STUDEBAKER

  As early as 1897, J.M. Studebaker had been experimenting with electric, not gasoline, engines for his early vehicles.  A couple of years later he entered into an agreement with the Everette-Metzger-Flanders Company (E-M-F) of Detroit, MI.  Their agreement was for E-M-F to produce their products and for Studebakers to distribute them through their own wagon dealers already in place.  Here’s another one of those “If you can build a better mousetrap” stories.  Seems that the E-M-F quality was less than satisfactory and Studebaker and his team were less than satisfied so, you know what’s coming, he bought the company in 1910 and set out to correct the poor quality.  The first thing Studebaker did was to pay mechanics to visit each and every one of his dissatisfied customers and make the necessary repairs.  Talk about good will, this effort cost Studebaker over $1,000,000 (that’s a million dollars) in the 1900’s.

Even though Studebaker started his wagon business in 1851, it wasn’t until 1926 that he introduced their first truck.  In that same year, Studebaker was the absolute first U.S. Automaker to have their own test track and proving grounds and, in 1937, even went so far as to plant 5,000 trees on site that, when viewed from the air, spelled S T U D B A K E R. Since Studebaker never had unionized labor organization participation, his employees were one of the highest paid in the industry and sales of their moderately priced vehicles continued until competition made it more difficult.

In the 50’s, Ford and Chevy played mind-games with Studebaker’s bottom line by presenting better quality and lower priced vehicles against manufacturer’s like Studebaker.  It’s kind of difficult to be paying more money to their employees, manufacturing niche vehicles like the Gran Turismo Hawk, Commander and Wagonaire and, making less profit for the company.  To slow the inevitable blood draining, Studebaker sold itself to the Packard Corporation but it was only after the sale that Packard found out how badly Studebaker was bleeding.  In order to stay out of bankruptcy itself, Packard, in 1956, brought in a management team from the aircraft builder Curtis-Wright to help stabilize itself.  At the encouragement of Curtis-Wright’s president, the company became the importer for Mercedes-Benz, Auto Union and DKW automobiles in the U.S. After the union between Packard and C/W, revolutionary cars were introduced like the compact Studebaker Lark in 1959 that brought a surprising $28 million dollars in profit as well as the rakishly styled Avanti  (most left out the first word Studebaker) whose style and features created a cult following that still exists today.  With this limited success, nothing that followed came even close to helping support continued operations so, in December of 1963, the company ceased operations and eventually sold the Avanti brand to a Canadian group. A short three years later that group closed to concentrate on more profitable (non-auto) business products.

After 1966, Studebaker continued to function as a private investment group with income derived from several diversified units such as the STP Corporation (with spokesperson and racing notable, Andy Granatelli), Gravley Tractor, Onan Electric Generators and Clarke.  Eventually, and through many years and mergers, Studebakers name has disappeared from all view but its history is now part of the Federal-Mogul Company. Studebaker’s proving grounds were acquired by one of its former suppliers (The Bendix Corp.) and later donated as a park with the Indiana Parks Department under one condition.  That condition was to name the preserve park Bendix Woods.  Today the former test track is owned by the Robert Bosch GmbH Company and continues very active over 80+ years after breaking ground.