Recently Aaron Severson (2026) raised questions about whether the 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk weighed more due to its Packard drivetrain. As usual, he offered a thoughtful analysis, but I still come away with four lingering questions.
Before proceeding I should emphasize that Severson’s post on his paywalled Ate Up With Motor Patreon website illustrates the kind of analysis that the American auto history field badly needs more of. He displayed admirable doggedness in tracking down obscure information that challenges conventional wisdom. And as an added bonus, his rhetorical style was even-tempered rather than condescending or defensive like some fanboy Studebaker writers.
What follows updates and expands upon an article that I posted last year (go here), but I thought it would be more transparent to show the evolution of my thinking.
Question 1: Why were automotive writers so off base?
Severson (2026) argues that for decades “people have been repeating the claim that the Packard engine was so much heavier that it wrecked the Hawk’s weight distribution, but I’m not at all sure that was actually true.” If we assume that he is correct that “the Packard 352 was probably a little heavier” than the 1957 Golden Hawk with the supercharged Studebaker 289 cubic-inch V8 engine, then why were so many writers wrong?
Severson (2026) points to Richard Langworth as the “main culprit” in spreading the story that the “Packard engine was 100 lb heavier than the Studebaker, and kept repeating it as gospel.” Langworth was a prominent historian, but my sense is that the basic narrative emerged in car-buff magazines around 1956-57.
For example, Langworth quoted Tom McCahill: “Due to the tremendous torque of the engine (380 pounds-feet at 3800 rpm), and due to the [heavy engine], it is almost impossible to make a fast getaway start on any surface without considerable wheel spinning” (1979 1993; p. 86, original italics).
Meanwhile, Motor Life’s Ken Fermoyle wrote that the 1957 Golden Hawk with an automatic transmission was lighter than the 1956 model by roughly 120 pounds despite a supercharger’s added weight (1956, p. 16). “This has changed weight distribution from 59 per cent front, 41 per cent rear to approximately 57 per cent front, 43 per cent rear,” Fermoyle stated. “This might not seem like much but, with cars, figures don’t count as much as actual performance on the road. And taking that 100 lbs. or so off the front end has made a big difference in handling. It doesn’t take long behind the wheel of a ’57 Golden Hawk to prove that” (1956, p. 16).
Fermoyle’s numbers were specific enough that he presumably got them from Studebaker. Were they misquoted? Severson (2026) rightly notes that “the buff books can be really sloppy with technical details.” However, so many of the magazines were saying similar things that it is hard for me to ignore the general direction of their criticism.
Question 2: Was weight the only relevant factor?
Another question worth further exploration is whether extra weight was the only factor at play. In an Ate Up With Motor comment, Curbside Classic (2026) suggested that the someone had claimed that the “Packard engine was mounted a bit further forward than the Stude V8, due possibly to its greater width (or other packaging issues), thus increasing the weight over the front wheels.”
That strikes me as a reasonable hypothesis. In addition, perhaps other suspension tinkering for 1957 improved the Golden Hawk’s handling. However, we should remember that in 1956 Motor Trend wrote that the Golden Hawk’s “handling ease was strained” on hard, tight turns at 20-45 mph. “It was here that [the] heavy Packard V8 made itself apparent, for [the] front end became sluggish as the stressed wheel rolled under, a feeling not common to past Studebakers — coupes or sedans — that we’ve tested” (1956, p. 22).
Perhaps the narrative that the Packard V8 was heavier partly grew out of the perception that the engine was too powerful for the light-weight Studebaker body. A May 1956 Car Life road test complained that the Packard V8 “provides more power than the chassis design can properly handle. Avoiding “tires screaming on the concrete up to 25 mph” could be “remedied to some extent by filling the trunk with sand bags, which would equalize weight distribution.” However, the article noted, “Perhaps the best solution is to buy the lower-priced Sky Hawk with its lighter weight Studebaker V8 of 210 bhp.”
All of this suggests that while the weight of the Packard and Studebaker drivetrains is worth comparing, it may be inadequate to fully explain why the 1956 Golden Hawk’s handling received mixed reviews from car-buff magazines.
