Tops or Flops cars

[6hk71400]

I owned a K car Plymouth wagon (used) when my family was small. We packed up the kids and went to Estes Park for the International meet then drove across Wyoming to Salt Lake City then to Clarkdale, AZ then home. Loaded, freeway driving it got 28-32 mpg depending on headwind/ tailwind in Wyoming. Decent little car that saved Mopar as most of the offerings from 70-80 Mopar in my opinion were dismal (Volare anyone). As my family was growing, we traded it in on a new Aerostar. Only good for 57,000 when the A/C went out at the Las Vegas International meet and my "extended warranty" was only good at the dealership I bought it. At 3:00 am in Las Vegas, it was 103 degrees. When the head gaskets blew they were fixed then I got rid of it.
The advenventure continues: Bought a Buick Roadmaster 92 model in mid summer 91. It was so bad I wanted to get a bumper sticker to put on the car that said: "The parts falling off this car are of the finest quality" In 1996, got a Plymouth Voyager, 2003 Pt Cruiser, and 2012 Dodge Caravan, that my estranged wife has. All good if not dull cars although the PT is one car we agreed on. Probably the only thing we agreed on for 17 years.

Bob Miles

[Dwight FitzSimons]

It looked like nothing else on the road either. It would have done well had there been stock available at local dealerships. It got rushed into production too soon, too fast, which caused tons of supply problems. There actually was a waiting list for them when they were first announced.

Craig

Yep, I agree with all these points. It would be nice to have about twice as many Studebaker Avantis today (if production problems had been ironed out very quickly).
-Dwight

[8E45E]

I think that, objectively, the Avanti was a big failure for Studebaker. It looked nothing like the Larks.

It looked like nothing else on the road either. It would have done well had their been stock available at local dealerships. It got rushed into production too soon, too fast which caused tons of supply problems. There actually was a waiting list for them when they were first announced.

Craig

[Dwight FitzSimons]

A handful of 1955 Speedsters were built for car shows and were a hit. So, Studebaker built 2215 (?) of them. I'm not surprised that a few were unsold at the end of the model year. It was an expensive car (for a Studebaker) and a specialty car.

Even though I have two 1964 Avantis and love them, I think that, objectively, the Avanti was a big failure for Studebaker. It looked nothing like the Larks. An Avanti buyer was not a Lark buyer, and vice versa. So, it didn't increase Lark sales. Sales in 1963 went down, perhaps primarily due to increased competition from the big 3 and AMC.

Avantis don't have Flightomatic transmissions, they have the Powershift transmission. It gets to be second nature to start off with the Powershift in 1st, then manually shift to drive. Why Studebaker thought their automatics should start in second I'll never understand. Too much fuddy-duddy economy thinking maybe on the part of top management. The Powershift, at least, should have started in 1st gear (in drive).

I've never floored the throttle in a Powershift-equipped Stude, so don't know whether it's supposed to downshift or not. One doesn't need to do that. A V8 equipped Stude has enough power to pull any hill around here or to pass.

-Dwight

[6hk71400]

Looking back through rose tinted glasses, our favorite marque had a few misses. First, all sorts of automagazines laud the 1955 Speedster "whose success brought on the Hawk line" Success? Well if you count approximately 2,500 car made a success, then Studebaker should still be arround. I remember on an old post there was a picture of several left over 1955 Speedsters in March of 1956. So the myth is perpetuated. I owned as my first car a Vernon built 1955 overdrive equiped Speedster but it was always needing something as the car was 13 years old when I got it. As far as numbers go, the 1958 Scotsman was the highest number of models produced in 1958.

The 1963 Avanti was supposed to increase the image of the 1963 line with a "halo" car to bring the people into the show room. 1963 total production with all three lines was lower than 1962 with only two lines of cars. Having never owned an Avanti (but wanting to own one) I have heard that they need a bit more sorting out and maintenance that the average Studebaker. An R1 with a Flightomatic in normal start, from what I have been told, does not move the car out until you have around 3,000 rpm. I did drive an R1 once and maybe the Flightomatic was not adjusted but it did not downshift to low when I applied the throttle. They still look great though.

Bob Miles

[firestoper 25]

Or it could be that I'm just an irascible old cuss with a fuzzed up memory

[PackardV8]

so now we are without any Saturn's.....we both miss the rugged, fun to drive Saturn's. . . .
I have a different take on the Saturn brand..........I have filled out the picture with local color.....pontificated on what happened to GM and the sad endings on a Saturn brand.

