Studebaker Ad of the Week, #5: Lark takes flight!

1960 Lark by Studebaker Automobile Advertisement - Ebony Magazine, December, 1959, a photo by vieilles_annonces on Flickr.

A great example of Studebaker's early 60s' marketing. Here's a December, 1959 ad from Ebony magazine, showing people of color in an upscale setting, enjoying the beauty and power of their new Lark. I love the little touches, like the Lark logos as paragraph markers in the copy block, and the subtle lighting on the plane.

Studebaker Ad of the Week, #4: Hawks Rock

Hawk by Studebaker Advertisement - Ebony Magazine, May, 1960, a photo by vieilles_annonces on Flickr.

In 1960, the Hawk was in its 4th year as a model, but its 9th year as a body style. Where the original 1956 family of Hawks (Golden, Silver, Power, Flight and Sky) had been pitched as a complete range of sporty family cars with a range of powertrain choices and hardtop or sedan styling, by 1960 there was only one Hawk, and the Corporation was hitting the "personal car" concept pretty hard in advertising. Here's an example of that pitch, from the May, 1960 issue of Ebony magazine.

Studebaker Ad of the Week, #3: Avanti!

1964 Studebaker Avanti , a photo by coconv on Flickr.

Love this ad for the '64 Avanti. As a good friend of mine says, "When this thing hit showrooms, it was like nothing anybody'd ever seen. It was a flying saucer."

Studebaker Ad of the Week, #2

Here's another great all-color 1958 Studebaker ad courtesy of Aldenjewell. Studebaker was no stranger to using low-cost cars to pull buyer interest, having done so successfully in the past with the wonderful 1939 Champion. In the recession year of 1957, they returned to the Champion strategy, de-contenting their full-size cars in order to lower the price fairly dramatically. They named these cars Scotsman, and they did reasonably well; well enough to reappear in the Studebaker lineup during the following model year as well.

Scotsman cars (and trucks) lacked such niceties as bright window trim, carpet, chrome front bumpers and even passenger sun visors and arm rests, although you could option-up these extras if you wanted. The '58s weren't as much of a sales success as the '57s were, but they kept scarce dollars coming into the Corporation long enough to fund the launch of the Lark in 1959 - the car that saved the company (temporarily, at least).

Studebaker would revive the Scotsman concept one last time, with 1963's Standard line and 1964's Challenger model. Some ideas just never go out of style.