A Far Too Brief History of Studebaker-Packard

The legends of Studebaker and Packard combined for decades of glorious cars, but fell together in weakness that ultimately brought down both companies.
With rich histories that stretched back to the 1700s and 1800s, each built up a solid reputation through the decades, but after WWII each struggled to compete against the Big-3 and combined resources to try to survive.
It was a merger with disasterous consequences.

This is a far-too-brief history of Studebaker-Packard

Chapters:
Intro: 00:00
Studebaker: 01:21
Packard: 10:56
Merger: 22:55
Outro: 29:43

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[richardkoerper]

When I turned 16 my Great Aunt Betty was told to give up driving. As a result of this she gave me her 1951 Packard Clipper. This was probably my most favorite car of all time and would love to have another. Fantastic car and oddly enough made the same year I was born.

[danielhomant]

I love my big 31 Packard 8 sedan 7 passenger 833. All original with 88, 000 miles yet still road worthy.

[NelloCambelli]

My grandfather was recruited from Burroughs by Packard to own the Cleveland and eventually the Kansas City dealership. In KC he met and married my grandmother. Life continued with a retirement move to Beverly Hills for my grandmother’s health. Life continues to the formation of the neighborhood carpool. One of the families owned a “3 on the tree” 1954-56 Studebacher which you correctly described as “coming & going” — one rainy morning when the windshield became fogged a flumocked Mrs. Forgie tried to shift into gear with her daughter’s umbrella as she concurrently wiped away the fog. Then you mentioned Packard manufacture of PT/Rescue Boats — my dad was the skipper of a rescue boat at Truk & Tarawah Islands. Loved the memories trigger from this and the Checker history. Thanks.

[petervitti]

My grandpa came to America in 1920 from Italy. He was a machinist at Packard for 35 years retiring in 1955. My dad worked as a college summer student as a safety officer in the late forties. My dad used to say open fires were a real big problem at the Detroit factory throughout the plant.

[ReallyLee]

Thanks for the sympathetic retelling of the decline of Studebaker.
After the end of WWII my dad (John C. McKusick) started a machine shop in Los Angeles. He bought a Studebaker because the big three car dealers attempting to do sleazy sales tricks. Starting with a 51 Studebaker V-8 he developed engine modifications and a dual carburetor intake manifold. The products were named Stu-V speed equipment. He went drag racing and did quite well. He built a 1953 coupe and did time trials at the Dry Lakes. Raymond Lowey had him breathe on his personal 53 coupe before he took it to Europe.
My dad bought a 1960 Lark with all the police equipment and a slightly low ratio rear axle. Few cars could beat it through a stoplight intersection. My dad and my brother built an engine and took the car to Bonneville in 1961. The class record was about 152 mph.I think it was 232 cubic inches. My brother welded up a dual 4 barrel carburetor ram manifold, with a Racer Brown roller cam. Driving up to Bonneville, our 1951 3 speed overdrive V8 tool car rolled 100 miles per hour all night long keeping up with the Lark. The Studebaker had a manual spark advance and after the first trial run, the car had a turned connecting rod insert. While grinding the crank, I peered into a neighboring shed and saw Mickey Thompson's 4 engine streamliner.
After my dad died, I inherited the Lark (with it's original 289 engine). I sold the Lark to a collector about 20 years ago who was told me the crankshaft in the 289 engine had been ground. A weakness in Studebakers was you needed to watch the crankcase oil. My sister had driven the car low on oil. She turned an insert too. She was a busy single mother of two kids, too bad the Studebaker had that Achilles heel.

[allenwiddows]

My mother owned a two-tone blue 1957 Studebaker Champion, which I remember riding around in as a kid. She reluctantly sold it in the mid-60s because mechanics couldn’t find parts for it, except at salvage yards. She loved that car and travelled everywhere in it. She got fairly good gas mileage with it as it had a 3-speed manual transmission with an overdrive gear that was engaged with the accelerator pedal. It also had an anti-roll feature that kept the car from rolling backwards on a hill when trying to accelerate and engage 1st gear on a hill.

[carlmontney]

First Time stopping by your channel. I really like this video. It's very informative and very well done. Very well presented. My grandfather owned a 28 Studebaker. When he got married in Michigan he wanted to take his wife on a honeymoon so they decided to drive to San Diego, California in his Studebaker. Reading his diary of the trip is like stepping back in time. He loved that Studebaker and it would go anywhere and do anything. He used it in his fields to pull stumps and just about anything else around his farm that needed to be done. To him. That car did double duty as a tractor.

Well on his trip to California he was in the Great plains somewhere and he pulled up and there was a big long line of cars stopped and he walked up there to see what was going on and saw that there was a bridge that had been washed out in the water was rushing through and nobody wanted to cross. My grandfather walked back to the Studebaker and he says in his diary that he had forded streams and rivers in Michigan that looked way worse than what he saw there. He got back to the car and told his new wife. We're going around these cars and we're going to go over that wash where the bridge is gone and be on our way.

That is exactly what he did. He got in that Studebaker and people were telling them don't go through there. Nothing can get through there. He says in his diary that he looked at them and said my Studebaker will go anywhere. Then he proceeded to drive right on through. When some of the other motorists saw him do that they decided to follow him through and he plowed the way.

