| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

More Than They Promised: The Studebaker Story. By Thomas E. Bonsall. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. 488 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-8047-3586-7.)

In some respects the story of Studebaker is the same as that of every car company except General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. It produced some notable cars, was considered a leading firm at times, and survived longer than most. Yet Studebaker failed like nearly every other car maker. This book wants to explain why. 1

Thomas E. Bonsall is the author of identification guides and popular histories of the Chrysler 300, Firebird, GTO, Mercury and Edsel, Avanti, Pontiac, and Lincoln. This volume is not a buff book, but neither is it a scholarly history. In a narrative, chronological structure, Bonsall tracks the company's rise and fall. The Studebaker brothers started as carriage builders in 1852, entered the auto industry as the maker of bodies for the Pope Company's electric taxis in the late 1890s, and began building automobiles after 1900. They grew slowly until the 1920s and then struggled to survive the Great Depression. Studebaker revived during the war and emerged with high hopes, which turned into a desperate struggle for existence for a decade after 1955. Studebaker ceased making cars in its original factory in South Bend, Indiana, in December 1963. An assembly line in Hamilton, Ontario, operated until March 1966, while non-auto activities continued as Studebaker-Worthington until 1978. . . .

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