Video: The Big New Studebaker for 1956

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“The only car in the low-priced field that’s really, really new,” boasted Studebaker for 1956. Here’s the pitch on the Big New Studebaker straight from the South Bend automaker.

 

For the 1956 model year, the beautiful but dated Burke-Loewy Studebaker, introduced in 1953, was overhauled and split into two model lines. The four-door sedan (President, Commander, and Champion) and wagon body styles got all new sheet metal from the greenhouse down, squaring off the lines to provide a more contemporary look.

Meanwhile, the two-door coupes were facelifted and repackaged as the Hawk line, which was offered in four different models that year: the base Flight Hawk, the V8-powered Power Hawk and Sky Hawk, and the Golden Hawk at the top of the lineup. The Golden Hawk boasted a big 352 CID Packard V8 under the hood—one byproduct of the ill-fated Packard-Studebaker “merger’ of 1954. More accurately, Packard had purchased Studebaker in October of that year to form the Studebaker-Packard Corporation.

In this 1956 Studebaker promo, the tagline is “the Big New Studebaker.” Although the wheelbase remained the same for ’56, the revised styling was intended to impart a more hefty and substantial look. Many Americans were still buying their cars by the inch and the pound in those days, and the strategy was pointed right at them. Unfortunately, the new messaging and sheet metal failed to land a punch, as the South Bend automaker’s sales slipped to around 70,000 units compared to 116,000 the year before. But despite the company’s declining fortunes, the sales pitch remained sure and confident. Video below.

 

7 thoughts on “Video: The Big New Studebaker for 1956”

    • Might as well wish that Ford built Model A’s until they came out with the Thunderbird

  2. Minor detail correction re the Hawks – you list the Sky Hawk twice. The base “C”-body coupe with the Champion 6 engine was the Flight Hawk. The Power Hawk was the “C”- body coupe with the Commander 259 V-8. Your designations for the 2 “K”-body hardtops, Sky Hawk (with the new for ’56 289 V-8) and the Golden Hawk with the Packard 352 V-8 are correct.

    Re H Thurman’s comment that they should have left the ’53s alone – there is a humorous anecdote about the styling of the ’53-’54-’55s and Packard president James Nance. (This story will give you some insight into the heavy face lift for the ’56 Studebakers … ) Nance hated the styling of the ’53-’55s. (He might have liked them better had Studebaker built the sedans the way Robert Bourke wanted to build them – as extensions of the coupe body on the 120″ wheelbase instead of the dumpy, foreshortened sedans management forced on Bourke. Story here: https://56packardman.com/2015/09/22/gear-head-tuesday-studebakers-lost-opportunity-in-1953/ ) Nance called the styling of the ’53 – ’55 Studebakers “the drooping penis look”.

  3. I always thought it wrong that the Avanti was continued after Studebaker’s demise. The Hawk is a better looking car in my opinion. But the Hawk had already been around for so long that people were probably bored with it. Imagine how well a Hawk would sell during the bland, boxy Seventies. As a specialty maker, they wouldn’t have had to put the huge bumpers on it, nor the 165 horsepower lumps that were put in the Corvette.

  4. I can still hear my dad cursing as he tried to outrun a loaded work truck to the point where a city street narrowed from four lanes to two. We were in his 1956 Studebaker Champion station wagon powered by the flathead 6 hooked up to an automatic transmission.

    I was used to hearing him curse, but the air turned blue that day.

  5. I currently have a 56 President Classic with a 289 4bbl. I like the fact that it’s not pretentious and not as commonly seen as some Big Three makes.

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