Re: One Story Assembly Plant What If?

Posted by 58L8134 On 2014/6/10 12:32:35

Hi Steve203

"like making love to a porcupine" What a prefect descriptions of everything to do with Studebaker all the way around!

You are right that as long as any manufacturing operations were kept at South Bend, the UAW Local 5 would have been an ongoing problem. Had Packard waited for the inevitable Studebaker bankruptcy before buying them out, it would have been in a much better position to clear away much of the baggage the made doing business there such a problem. Keeping the customer faith that Studebakers were still going to be produced, not become an orphan, would have been the trick. On the stampings, I recall reading that Studebaker relied on Budd to do a good deal of that work, as well as some in-house.

Moving the Studebaker truck production to Hamilton would have been one escape route, though engine availability still problematic. I've considered whether with Packard completely in control after dissolving the Studebaker board and aggressively integrating operation, if IH might have been contracted to badge-engineer/restyle their trucks as Studebakers. Though Studebaker trucks were well accepted in rural areas, they still held a small portion of the total truck market.

The Hawk line had the potential to tap the emerging sport- personal luxury coupe segment that Ford would soon exploit with the four passenger Thunderbird. Producing those at Hamilton might have been an option. With a degree of chassis refinement, fitted with Packard V8's and Ultramatics, they might have carved a nice niche volume and become an image builder as well.

Of the plant situation analysis, the main thing that comes through is how much the way cars were built changed in the thirty years from the '20's to the '50's. The strongest players didn't hold onto old plants when newer layouts developed, didn't keep retrofitting obsolete plants. One supposes it was just intracted ways of doing business that kept the smaller independents from moving with the times, as in "its worked up to now, why change?" Plowing profits back into the business might not have been as good for the share price in the short term, but was beneficial long term.

Steve