This lavishly illustrated book (86 integrated illustrations) is the complete story of the Studebaker company from its beginnings to its end in 1966.

While the Big Three automobile companies came to dominate the industry, its early history was characterized by an array of competing companies. Studebaker's story is the chronicle of the life and death of an American automobile company where managements concept of "tradition" played a fundamental role in modeling corporate culture, rhetoric, and strategy. Donald T. Critchlow focuses on how organizational philosophies, developed by successive managerial regimes, reflected and influenced corporate strategies concerning product development, investment policies, employee relations, and the allocation of resources. The upper management of Studebaker thus shaped corporate strategy within an institutional environment that embodied company tradition and responded to market forces.

In diesem Buch aus dem Jahre 1918 beschreibt Albert Erskine kurz und prägnant die Geschichte des wohl fortschrittlichsten Automobilbauers seiner Zeit, Henry Studebaker. In den Jahren 1852 bis 1966 widmete sich der passionierte Wagenhersteller dem technischen Fortschritt, stellte zunächst Metallteile her, um sich später den Motorfahrzeugen zu widmen.

The Studebaker history is a short one, and a sad one at that, but inside Studebaker, you'll find a meticulously crafted history of the early automobile. Studebaker began business as a builder of covered wagons. By 1921 they were the number four automaker in the nation. By 1932 they were bankrupt. And for Studebaker, one of the most remarkable stories in American automotive history, that was only the beginning. Studebaker: America's Most Successful Independent Automaker tells the full and fabulously colorful history of this icon of the American automotive scene. Rife with triumph and tragedy, brilliant moves and boneheaded decisions, Studebaker's decades of building cars makes for a tempestuous saga featuring some of the more interesting characters in the twentieth-century business world. Above all, the story features cars that, for countless Americans, truly defined driving: not just the Champion, which rocketed the company back to the top in 1939, or the 1950s Raymond Loewy-designed Starliner, deemed a "work of art" by the Museum of Modern Art, but also the Hawks and Larks that so many drivers loved. As the book traces Studebaker's fortunes from success to crisis to merger and back, it also dwells with loving photographic attention on the vehicles, from the first electric car to the last Avanti.

Before the United States entered World War II, the Army Air Corps conceptualized a large aircraft engine for which fuel efficiency was the paramount concern. It was believed that such an engine could power bombers from North America to attack targets in Europe, a tactic that would be needed if the United Kingdom were to fall. This engine project was known as MX-232, and Studebaker was tasked with its development. After years of testing and development, the MX-232 program produced the Studebaker XH-9350 engine design. Although a complete XH-9350 engine was not built, Studebaker's XH-9350 and Their Involvement with Other Aircraft Engines details the development of the MX-232 program and the XH-9350 design. In addition, the book covers Studebaker's work with other aircraft engines: the power plant for the Waterman Arrowbile, their licensed production of the Wright R-1820 radial engine during World War II, and their licensed production of the General Electric J47 jet engine during the Korean War.