Coming or Going, Studebaker Sold Style to a Postwar Generation

THE military victories of 1945 that ended World War II were also a starting gun for the American auto industry, setting off a scramble to resume production of civilian vehicles. New cars had not been available for years, and with a stream of G.I.'s returning from overseas, automakers sensed a sales boom in the making.

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Like most American industries, car companies had focused on supporting the war effort, making not only the jeeps and trucks that their factories could readily build, but also huge, complex machines - tanks and bombers - that required major plant overhauls. Eager to restart assembly lines as quickly as possible, automakers rushed modestly freshened versions of their 1942 cars into showrooms as '46 models while the styling departments went to work on all-new designs.

"First by far with a postwar car" was Studebaker's advertising line when it introduced its 1947 models. The innovative company beat its competitors with cars that were a stark departure from the upright designs of pre-Pearl Harbor days.

The corporate roots of Studebaker, which run deep in South Bend, Ind., were established decades before its competitors. Its predecessors included Studebaker Brothers, a maker of the Conestoga wagons used to settle the American West. Studebaker celebrated its 100th birthday in 1952, and its design influence is felt even four decades after it stopped making cars.

With capricious management, a disastrous merger and an overly ambitious appetite for acquiring other companies, it seems something of a miracle that Studebaker managed to survive into the 1960s as an automobile producer. Unable to compete on cost with the so-called low-price three - Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth - the company stayed afloat building cars that were among the most beautiful and functional of their day. It also, before its demise in 1966, made some of the most ungainly and controversial automobiles of the mid-20th century.

Studebaker resumed production at the end of the war with the 1946 Skyway Champion, a slight revision of a prewar model. That all changed in 1947, when the Champion and Commander lines were redesigned with new bodies, giving Studebaker a marketing jump on Detroit's Big Three automakers.

Auto design in the immediate postwar era was strongly influenced by the streamlined shapes of fighter planes and bombers. Studebaker pointed the way with design cues like bullet-nose front ends (a shape meant to suggest aircraft engine housings), gun-sight hood ornaments and the wraparound rear windows of the 1947-52 Starlight coupe. The windows, along with other details, make the car's front and rear ends look so similar that it was often called the "coming or going Studebaker."

The company hired some of the best design talent available, including famed industrial designers like Raymond Loewy and Brooks Stevens. Loewy, who had designed many prewar Studebakers, solidified the relationship with his execution of the Starliner and Starlight of 1953-54. Among the cleanest designs in a period known for garish chrome and soaring tailfins, these cars are known today as "Loewy coupes."

Not that all Studebakers displayed such restraint: in 1955, the President Speedster, a European-influenced design based on the Loewy coupes, arrived with an extra helping of chrome and a distinctive interior featuring diamond-pleated vinyl upholstery and an instrument panel finished in the swirls of engine-turned metal. According to the Cars of Particular Interest price guide, a Speedster in excellent condition is worth slightly more than ,000.

The Hawk series was introduced in 1956, yet another variant on the Loewy coupe. Lasting until 1964, the Hawk was refreshed on a yearly basis like most domestic cars of the '50s. They also varied in name and trim level - Golden Hawk, Sky Hawk, Flight Hawk, Silver Hawk, Power Hawk and finally, the Gran Turismo Hawk - throughout the eight-year run.

Though a 1954 merger with Packard ultimately soured, the newly formed Studebaker-Packard Corporation, lacking money for new production tooling, managed to keep the basic Hawk body shell fresh with styling tricks. Studebaker even added tailfins to the previously understated Hawks, bolting them on top of the existing fenders.

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