Studebaker 1852 to 1967

Studebaker’s story starts in 1852 as a South Bend, Indiana blacksmith shop that grew into the world’s largest builder of horse-drawn wagons, decades before it ever touched a car. When it finally entered the automobile business in 1902, its first vehicle ran on electricity, not gasoline. By 1966 the automaker was gone, folded a year later into an industrial conglomerate with no connection to cars at all.

1902: Studebaker enters the car business with an electric model

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MCF thanks Gateway Classic Cars for this image of a 1963 Studebaker Grand Turismo Hawk 289 V8Â – 4 Speed Manual

Studebaker enters the car business with an electric model in 1902

A company that closed its automobile business in 1966 has no obvious business appearing on a list of muscle car history, and yet Studebaker’s story stretches back further than nearly any other American manufacturer people still argue about at car shows. Before it ever built an engine, this South Bend, Indiana company was already the largest producer of horse-drawn vehicles in the world — a title earned decades before the first Studebaker automobile existed. When Studebaker did finally enter the car business, its very first vehicle wasn’t even powered by gasoline. So how did a wagon maker end up building one of the last true independent American automakers?

From Blacksmith Shop to Wagon Empire

Studebaker traces back to 1852, when brothers Henry and Clement Studebaker opened a blacksmith shop in South Bend, Indiana with just $68 in starting capital — a modest beginning for a company that would go on to become the world’s largest manufacturer of horse-drawn wagons, buggies, and carriages by the late 1800s. That wagon-building expertise and manufacturing scale gave Studebaker a head start most early car companies never had when the automobile era eventually arrived.

An Electric Car Before a Gasoline One

When Studebaker finally entered the automotive business in 1902, its first vehicle was electric, not gasoline-powered — gas-engine Studebakers didn’t arrive until 1904, and even then the company leaned on partnerships with established automakers Garford and the Everitt-Metzger-Flanders Company for engineering and manufacturing before building its own complete cars in-house. It’s a reminder that “electric first” isn’t a purely modern automotive strategy.

Studebaker’s automobile story came to an end in 1966, and the following year the remaining company merged with Worthington Corporation to form Studebaker-Worthington, an industrial products firm with no connection to cars at all — closing the book on 115 years that began with wagon wheels and ended with machines like the 1963 Gran Turismo Hawk pictured here, powered by a 289-cubic-inch V8 and a 4-speed manual transmission.

The Avanti’s Fiberglass Gamble

By 1962, Studebaker was fighting for its survival, and its answer was the Avanti — a fiberglass-bodied coupe styled by Raymond Loewy’s team and offered with a supercharged version of Studebaker’s own V8 under the hood. The car was strikingly modern for a company most people already considered old-fashioned, but production delays with the fiberglass body panels hurt early sales momentum at exactly the moment Studebaker could least afford it, turning what should have been a halo car into another financial strain on a company already running out of runway.

South Bend’s Last Assembly Line

Studebaker built its final car in South Bend, Indiana in December 1963, closing the plant that had anchored the company’s identity since the horse-drawn wagon era more than a century earlier. Production didn’t end there entirely — the company shifted remaining automobile assembly to Hamilton, Ontario, where a smaller Canadian operation kept building Studebakers on a reduced scale for a few more years before the automobile business wound down completely in 1966.

The Packard Merger That Couldn’t Save Either Company

Studebaker merged with Packard in 1954, a pairing meant to combine two struggling independent automakers into something large enough to compete with Detroit’s Big Three — but the merger arrived too late and with too little capital to reverse either brand’s financial slide. Packard’s own nameplate disappeared entirely by 1958, while Studebaker limped on for nearly another decade under the combined company’s name before finally exiting the car business as well.

The Independents’ Long Goodbye

Studebaker wasn’t the only storied independent automaker to disappear in this era — Hudson merged into American Motors in 1954, Nash did the same, and Packard’s badge vanished within the Studebaker-Packard combination by decade’s end. By the mid-1960s, American Motors stood as essentially the last major independent left standing, a survivor only because it found a niche Detroit’s giants weren’t chasing as aggressively, something Studebaker itself was never quite able to replicate.

Why Collectors Still Chase Studebakers Today

Despite closing its automotive doors nearly sixty years ago, Studebaker maintains an active collector community built around dedicated clubs, parts networks, and events specifically for the marque — proof that closing an assembly line doesn’t have to mean a brand’s story ends with it. Avanti clubs in particular remain unusually active given how few of the fiberglass coupes were originally built, a testament to how much genuine engineering ambition Studebaker packed into its final years.

A Wagon Maker’s Unlikely Endurance

It’s worth remembering just how long Studebaker actually lasted relative to its origins — 114 years passed between the Studebaker brothers opening their blacksmith shop in 1852 and the company’s final car rolling off the Hamilton line in 1966, a run longer than most automakers manage even today. That endurance, spanning wagons, early electric cars, two world wars’ worth of military contracts, and a genuine attempt at a modern sports coupe, is arguably Studebaker’s real legacy — not how it ended, but how long it managed to keep adapting before it finally couldn’t.

One Company, Two Very Different Eras

It can be hard to reconcile the company that built horse-drawn wagons for the Union Army during the Civil War with the one that later built a supercharged fiberglass sports coupe, but that range is precisely what makes Studebaker’s full history worth telling as one continuous story rather than two unrelated chapters — a single South Bend company that kept reinventing what it manufactured for well over a century.

A Name That Still Means Something to Collectors

Long after the last Studebaker rolled off a factory line, the name still carries real weight at car shows and auctions, distinct from the generic nostalgia attached to defunct brands that never built anything particularly memorable. That staying power says as much about the genuine engineering ambition behind cars like the Avanti as it does about Studebaker’s much longer run as a wagon and early automobile pioneer.

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