Burlingame, now acted on the “new reality” for the board of directors, the plan that had been on the minds of many of them – and the rest is history. They NEVER intended to keep the Canadian operation going for more than a short term. The end of Studebaker’s vehicle production was, in effect, a done deal even a month before the US plant closing announcement was made Dec. 9th.
The only thing at that time being made that could be termed an SUV was the Jeep Wagoneer and it was not yet a proven success. Making them or taxis or compact trucks would not have had snowball’s chance in heck in that boardroom.
The corporation did survive that crisis and prospered. It carried on as Studebaker-Worthington and, after 1979, the name disappeared as it was absorbed into the giant McGraw-Edison Corporation.
Sorry to be negative toward your scenario.
Stewdi, you offer an entirely reasonable scenario — and one more likely to have succeeded than the one I suggested. That said, I flesh out my scenario in greater depth here and speculate on Studebaker’s future if Egbert had not been sidelined due to illness here.
The main thing that I am pushing back against is the idea that Studebaker could have survived if it had just managed to put into production the proposed new designs from either Stevens or Loewy. And as I’ve argued here, the Avanti was a wonderful design . . . and a bad idea.
Much like Stewdi, I am also an avowed Studebaker enthusiast. I prefer to consider the 1964 restyling of the Lark models as a “successful failure” (I own a 1964 Daytona convertible) given the available budget, what Stevens did was a remarkable modernization. Unlike many, I in fact like the renaming that occurred. Not that Lark was a bad name, but those Larks really looked so last decade by 1963 and breaking away from the old name with a bold new look was for the best – even if sales didn’t follow.
The 1964 models sported an up to date look, competitive with other available compacts of the era. Unfortunately, by the fall of 1963, too many had already given up on Studebaker (most notably customers, dealers, the press and even worse, Studebaker’s management) – simply put you can’t sell what people won’t buy. Studebaker’s market failure represented a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts. That Studebaker survived in the automobile business as long as they did was remarkable. Despite an 11 year old platform in 1964, Studebaker managed to update the Lark in a competitive manner, all the way up to end, in 1966.
However, as safety and environmental laws were changing, it is unlikely that even a more successful 1964 launch would have done much to stem the inevitable demise of a grand old name. Some have said if the dynamic Sherwood Egbert’s health hadn’t failed him in November 1963, that perhaps Studebaker would have somehow survived a bit longer. Of course sometimes history can be cruel.
It’s very appearant that Studebaker was struggling to keep up with the other automakers by the early sixties . One of the main reasons was , that there was too much competition with the Chevrolet Nova , the Impala , the Ford Falcon , and of course the very popular Ford Mustang ! Nearly all of these cars set sales records , which resulted in poor sales for Studebaker . By 1965 , Studebaker was almost out of business with ” declining sales .” The writing was now on the wall . Sadly , they closed their doors for good in March 1966 closing another chapter in automotive history .
With Porsche being mentioned in the same article with Studebaker I’m surprised nothing has been said about Studebaker’s abortive tie-in with that company in the early 1950s.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/porsches-first-four-door-was-a-studebaker/
Tony, thank you for the link. Back in j-school I had a professor who liked to say that the two biggest questions a reporter faced were 1) what to take out of a story draft and 2) what to boil down. The above article was already running long and the Porsche’s styling didn’t align very well with Studebaker’s brand DNA, so I left that angle for another time.
Readers tend to think in the opposite way as my professor. One of the most-frequent questions I get is a variation on “Why didn’t you include X?” Which is one reason why we have comment threads where readers can add follow-up information.
I can certainly understand that! In any event, the Stude/Porsche story is an interesting one that I was not aware of until fairly recently. Might be a good topic for its own article here if and when you have time.
I am certainly no expert on Studebaker. However, I think that perhaps the ‘Wagoneer’ mentioned in the caption under the Studebaker wagon photo might actually be a ‘Wagonaire’. We certainly don’t want to step on Jeep’s toes.
Appreciate and look forward to the articles every week. Keep up the good work.
Typo fixed. Thank you.
Interesting supposition which which I have no argument. It is a pity, however, that Steven’s Scepter concept had no chance as it was a clean and rather elegant design for the time. He was no doubt a talented designer greatly hamstrung by S-P’s inability to fund a more modern car, much as Dick Teague in 1953/4 for Packard’s 1955, and again at AMC by the later ’70s.
Though a scientist, having studied economics as well I will take some issue with the attribution by Adamson of the term “planned obsolescence” to Brooks Stevens. Perhaps as applied strictly to automotive design, but the concept was originated or popularized much earlier in the 1930s during the depression by an American real estate broker named Bernard London as a proposal to reduce unemployment by essentially forcing consumers to purchase new goods more frequently by intentionally designing certain products to wear out more quickly. He published several papers in service to disseminating his ideas.
In respects that concept had originated even earlier when manufacturers of light bulbs became aware in the 1920’s that many of them lasted a very long time, too long in their opinion, and allegedly entered a conspiracy to limit their life span to a limited number of hours (in essence planned obsolescence). As an interesting aside, they did have good reason to worry as a few years ago there was report of a light bulb in a NJ firehouse that had been in regular use since the 19xx teens!
Enjoy your research and reportage.