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| - The Studebaker Lark - a model of automobile manufactured by the Studebaker Corporation, was the only car that ever mattered to Canadians. Oh, sure, Canadians had their Meteors, their Monarchs, their Acadians and McLaughlin Buick's. They even had their Frontenac's for that memorable six month period in 1960: good times. But it was the Studebaker Lark that captured the hearts of those curious, but hearty people north of the border from the United States.
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| abstract
| - The Studebaker Lark - a model of automobile manufactured by the Studebaker Corporation, was the only car that ever mattered to Canadians. Oh, sure, Canadians had their Meteors, their Monarchs, their Acadians and McLaughlin Buick's. They even had their Frontenac's for that memorable six month period in 1960: good times. But it was the Studebaker Lark that captured the hearts of those curious, but hearty people north of the border from the United States. The studebaker is very very very very very very very cool! In 1957, the Studebaker Corporation was hemorrhaging money like heir of the Romanov throne on a good day. Cash-strapped, with no new products on the horizon, America's oldest automobile company undertook a gutsy, gutsy move; one GM, Ford and Chrysler would never have considered, until 2009: they took their line of automobiles and literally chopped a couple feet off the front, and a few feet off the rear. This created an odd looking, stubby car, so they decided to work out a few kinks by giving it a God awful front end, and rear end only a buyer with cataracts could love. The end result was awkward. So they decided to toss in a bit of whimsy and they named the car the Lark in hopes that people would get the joke, and not take them too seriously. Oddly, the scam worked. Studebaker sold a boatload of these cars in 1958 and 1959. New, nifty and held together with caulk and prayer, the Studebaker Lark was such a success that it catapulted Studebaker from being the eleventh best selling car brand to being the tenth best selling automobile brand in North America. Happy days were here again! To advertise the car they hired Zsa Zsa Gabor to promote the thing to the car buying public. But fate is an even more cruel mistress than Zsa Zsa Gabor. By 1960 Ford, Chrysler and General Motors wanted a piece of the ugly car market for their very own; to that end they introduced the Falcon, the Valiant and the famous Chevrolet Trabant. The competition was brutal. In 1963 the Studebaker Board called it quits in the U.S., deciding instead to go it alone in Canada, where they could use up the parts on hand and make a few quick bucks playing the currency markets.
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