For true, it's always educational to see another's take on something one has seen but has scant first hand experience. The few times I drove Saturns, they seemed lackluster; nothing I'd ever consider owning. That after so many years and so many miles, you still have affection for Saturn means I missed something there.

jack vines

[firestoper 25]

Ref post # 40

Craig, thanks for the Fiero comment , one of my daily driver choices is my 1988 Fiero Formula. They only made about 5,500 of them, we Fiero folks LIKE to irritate the Corvette crowd by inferring GM had to kill the Fiero line because we were getting too close to the vette performance with a woman's commuter car's price.

The only problem with my Fiero is it is an automatic & air conditioned ......so the wife loves to drive it

This is a side note....as to my auto brand choices (), My 88 Fiero has the rear license plate surround from SI that says "My other car is a Studebaker". So as I was walking back to my Fiero with my purchases from Menard's I noticed a dad pointing out my Formula's rear end to his kid's. I kept quite (for once ) to hear the words of wisdom of this wise observant gent....." Look at that, this guy is driving a Pontiac, a Fiero and his other car is a Studebaker....he IS a THREE time looser!"

I just kept walking to the end of the row, went back into Menard's and bought a VERY expensive bottle of soda-something, went back outside to collect my very badly pranged ego before climbing back into my failure advertised mode of transportation.

Lesson learned

[firestoper 25]

Craig.....ouch (?)......that Saturn thought sorta-hurt . Wife & I bought them from the start of their production , always had the four door twin cam's plus a first year Vue V-6 AWD. Had the Vue for 15 years as primary auto and the twin cams as wife's / my transportation options. 250,000 miles on the Vue ( it was reluctantly sold to a relative who needed reliable winter transportation and then it was wiped-out in a winter accident ((other party who hit the Vue had NO insurance, pissy end to a good auto)), the twin cam's soldiered on for years and many hundred thousand's of miles each of them. Life changes and we did not need as many auto's so now we are without any Saturn's.....we both miss the rugged, fun to drive Saturn's. We also must have had an EXCEPTIONAL local Saturn dealership because during nearly two decades of servicing our auto's we did not have any negative outcomes.....lucky I guess!

I have a different take on the Saturn brand.....I had always been a GM loyal buyer BUT due to the less than stellar offerings of the 80's I walked away from the GM lines. The Saturn brand brought me (us) and our dollars back to GM for years and YES it did take a leap of faith to give GM a re-start with our hard earned auto dollars.

So it worked out very well for us, other folks I am sure had different circumstances / outcomes as we should expect. I just wanted to mention what a positive decades long service we had from the GM Saturn brand and their dealers. During our Saturn-times we had NO motivation to consider any other GM offerings. As it was necessary for a new auto our choice was a Ford Edge V-6 AWD and for 80,000 miles the Edge is A - OK ( the dealership not so much).

Craig I value your perspective and conclusions , I also agree that the last shut-down years and Saturn model offering were nothing more than confusing redundant badge offering death blows to a good brand. I surmise the reason Saturn did have a brief run at offering the market place a non GM auto was that it avoided being integrated to the failing GM culture. The future GM corporate collapse and messy taxpayer bailout and its. spotty performance is an ongoing testament to their deep problems . I say this with even deeper sadness to GM's condition.

I lost my butt with my long held GM stock due to this collapse but I can remember when "what is good for GM is good for the nation" was fact. I wonder how many folks can look back and reflect on a single firm that made household appliances, rail road locomotives, marine engines, over the road truck engines & transmissions , auto-truck-bus vehicles , outer space products, aircraft, heavy construction equipment, farm tractors.....and I am sure my old memory has forgotten some more markets that they were into. I would have never foreseen GM falling this far off the mark.

So in recap....You have valid good points.....I have filled out the picture with local color.....pontificated on what happened to GM and the sad endings on a Saturn brand.

Our fellow Studebaker friends conclusions should vary and expand the observations we have expressed.....this IS fun and valuable to examine our auto hobby / history.

[8E45E]

1. Right car, wrong time - The 1965-69 Corvairs were really good cars, but came along just as every other performance car had a big block V8.

2. Wrong car, right time - The 1958 - 69 Rambler 6-cylinders were touted as the first economy cars, but they were just not a good car by any measure. They were slow, handled poorly, had weak brakes and didn't get the fuel mileage necessary to excuse all their other weaknesses.

3. Inexplicable success - The 1965 Mustang was not as good a car as the same era Falcon, but sold a gazillion more, even though Ford charged more for less passenger comfort. To insure the success of the Mustang, Ford wouldn't allow those who wanted a Falcon to order the high-performance options, even thought everything would fit.

4. The lunatic fringe is right occasionally - Saab had front-wheel-drive-turbocharged OHC four cylinders from 1978 through 2011. The car magazine whores constantly damned Saab with faint praise; "goes well, but a four-cylinder is just not a luxury-performance image." Today, every manufacturer is selling a four-cylinder turbocharged luxury performance car and those same scrivners-of-easy-virtue are kissing BMW, M-B, Audi, Lexus, Jaguar nether parts and praising them for such engineering genius.

