Meet Lark, your personal weight loss coach. Get unlimited personal guidance and support anytime and anywhere. Lark Voorhies est une actrice am Lark and Super Lark: The Last Days of Studebaker. By 1. 96. 3, Studebaker was already doomed, but its dynamic president, Sherwood Egbert, was not yet ready to admit defeat. Not only did he launch the sporty Avanti, he hired Andy Granatelli to develop a series of hot engines that transformed the humble compact Studebaker Lark into a ferocious — and unlikely — performance car. This is the story of the Lark and Super Lark. FALSE DAWNStudebaker has a venerable history: The Studebaker brothers of South Bend, Indiana, began manufacturing wagons in 1. Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company sold its first cars in 1. In 1. 91. 0, the company bought out Detroit automaker Everitt- Metzger- Flanders (E- M- F), reorganizing the following year as the Studebaker Corporation. Although Studebaker was now firmly in the automobile business, they still produced horse- drawn wagons until after World War I. Like most automakers, Studebaker fell on hard times during the Great Depression, leading to bankruptcy in 1. Lark International Liaisons Office of Europe was founded in 1999 in Turkey. Many multinational company like Coca-Cola, Loreal, P&G, Kellogs, Danone, Unilever are our clients. Lark Street (BID) Business Improvement District Albany, NY. Lark Street is known as the vibrant heart of Albany, the Capital of New York State. Across 10 blocks of the District, many unique and exciting businesses line our. Lark Voorhies (born March 25, 1974) is an American actress who rose to fame playing Lisa Turtle on the NBC sitcom Saved by the Bell from 1989 until 1993. She was nominated for the Young Artist Award six times, winning in 1990. Albert Erskine. Erskine’s lieutenants Paul Hoffman and Harold Vance managed to revive the company by the late thirties, thanks in large part to the very successful 1. Studebaker Champion. Virgil Exner Sr. He presented the design to the client without Loewy’s approval. When Loewy found out, he immediately fired Exner, who promptly went to work for Studebaker directly. The Starlight models, with their unique wraparound backlight, inspired many jokes, but they were very popular. Under the leadership of Harold Vance, the company had its best- ever sales years in 1. Between 1. 94. 7 and 1. Vance managed to double Studebaker’s gross sales and earn profits totaling $1. Studebaker had a modern V8 engine and automatic transmission in 1. Starlight and Starliner coupes, styled by the design firm of Raymond Loewy. Even then, dark clouds were settling in. Studebaker remained undercapitalized and its South Bend factory had been obsolescent even before the war. The company had avoided most the strikes that had often paralyzed other automakers, but its labor costs per car were higher than any rival. Studebaker cars were not exactly over- engineered, but the company spent some 2. Chevrolet. With its higher costs, Studebaker was particularly vulnerable to the vicious price war between Ford and Chevrolet between 1. Determined to claim the No. Ford and Chevrolet each stepped up production, which led dealers to slash prices — and margins — to the bone just to move the metal. Since Studebaker’s margins were already slimmer than Chevrolet’s or Ford’s, Studebaker could not afford to keep up and its sales plummeted. By early 1. 95. 3, Studebaker was losing $2. THE PACKARD MERGERLuxury automaker Packard was also on the skids in the early fifties. The price war had affected Packard almost as badly as it had Studebaker and Hudson and its old rival Cadillac had eclipsed it in sales and prestige. While it had previously been the most elite of American automakers, by 1. Packard was looking old- fashioned. Packard management felt that what the company needed was volume. Since the advent of the One- Twenty in 1. Packard had moved into the near- luxury class then dominated by Buick, but at the cost of much of its former prestige, something new Packard president James Nance was eager to rectify. Although Studebaker had higher volume, a bigger dealer network, and a lower price point than Packard did, the South Bend firm was not Nance’s first choice. Nance preferred was Kenosha, Wisconsin’s Nash Motors, whose president, George W. Mason, been proposing a merger of the independents since 1. Nance’s predecessor, Hugh Ferry, had begun negotiations with Mason to create such an alliance, which they hoped would eventually include Packard, Nash, Studebaker, and Hudson. In January 1. 95. Nash and Hudson agreed to merge, reforming as the American Motors Corporation in May. For a time, it seemed that Packard might join them, but its board was wary of AMC, recognizing that the new company would end the year deep in the red. In February, the Packard board refused to even hear George Mason’s merger proposal, opting instead to pursue a merger with Studebaker, independent of AMC. By September, the Packard and Studebaker boards had approved the formation of a new Studebaker- Packard corporation effective October 1. Jim Nance became president of the merged company, with former Studebaker president Paul Hoffman becoming chairman of the new board of directors. Nine days later, George Mason died, leaving his vice president, George Romney, as the president of AMC. Romney and Nance were both relatively young and very ambitious and it quickly became