He talked about driving from Yuma Arizona to San Diego, California on the original plank road that ran through the sand dunes just outside of Yuma. He stopped for gas and a guy at the station told him you can't go on that plank road with those gum rubber tires because the metal strips they used to hold the planks together will get so hot from the sun that they will melt the gum rubber tires. So he had to change the tires out to keep him getting a flat due to that. He did make it to California, San Diego, La Jolla and had a very good honeymoon and then turned around and drove back to Michigan. Later on my uncle had a 57 Studebaker golden hawk and that thing was an awesome car. As a young boy I thought It looked really cool, sounded really good, and it was way fast.

[rossawood]

My father now 99 years of age rode in his fathers1928 Sudebaker, ( the family car) in Dunedin, New Zealand around 1932 -1938, it was a soft top and right hand drive. It survived many of the rudimentary dirt Central Otago roads of the day.

[Emslander]

My great uncle worked for studebaker in South Bend until about 1950. The only cars he ever owned until he died in 1967 were Studebakers. He loved them. They were a quirky car for the era, but previewed the compact car market by twenty years.

[dorklyasmr]

My dad bought a 62 Avanti and picked it up right from the factory in South Bend. He drove about 30 miles on his way to Vancouver, Washington and the thing overheated. He literally called the factory (it was a saturday) and got one of the engineers on the phone and the guy drove out to help. Apparently a screw was cross threaded so he cobbled together a fix and they both drove back to the factory in matching Avantis; where it was appropriately repaired. One thing to mention is that the Avanti was absolutely shockingly fast. One went 175 MPH at Bonneville. You know what the fastest production car in the world was in 1975? A 1962 Studebaker Avanti. It wasn't until some Ferrari beat it in the mid-70s that I think something beat it.
Though I personally would have been terrified going over 100 on those early 1960's tires.

[bjepper]

The packard name was dropped after 1962. Studekaker decided it was a hindrance to its future. Thank you for doing this video.

[netdog]

I used to work at the proving grounds when it was owned by Allied Signal. After Studebaker, Bendix, took it over, then Allied Signal, then BOSCH, and now it's being operated by Navistar. I grew up in South Bend and our neighbor was retired from Studebaker and had a mint Lark. He even had clear plastic over the upholstery to keep it pristine.

[BruceFJRay]

Thank you for this most interesting and enlightening video. Covering true American Auto industry history. I'm an old 'Geezer Gearhead'. I had the pleasure and honor of driving a 1931, dual cowl Packard phaeton to an auto show in Hawthorne, NJ. for the owner. A gentleman by the name of Mr. Bill Morgan. I clearly remember that the engine was so quiet, I could'nt tell if it was running or not. What a thrill for a young guy in his early twenties.

[leonardgordon]

Excellent video showing the history of these companies and their unfortunate end. I remember as a kid watching Cadillac commercials where they would show early Cadillacs with the tag line some day you always knew you would own a Cadillac. My Dad would always come back with some day I knew I would own a Packard. What an unfortunate end to a once class leading US auto manufacturer. Thank you again 😊🏎

[jeffking]

I’m old enough to remember Studebaker, and Packard.
As a kid, there were neighbors that had Studebakers. This includes a 1966 model [ with its unique grill.].
And neighbors, had 55 Buick, a 56 Cadillac, and a 1955 Packard., an absolutely ‘Drop-Dead-gorgeous’ tri-color 2 door. And I actually saw a 1958 Packard Wagon - a VERY rare car. This was in the 1960’s.
🚗🙂

[nickphillips]

Growing up during the '50s, I remember both Packard, Studebaker and Nash very well. In the early to mid '60s, a friend's family had a Studebaker with a pushbutton transmission that I drove on occasion

[donhotrod]

Neighbor kid was spoiled rotten so his Mom and step dad bought him a new 63 Hawk. Black with a red interior and 4 speed on the floor. Soon after he got it he stopped by me waiting for the school bus. "Want a ride to school?" That was the quickest ride to school ever. Love the hawk. Please consider doing the history of JI Case cars, the 1st company to enter the Indy 500 and sit on the pole position.

[suziepismo]

Thank you so much for putting this together for us, Very well done! May add a bit of personal touches here? My grandfather and father both worked at the Stude plant in South Bend. Grandpa started there during WWII, Dad worked there for a brief time before the Korean war broke out. Grandpa last worked in engine assembly, balancing crankshafts on the V-8 cars. He had stories to tell about almost all the others in his section doing just the minimum amount of units their contract required, then playing cards in a corner for a while . The managers were afraid to say anything, and the union protected them. This, of course, affected productivity numbers.
Also, when the plant closed and all but a few employees lost their jobs, it was discovered that the pension fund for employees had been used by management to try to keep the company afloat. Even the union bosses knew this, and allowed it to happen. Some of them, along with a handful of executives, were able to get a severance or pension from the company. Grandpa was kept on for a few weeks to finish building some engines, as the Ontario plant was not tooled yet for those engines. When Grandpa was let go, all the "good" jobs that may have been available there in South Bend were filled.
I can remember as a child, seeing all those Studebaker larks still on the roads there in South Bend with the rotting, rusted out front quarter panels below the cowls from the salted roads in the winter

[ronwinkles]

Packard was very innovative with their self leveling system, automatic door locks and their famous fully synchronized three speed manual transmission. The rarest of all their models was the 1956 Carribean two door hardtop. with only one year of production. Their overhead valve V-8 was built for the new Eisenhower interstate system and it obtained optimum mileage while cruising at 70 MPH.

[Doctor_Robert]

11:39 I find it hilarious and also extremely handy that there's an 1899 Winton and 1899 Packard right next to each other in Harrah's Car Museum in Reno, Nevada. The similarities are... striking.

(Same can be said about the 1903 Cadillac and 1903 Ford, but that's a different matter)