Question 3: Why wasn’t the Packard V8 kept?
My third lingering question is why Studebaker didn’t keep producing the Packard V8 after the brand’s Detroit operations were shut down at the end of the 1956 model year. After all, the engine was newer than Studebaker’s V8, so it benefitted from hydraulic valve lifters and had much greater room for adding cubic inches. With the luxury of hindsight, we might speculate that this could have plausibly helped Studebaker in the 1960s when the muscle-car movement began to take off.
For example, in 1956 the top-end Packard engine had 374 cubic inches and pumped out 310 horsepower. That was considerably more potent than the 1963 Studebaker Avanti’s standard R1 engine, which had 289 cubic inches and 240 horsepower (Wikipedia, 2026).
Of course, the Golden Hawk’s 352-cubic-inch V8 was arguably too powerful for more sedate Studebakers — or even an entry-level Hawk. However, a smaller engine could presumably have been developed that didn’t make the tires chirp. American Motors took this approach when it came out with a family of V8 engines in 1956-57 that ranged in size from 250 to 327 cubic inches (McGuire, 2023).
Indie Auto commentator Frank A (2025) suggested that the Packard V8 may have been dropped partly because American Motors stopped buying it in favor of producing their own engines. In addition, he thought that the cost of moving Packard’s engine-production line to Studebaker’s South Bend, Indiana plant might have also been a factor. Would that have been a meaningful expense compared to dispensing with the equipment?
Question 4: Why ignore S-P’s lack of product synergy?
The discussion about the 1956 Golden Hawk tends to focus on gearhead issues rather than what I think is the most interesting aspect of the car — this was the most significant product synergy that came out of the Studebaker-Packard marriage. One might logically ask: Why was that the case?
S-P went in the opposite direction as American Motors, which quickly integrated all production facilities in Kenosha, Wisconsin and based Hudsons off Nash bodies. Studebaker and Packard instead kept separate production facilities, platforms and even engineering departments (Ward, 1995). That made the automaker more vulnerable to financial crisis if sales declined — which they did in 1956.
One could argue that S-P management had fewer immediate opportunities for product synergies than American Motors. Neither Studebaker’s nor Packard’s platforms lent themselves to being used by their new corporate sibling without a big change in market positioning (such as by moving the Studebaker family cars to the larger Packard body). That was just as well because none of the automaker’s assembly plants were suited for consolidating all passenger-car production in a similar fashion as AMC’s Kenosha facilities.
The Hawk body arguably represented the easiest opportunity for product synergies. With clever sheetmetal changes, a Packard personal coupe could have been an interesting — if low-selling — entry. S-P took the lower-cost route by throwing a Packard drivetrain into the 1956 Golden Hawk. Interestingly enough, they didn’t do something similar — albeit detuned — with the top-end Studebaker President Classic. I wonder why not?
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Car Life; 1956. “1956 Golden Hawk.” Car Life. May issue: 14-15. Reprinted in Studebaker Hawks & Larks: Limited Edition Premier. Compiled by R. M. Clarke. Brooklands Books, Surrey UK.
- Curbside Classic; 2026. Comment in “Studebaker Golden Hawk.” Ate Up With Motor (Patreon website). Posted Feb. 13.
- Fermoyle, Ken; 1956. “The 1957 Golden Hawk.” Motor Life. December issue: 16-17. Reprinted in Studebaker Hawks & Larks: Limited Edition Premier. Compiled by R. M. Clarke. Brooklands Books, Surrey UK.
- Frank A; 2025. Commentator in “1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk: A match made in hell.” Indie Auto. Posted Oct. 17.
- Langworth, Richard M.; 1979, 1993. Studebaker 1946-1966: The Classic Postwar Years. Motorbooks International, Osceola, WI.
- McGuire, Bill; 2023. “Rambler Joins the V8 Race: The 1956-66 AMC V8.” Mac’s Motor City Garage. Posted May 22.
- Motor Trend; 1956. “’56 Studebaker Gold Hawk Road Test.” February issue: pp. 20-23 (link no longer available).
