Now There Are Four - Time Magazine - Studebaker

An interesting article about the demise of US Studebaker manufacturing from 1963.

"Studebaker Corp. announced that it was dropping auto production in the U.S.—111 years after its founding as a carriage maker and 61 since it turned out its first auto."

"What happened to Studebaker? South Bend was too remote from Detroit to enable the company to move quickly with all the industry's new trends, and Studebaker's ancient plant there was hopelessly inefficient. The company's dealer organization was too small, haphazard and ineffectual. Efforts to revitalize the company were snarled by lack of cash and a series of incredible production snafus."

"Studebaker may be largely out of autos, but it is by no means out of business. Under Egbert's direction, Studebaker picked up so many new companies (appliances, chemicals, superchargers) that half of its $400 million sales this year came from nonautomotive divisions. These divisions earned $12 million—though the company will end the year heavily in the red because of auto losses and the cost of closing the South Bend plant. Freed from its auto losses and armed with a healthy tax write-off, Studebaker says that it expects to make an overall profit next year."

Read the complete Time Magazine article from 1963 here.