1. The Fiero comes to mind. Just when GM got it 'right' with performance & handling, they pulled the plug on what could have been a formidable MR-2 contender.

2. The same could be said for the Chevette.

3. The Hi-Po 289 and four speed were available in the 1965 Falcon, but they are rare.

4. Saab had its fair share of dedicated fanatics, but there were not enough of them to cover the costs of R&D for future products. Saab was another company which GM drove into the ground, after diluting it with dull, unexciting rebadged products from GMC and even Subaru.

Craig

[8E45E]

Edsels are as good as any other Ford, because they used all the same mechanical parts; the grille, a few different wrinkles in the sheetmetal, the pushbutton transmission controls tried to say new car, but it was just same-old-same-old FoMoCo. Most say it wasn't just the styling which killed it; that it was a bit more Ford, a bit less Mercury, but absolutely nothing new or innovative and who needed that?

The same could be said about Saturn. Like Ford with the Edsel, it was overhyped several years in advance, claiming it was going to be "all new" and "revolutionary" in appearance and construction, the way it drove, and in Saturn's case, how it was going to be put together. The Edsel and the Saturn failed to accomplish either manufacturer's goal. The low-to-medium price market essentially vanished at Edsel's introduction, and Saturn's way of doing business at retail level and the factory discipline at the Spring Hill plant failed to integrate into the other GM divisions. In the end, Edsel and Saturn became redundant, badge-engineered products from their other divisions, which only stole sales from the long established lines.

Craig

[Dwight FitzSimons]

The first year of Edsel (1958) they had models using both the Ford chassis (platform) and the larger Mercury platform. In 1959 & 1960 the Edsel lineup was pared to just restyled Fords. So, Edsel made sense only for those buyers who wanted a middle-priced Ford product with different styling. GM made the same mistake with three middle-priced cars (Pontiac, Olds, & Buick) for decades. For both companies producing and marketing too many middle-priced cars just cost the manufacturer more and stretched the carmakers' resources. Focusing on fewer models might have made for better cars.

Just as an aside: I have always liked the Edsels better than the same-year Fords & Mercurys.

-Dwight

[firestoper 25]

Ref post # 32

And another very true nugget of hard earned wisdom from Mr. Jack

[PackardV8]

Sold like hotcakes but fell apart in a few years so none to be found now?
Amazing styling but nobody bought them as too expensive?
Reliable as the summer solstice is a long day but so ho-hum nobody cared?
Got a bad (unfair) reputation from a rocky launch that killed the marketability and doomed to a early cancellation?

To that I'd add:

1. Right car, wrong time - The 1965-69 Corvairs were really good cars, but came along just as every other performance car had a big block V8.

2. Wrong car, right time - The 1958 - 69 Rambler 6-cylinders were touted as the first economy cars, but they were just not a good car by any measure. They were slow, handled poorly, had weak brakes and didn't get the fuel mileage necessary to excuse all their other weaknesses.

3. Inexplicable success - The 1965 Mustang was not as good a car as the same era Falcon, but sold a gazillion more, even though Ford charged more for less passenger comfort. To insure the success of the Mustang, Ford wouldn't allow those who wanted a Falcon to order the high-performance options, even thought everything would fit.

4. The lunatic fringe is right occasionally - Saab had front-wheel-drive-turbocharged OHC four cylinders from 1978 through 2011. The car magazine whores constantly damned Saab with faint praise; "goes well, but a four-cylinder is just not a luxury-performance image." Today, every manufacturer is selling a four-cylinder turbocharged luxury performance car and those same scrivners-of-easy-virtue are kissing BMW, M-B, Audi, Lexus, Jaguar nether parts and praising them for such engineering genius.

Well Jeff, I've always thought that Edsel are just as good as any other Ford from that peroid, we still have a few on our streets & roads here. & thet did get a bad start...

Agree. Edsels are as good as any other Ford, because they used all the same mechanical parts; the grille, a few different wrinkles in the sheetmetal, the pushbutton transmission controls tried to say new car, but it was just same-old-same-old FoMoCo. Most say it wasn't just the styling which killed it; that it was a bit more Ford, a bit less Mercury, but absolutely nothing new or innovative and who needed that?

jack vines

[8E45E]

Well Jeff, I've always thought that Edsel are just as good as any other Ford from that peroid, we still have a few on our streets & roads here. & thet did get a bad start...

Ford sold more 1958 Edsels than the combined sales of Studebaker and Packard.

It was revealed much later that some within Ford wanted the Edsel to fail, namely, Robert S. McNamera. He cut costs in the late 1950's as bad, or worse than GM did in the seventies and eighties by having a common shell for Ford and Mercury, which really left no room for Edsel between the two.

Craig