Studebaker Tuesday

First, and I don’t care about protocol or whether this sounds like whining, I am very disappointed at the number of page views for yesterday’s post. It was only a third of the average for the first 27 days of the month and that average was suppressed because I didn’t post every day like I usually do. The number of views was also a small fraction of those who have signed up to follow the blog every day. Yes, people don’t have to click on the link they receive to read the post. Yes, the post was long and had some non-automotive content. On the other hand…

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Talk about clickbait…a link to this article was sent to my email from one of the many auto websites to which I subscribe. I was all excited about the title suggesting that a Studebaker car might be reborn. Then I saw the date…February 3, 2012! That article is why today’s post is called Studebaker Tuesday.

I did some investigating and found this link to Studebaker Motor Company in Arvada, Colorado. The first thing I noticed was the beautiful new logo, which I can’t seem to copy and paste here so you’ll have to go to the link.

From the Overview section I found this comment from company leader Ric Reed to be spot on: “Building a passenger vehicle business is a huge project which takes vision, planning, time, focus, money and luck.” Once again, I reject the notion that one “makes their own luck.” Luck, by definition, is exogenous.

Almost 30 years ago a baseball team with the first pick in the upcoming draft of amateur players was obsessed with a high school pitcher from Texas. This pitcher insisted he would not turn pro, certainly not with this team, and would pitch at the University of Texas. Reluctantly this team took their backup choice. You may have heard of him; his name is Larry Wayne “Chipper” Jones. The high school pitcher was Todd Van Poppel who was selected later in the first round, did sign and was not really a successful pitcher. The team drafting Jones was, of course, the Atlanta Braves. One has to acknowledge the role that luck played in Jones ending up with the Braves.

Studebaker made some bad decisions; e.g. building too many sedans and not enough coupes for the new model rollout in 1953. However, luck or lack thereof played a role in the company’s demise.

 

From autoblog.com a picture of a Studebaker Avanti. I am a huge fan of the Avanti.

 

From conceptcarz.com a picture of a Studebaker Commander Starliner coupe. I believe that 56packardman thinks this is the most beautiful car ever made. It certainly is far closer to the top than to the bottom, in my opinion.

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever, its loveliness increases. It will never pass into nothingness…”

– John Keats

I hope Studebaker Motor Company is successful, but I’m not holding my breath or I’d probably suffocate.

 

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