Word: larking
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South Bend, Ind. last week was in the throes of one of the worst winters in its history, yet hardly anyone talked about the weather. "With all these Larks around," said Studebaker-Packard's President Harold E. Churchill, "it's been like spring." Production of the Lark was up to 4,300 cars a week; total production for 1959 so far (61,000) was 12,000 ahead of the entire 1958 model year...
Some Said Die. South Bend, as well as Studebaker, has made a comeback with the Lark. Through most of 1958, the city and surrounding St. Joseph County constituted a "critical" unemployment area. As sales and production grew steadily smaller, the layoffs mounted, until by March barely 4,700 workers had jobs at the plant. Along with recession slowdowns at other big companies-Bendix Products Division, U.S. Rubber, Curtiss-Wright-the cutbacks pushed total county unemployment to a record 15,900-more than 16% of the labor force. Lines started forming on Lafayette Street for handouts of surplus Government beans, rice...
...dies from last year's models, use them to stamp the new car's sheet metal; all parts were bolted together instead of expensively welded; front and rear bumpers were made identical; the front sheet metal assembly was reduced to six pieces. In seven months the Lark was ready. Total development cost: less than $3,000,000, v. an estimated $150 million for the 1959 Ford...
...production, geared closely to sales, moved 11% higher than last year's rate (see chart). American Motors was selling three times as many Ramblers as it did in January 1958. Studebaker-Packard was also outselling last year 3 to 1, due almost entirely to its fast-moving little Lark. The company had already outproduced its 1958 total of 49,770 and made a $3,700,000 operating profit in 1958's fourth quarter, its first profit in five years. Chevrolet output, still rising, inched ahead of Ford production for the first time...
...American Motors presented fresh evidence of how profitable the market is. American's President George Romney reported that in the fourth quarter of 1958 the company earned $21 million, or $3.56 a share, nearly as much as it cleared in the previous twelve months. Studebaker-Packard's Lark sold so well in the first ten days of January that the company for the fourth time has raised its production...