clear that they could not coexist happily. By mid- October, Romney was telling the press that there would be no Studebaker- Packard/AMC merger. The Studebaker- Packard marriage almost immediately turned sour. In their eagerness, Packard had not requested an independent audit of Studebaker’s books, which proved to be a grievous mistake. Shortly after the merger, Packard finance VP Walter Grant determined that Studebaker’s financial position was far more precarious than they had assumed. Grant estimated Studebaker’s break- even production level not at 1. Studebaker had only reached at its 1. Studebaker fell well short of even the lower figure for 1. That depressing revelation might have given Packard grounds to dissolve the deal (or perhaps even file a false conveyance suit), but by that point, Packard’s own financial situation was precarious and the Packard board believed that the partnership with Studebaker was their only hope for survival. They decided to stay the course. Even with substantial combined tax credits, Studebaker- Packard lost $2. Nance and Hoffman initiated a painful cost- cutting program, which included the termination of Raymond Loewy’s consulting agreement and the hiring of Lincoln- Mercury designer Bill Schmidt as VP of styling and Ford designer Duncan Mc. Rae as Studebaker chief- stylist. Nance and Hoffman also negotiated a new UAW contract, the bitter negotiations for which led to Studebaker’s first really protracted strike. All these moves failed to stem Studebaker- Packard’s losses, which totaled $2. CURTISS- WRIGHTNance had high hopes for an all- new body planned for the 1. Studebakers and Packards. Unfortunately, the company didn’t have the $5. Two different management consulting firms looked at the Studebaker- Packard’s financial situation and recommended liquidation. Increasingly desperate, Nance turned to the aviation company Curtiss- Wright, which was then earning formidable profits from its defense contracts. Curtiss- Wright chairman Roy Hurley (a former Ford manufacturing executive) was not interested in a merger, but floated the idea of a management agreement. Hurley offered Studebaker- Packard $1. Studebaker’s remaining defense contracts and $2. Michigan and Indiana as well as a three- year agreement for him to manage Studebaker- Packard’s business. In exchange, Curtiss- Wright would receive options to purchase 4. Studebaker- Packard’s stock for around $4. It was not a particularly attractive deal for Studebaker- Packard, but Nance had no choice. The company’s 1. 95. With Hurley’s help, Nance had to tap the last $1. Packard’s revolving credit lines just to keep the doors open during the negotiations. The Studebaker- Packard board signed the deal in July 1. Nance resigned as soon as the deal was signed, joining Ford Motor Company that fall; Paul Hoffman also departed. Hurley named chief engineer Harold Churchill as president with Eugene Hardig taking Churchill’s place as engineering chief. Packard’s fate was sealed as soon as Nance departed. In retrospect, it probably would have been the easier of the two brands to salvage, but Hurley and the board were counting on Studebaker’s ostensibly greater volume and Packard had lost its engine and transmission plant in the Curtiss- Wright deal. Packard endured two final, ignominious model years as an over- decorated Studebaker and then disappeared for good. The Packard Hawk was a rehash of the Studebaker Golden Hawk, inspired — if we may call it that — by the contemporary Maserati 3. GT. Duncan Mc. Rae originally designed this car as a one- off for Curtiss- Wright president Roy Hurley, but it was eventually pressed into service as a Packard. Fewer than 6. 00 were sold before the curtain came down. Interestingly, the Hawk also had a Mc. Culloch- supercharged Studebaker 2. With a two- barrel Stromberg carburetor and slightly less boost than the later R2 (5 psi/0. W). Studebaker’s volume, meanwhile, was sinking rapidly. Its 1. 95. 8 sales were less than 6. Studebaker- Packard lost $2. Studebaker’s major problem, aside from an understandable shortage of public confidence, was that all designers Duncan Mc. Crae and Vince Gardner could afford were increasingly desperate rehashes of the 1. It was no longer selling, but Studebaker- Packard could not afford to replace it. The only upside during this period was that Studebaker- Packard negotiated a deal to become the new U. S. There was little financial benefit, since Studebaker- Packard had no real idea how to sell Mercedes cars, but it would prove fortuitous. THE STUDEBAKER LARKIn 1. AMC chairman George Romney abandoned the Nash and Hudson brands in favor of the compact Rambler. That fall, with the country slipping into recession, sales of the 1. Ramblers picked up sharply even as most other car lines took a bath. The market was suddenly shifting toward compacts and economy cars. Many of Studebaker’s 1. Using scrap material, Gene Hardig quickly slapped together a crude prototype of a compact sedan — essentially a 1. Champion body shorn of more than two feet (7. The wheelbase was trimmed to 1. To complete the picture, Hardig added a wraparound windshield from the 1. It was an improvisation, but a clever one, producible at very low cost. Churchill persuaded the board to approve this new compact for the 1. It was a big gamble: Other than the Studebaker Hawk coupe (itself a derivative of the 1.
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