Quote:
johntrhodes81 wrote:
With the SP merger in 54 it seems to me that the new 1955 stude president should never have been built but the clipper line should have been studes with a stude 289 v8 for base models and packard 320 v8 for the deluxe models. Packard could have had a 1955 executive and had 2 versions of the senior small and large v8. All built at EGB. Then get the stude champion commander conestoga and pickup production to EGB as soon as possible. South bend is contract work or sold.
Even better Packard could have bought the Studebaker name inventory tooling and dealer network and not the factory or company.
Looking at the amount of design changes in studes between 1954 and 1957 seems that stude got the money not packard. Seems this money might have been better spent to merge the production of cars to produce economies of scale instead of running 2 seperate companies.
John
The problem with that plan is that, by the mid 50s, Studebakers were small, cheap, noisy, ill handling cars. I saw a pic on a Studebaker FB group recently tha showed s 53-55 Studie parked next to a 55 Plymouth, and the Plymouth dwarfed the Studie. Selling a tarted up Studie as a Clipper, as they did in 57-58 and selling it in the midmarket segment Nance wanted to, would have been a stretch.
I doubt E Grand could have handled Studebaker volume. Studie and Packard together would have been over 200,000/yr, a level that I don't recall E Grand ever hitting in it's history.
Packard buying Studebaker out of bankruptcy would have dodged the Studebaker labor contract issues, but buying Studie out of bankruptcy would have required cash, which Packard didn't have. They did the merger with stock, so the major cash expense was only the banker's fees.
As for all the Studie styling changes, they were only refreshes. The 1953 model carried on through the first generation Lark, with only changes to the front and rear external sheetmetal. The 1953 frame carried on, with assorted lenthening and shortening, to the end of the company. Look in a 66 Studebaker and you see a flat floor with very low seats, due to the ancient frame under it that didn't allow for footwells.
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