Over the years, a number of automobile makers have come and gone. Their technology likely became outdated, and the next big thing came on the scene. Such was the fate of the makers of the Studebaker on March 18, 1933. At that point, they were heavily in debt, and it seemed there was no way out. The company went into receivership. As sometimes happens, the company’s president, Albert Erskine, resigned and later that year committed suicide. The company rebounded…for a time, and perhaps if Erskine had lived, he could have brought it back to life again. In the end, Studebaker eventually rebounded from its financial troubles, but it could not sustain itself again, and so, shut down the assembly line, and abandoned the automobile business entirely in 1966.
Studebaker Corporation started up in 1852, not as an automobile company, but to make wagons. Brothers Henry and Clement Studebaker opened a blacksmith shop in South Bend, Indiana that year. Their work was of good quality, and they eventually became a leading manufacturer of horse-drawn wagons, even suppling wagons to the US Army during the Civil War. As with the auto industry, the wagon industry began to fold, so Studebaker Corporation entered America’s blossoming auto industry, launching an electric car in 1902 and a gas-powered vehicle two years later that was marketed under the name Studebaker-Garford. Who knew that they could have actually been s forward thinking in 1902. Electric cars have been around longer than we might 
have thought. Studebaker partnered with other automakers and began selling gas-powered cars under its own name in 1913, while continuing to make wagons until 1920, when that market dried up.
Erskine was born in 1871 and took over as president of Studebaker Corporation 1915. Under his leadership, the company acquired luxury automaker Pierce-Arrow in the late 1920s and launched the affordably priced but short-lived Erskine and Rockne lines, which was named for the famous University of Notre Dame football coach, before his death in a plane crash in 1931. Rockne was paid to give talks at auto conventions and dealership events. The Great Depression hit Studebaker Corporation hard and in March 1933 it was forced into bankruptcy. Erskine was also hit hard by the Great Depression, and his great personal debt and health problems caused him to kill himself on July 1, 1933.
After Erskine’s death, the company went under new management, and they were able to get the company back on track. The Rockne brand in July 1933, and Pierce-Arrow was sold as well. In January 1935, the new Studebaker Corporation was incorporated. Raymond Loewy began working for Studebaker in the late 1930s. Loewy was a French-born industrial designer. He created iconic and popular models including the bullet-nosed 1953 Starliner and Starlight coupes and the 1963 Avanti sports coupe. It looked like the company might pull out of their funk.
Unfortunately, by the mid-1950s, Studebaker had to face the fact that they just didn’t have the resources of its Big Three competitors, so they merged with automaker Packard. Nevertheless, they continued to have financial 
troubles. By the late 1950s, the Packard brand was dropped. In December 1963, Studebaker closed the South Bend plant. This ended the production of its cars and trucks in America. After the US closure, the company’s Hamilton, Ontario, facilities remained in operation until March 1966. Finally, after 114 years in business, Studebaker shut its doors for good.
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