Qualla: Studebaker https://qualla.com/studebaker en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/p/6/t/studebaker-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Studebaker https://qualla.com/studebaker Studebaker: Introduction https://qualla.com/studebaker/ Photo credit Matthew Rice, CC BY-SA 4.0. Somewhere in the woods near New Carlisle, Indiana, hidden inside the high-speed oval of a former proving ground, the skeletons of prototype automobiles rot in the open air. For decades, Studebaker engineers sent cars that never made it to production to this secret graveyard, where they lay in direct contact with the earth, slowly crumbling under fallen trees. Attempts to move them caused bodies to disintegrate under their own weight. The graveyard is the perfect monument to a company that spent 114 years building vehicles, from Conestoga wagons to the space-age Avanti, and whose story Thomas Bonsall described as "in microcosm, the story of the industrial development of America."

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Image: Matthew Rice | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/p/6/t/studebaker-wp/dp6t-studebaker-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Studebaker: Five Brothers and a Wheelbarrow https://qualla.com/studebaker/ Photo credit David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA, CC BY 2.0. The Studebaker family arrived from Solingen, Germany, landing in Philadelphia in 1736. By the 1740s, patriarch Peter Studebaker was forging steel and building wagons at a property called Baker's Lookout in Hagerstown, Maryland. His descendants carried the trade westward, generati...

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Image: David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/p/6/t/studebaker-wp/dp6t-studebaker-five-brothers-and-a-wheelbarrow.mp3 0:06 2 full Studebaker: The Horseless Carriage Arrives https://qualla.com/studebaker/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Studebaker built its first electric vehicles in 1902 and its first gasoline cars in 1904. By 1912, the first fully Studebaker-manufactured gasoline automobile rolled off the line, and within a decade the company was producing over 100,000 cars annually. The transition from horse ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/p/6/t/studebaker-wp/dp6t-studebaker-the-horseless-carriage-arrives.mp3 0:06 3 full Studebaker: Coming or Going? https://qualla.com/studebaker/ Photo credit Schickdavid3, CC BY-SA 4.0. After World War II, Studebaker bet on bold design. The company hired Virgil Exner and launched the slogan "First by far with a post-war car." The 1947 Starlight coupe introduced a flatback trunk and wraparound rear window that were so unconventional they spawned a running joke: n...

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Image: Schickdavid3 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/p/6/t/studebaker-wp/dp6t-studebaker-coming-or-going.mp3 0:06 4 full Studebaker: The Last Day in South Bend https://qualla.com/studebaker/ Photo credit Public domain. On December 9, 1963, Studebaker announced the closure of its South Bend plant, the city's largest employer. The last Larks and Hawks rolled off the line on December 20. The last Avanti followed on December 26. The closure devastated St. Joseph County; nearly a quarter of the plan...

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Image: Public domain

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/p/6/t/studebaker-wp/dp6t-studebaker-the-last-day-in-south-bend.mp3 0:06 5 full Studebaker: Ghosts and Groves https://qualla.com/studebaker/ Photo credit Bjenks (talk). Original uploader was Bjenks at en.wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. Studebaker's physical legacy still marks the Indiana landscape. In 1937, workers planted 5,000 trees on the company's proving grounds, spelling out the Studebaker name in living letters visible from the air and later from satellite photography on Google Earth. The grove still sta...

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Image: Bjenks (talk). Original uploader was Bjenks at en.wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/p/6/t/studebaker-wp/dp6t-studebaker-ghosts-and-groves.mp3 0:06 6 full