Getting into this late, but another factor in Studebaker's decline was that their labor costs had gotten significantly higher than the companies in the Detroit area. Wages were 12 to 14% higher, there were more shop stewards, and there was an expensive incentive wage system. Even Walter Reuther, the head of the UAW, supported the company when it tried to eliminate the differences in 1954. Info from Studebaker: The Classic Postwar Years by Richard Langworth.
Bob Bourke, the real designer of the "Loewy coupes" (Bourke was on Loewy's staff) told Langworth that Studebaker Engineering "priced out a Commander Starliner using General Motors costing parameters. I found that Chevrolet could have built it to sell for about $2000 if they wanted to -- about $500 less than what we were selling it for."
