Automobile Classics

1954 Chevrolet Corvette



1964 Ford Mustang

1964 Studebaker Avanti



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnynfKKwE3Y

1974 Toyota Corolla

The road not taken.

The 1966 Studebaker Lark.



Studebaker, downsized from 1964 by centralizing manufacturing in Hamilton, Ontario...was finally making money, on a small scale.

But the Studebaker board of directors didn't want to bother with the coming 1968 (new) Federal safety and emissions standards.  Studebaker was, by this time, diversified - they owned Gravely Tractors, Onan, STP, ALCO locomotives.  They wanted out of the car business.

The final general manager, Gordon Grundy, believed in his business.  Seeing that the Board was hell-bent on closing auto operations, he got both Daimler-Benz and Nissan of Japan, interested in buying the name, the plant, the designs, and expanding them.  Both were growing companies, especially Nissan, which had elaborate plans - the 240Z was about to be released, along with new American-based car models.

Studebaker CEO Byers Burlingame (sounds a bit like Thurston Howell III) said, no sale.  We close it down.

And so it was.  March 1966, America's oldest carmaker, and by then Canada's only fully-operational car factory (not just a plant to assemble American parts)...was closed.