NO MORE STUDEBAKERS

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31006, 11 March 1966, Page 9

NO MORE STUDEBAKERS

THE Studebaker CorporaA tion has written a reluctant finish to its 64-year career in the automobile manufacturing business, the Associ-

ated Press reports from Detroit.

A statement by the company president, Mr B. Burlingame said: “While I sincerely regret the necessity of discontinuing Studebaker cars the irreversible losses being incurred permit no other course.”

Sales by the company, which reached 268,229 in 1950, have gone steadily downhill. Fewer than 19,000 Studebakers were sold last year. The firm made several drastic moves in recent years trying to keep the automotive division alive. All failed. One was the move in December, 1963, of Studebaker’s ear-building operations from South Bend, Indiana, to Hamilton, Ontario. The theory was that the Hamilton subsidiary plant was more modern and economical than the old plant at South Bend and that Canadian wages were lower than those in the United States. In another move, Studebaker continually reduced its car offerings and in the 1966 line offered only 10 models. The company recently concentrated on a campaign to provide conservative, economical transportation. But tills

campaign also failed to gain strength in the market. Studebaker, founded in 1852, won its first national recognition as a maker of waggon wheels, particularly the type used by the Union Army in the Civil War.

It built military vehicles in both world wars.