- Severson, Aaron; 2026. “Studebaker Golden Hawk.” Ate Up With Motor (Patreon website). Posted Feb. 13.
- Ward, James A.; 1995. The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
- Wikipedia; 2026. “Studebaker Avanti.” Page last modified Jan. 27.
BROCHURES & ADVERTISING:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Studebaker (1956); Packard (1956)
Steve, you wrote under question 1:
“Meanwhile, Motor Life’s Ken Fermoyle wrote that the 1957 Golden Hawk with an automatic transmission was heavier than the 1956 model by roughly 120 pounds despite a supercharger’s added weight (1956, p. 16).”
Shouldn’t it be stated that the 1957 model was LIGHTER than the 1956 model (or was it Fermoyle who stated it incorrectly)?
Yup, thank you. Fixed.
Regarding question 4. Yes, Nash and Hudson were both in the same category both had declining sales, and were one to disappear it would not be missed. It seems that at first SP management planned a 3 marque company. However selling the Clipper as a separate marque was a failure with resistance from customers and dealers. Also, while Packard’s 1955 production doubled, it dropped by around half. Also Packard model year production for 1956 was down to about 29k, calendar sales for 1956 were around 14k. This indicates there were a lot of unsold 1956 Packards out there. Cranking out a facelifted 56 for 57 would clearly be throwing good money after bad, no funds were available for a true redesign or at least reskinning of the Packard. Probably the ideal would be a reskinning so you at least you could tell it apart from the Stude, but I don’t know if they could raise funds for even that. It’s my ujnderstanding that potential lenders demanded some of SPs profitable non-automotive units as collateral, which was unacceptable to SP. They weren’t the first carmaker to run out of time, and if Stellantis doesn’t stop p!$$ing away brand equity, it won’t be the last.
If other decisions had been made there could have been more product synergy. A Studebaker President on the Clipper body with the Stude V8 assembled in Detroit would have been a good halo product for lesser Studebakers, and allowed the 1956 Champion to get smaller instead of bigger. With a little more body and interior differentiation, the Golden Hawk could have been a Packard instead.
If S-P had indeed been interested in joining the muscle car stampede they certainly should have kept Packard’s V8, it’s teething problems notwithstanding (oil pump and resulting lifter issues, quite correctible now with a modified Olds 455 pump), as it had been designed to punch out it’s bore to yield as much as 500 cu inches!
The likelihood of larger engines in the future was well in the mind of Bill Graves and his engineering staff when it was first designed. After all Packard had modified and produced the well acknowledged best version of the WWII Rolls-Royce designed Merlin V12 and was known at the time as America’s “Master Motor Makers”. Its 356 Nine main bearing 8 was probably the best flathead straight 8 ever built. Unfortunately the V8’s desperately rushed production led to teething problems, as could have been predicted, but they were easily solved and mostly were so by the Spring of 1956. Fully developed the Packard 374 (and bigger!) could have been one of the best, if not THE best, ohv V8s, and it could have produced some pretty spectacular results as a muscle-car engine had indeed S-P done so, but all of that cost money and S-P had a convenient, cheaper, and lighter alternative at hand.
By 1956 the problems with UltraMatic ( aka UltraTraumatic) and Torsion Level were also mostly fixed as well , unfortunately it was all too late. (former owner of a ’56 Patrician and ’56 Clipper).
The Studebaker V8 was capable of two jobs: 1) powering the Commanders,Larks, Presidents, various lesser Hawks, etc, that didn’t need whopping big power and still wanting decent fuel mileage numbers, and 2) generating even more than the 335 advertised horsepower of an R3 engine in 1963 to power cars with muscle when asked. In mid-1956, the Packard was capable of only one job (smooth gobs of power, appropriate mainly for larger cars than most Studes – and certainly not for the ’59-’60 Larks which actually “saved” the corporation). The Stude engine/transmissions were already de-bugged and also a LITTLE lighter and smaller (remember it was built stoutly to take up to a 14:1 compression ratio).
Studebaker was early to the performance car market, but unfortunately, the board was not interested in continuing their recently volatile automotive story – and a Packard engine, although it would have made the story more interesting, would not have extended the story’s timeline.