Weirdly True History: From 1958-1963 The Only Place To Buy A Mercedes Was A Studebaker-Packard Dealership

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When looking back over the history of cars in America, there are lots of neat stories where companies or people become odd bedfellows. There’s the story of Henry Ford’s role in the creation of Cadillac, the Chevrolet brothers dedication to building speed parts for Ford engines, and this one about how Mercedes first got their […]

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[studemax]

You want weird from Studebaker? How about this?

They turned down a chance to buy Ford at the end of WWII. The gubmint asked them to, and even offered to loan the money. Studebaker passed on a great opportunity.

In 1949 Volkswagen was looking for distributors, and asked Studebaker to be US dealers. They passed.

In the late 50's, Datsun asked Studebaker to be distributors and US dealers. They passed. Datsun even offered to build the plants in Canada and badge them as Studebakers. Studebaker passed again. The Canadians were furious.

Did you know Studebaker was the only modern automaker with a union contract per piece, instead of per hour? The workers would run their quota for the day, and then sit down to read the paper or play checkers until quitting time.

Studebaker had great engineering, and produced some fantastic vehicles - but their management decisions were STOOOOOPID.