Hour Studebaker

"Berang" (berang) 08/03/2015 at 04:39 • Filed to: None

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I think the 1959-1961 Lark was the best looking of the late Studebakers. Perhaps even one of the nicest styled American cars of its era. Discuss.

Studebaker’s 1959 Lark was an amazing last ditch effort to keep the troubled company afloat. Studebaker had merged with Packard a few years earlier and that had gone tremendously wrong for both companies. By 1957 Studebaker was in big trouble and they decided to try something desperate. Nash was planning to revive their compact Rambler - and 1958 sales of that car showed that there was more room in the market for another American compact.

What was Studebaker to do? They had no money for an all new car. So they chopped off almost all of the front and rear overhang of their medium sized chassis, slightly shortened the wheelbase, moved the engine back a few inches - and reused the tooling for the middle of the car - et voila! A compact! A compact which had as much interior room as typical American boat of the era, with the same ride, but with slightly easier handling due to the relocated engine and far more maneuverability (and visibility) because of the lack of overhang front and rear.

It was a huge success for Studebaker - but unfortunately not a big enough success that they could afford to design an all new replacement - or even tooling for an all new body. They tweaked and facelifted the lark’s styling with new grilles and taillights until the bitter end in 1966. As the story goes the Canadian factory asked for a small budget to do another tweak on the car for 1967, but was told there’d be no 1967 cars - and that was that. Studebaker as a car company was history.

kanadanmajava1 > Berang 08/03/2015 at 05:01

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But they didn’t look very modern and it was pretty important in those times. In those times cars had to look long and fast to attract buyers. In the last year it had to compete with these.

Berang > kanadanmajava1 08/03/2015 at 05:13

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When it came out in 1959 it was actually extremely modern stylistically. It kicked off the fender crease trend that was continued by the Corvair in 1960:

And later by BMW too:

(although BMW extended the crease all the way around the hood)

And while most companies were still putting big fins on their cars for 1959 - Studebaker didn’t, by 1961 fins were on their way out across the whole industry.