SHERWOOD HARRY EGBERT WHEN Studebaker-Packard Corp.'s new 6-ft. 4-in., 210-lb. president arrived in South Bend 2½ months ago, the city hung a sign over the streets proclaiming: "Welcome Sherwood Egbert." The townsfolk did not know Egbert but they knew very well that as Studebaker goes, so goes South Bend. And Studebaker is not going well; it has produced only 14,000 cars in 1961 v. 37,000 by this time last year. Inside the grimy plant, old hands had serious misgivings about how good the new driver would be, since he had no previous auto-industry experience. Sherwood Harry Egbert, 40, came from 14 years at Los Angeles' McCulloch Corp., a $70 million-a-year producer of outboard motors (Scott) and chain saws.
Egbert's old California associates, who regarded him as "Mr. Go-Go-Go," had no reservations about his ability. Said one: "The people at Studebaker had better get used to living with a cyclone." They soon did. "It didn't take me long to see that the Lark is a damn good car that has been underestimated," Egbert says—but little else about Studebaker pleased him. The walls of the begrimed plant were brightened with orange, green and white paint. Egbert, from his own poor days, has a philosophy: "You can stand there in ragged clothes—there's nothing wrong with that. But you can have them pressed, and you can be clean."
THOUGH new to the auto business, he knows that any company is only as good as its dealers. He set out on a flying trip (during which he sometimes sat in as copilot) to shake up Studebaker dealers. He saw 1,300 of the company's 2,200 dealers (down from 2,600 in 1959) One of Studebaker's troubles is the fall-off of dealers, mostly among "duals" who handled the Lark along with other makes until other automakers brought out their compacts. Some dealers began to drop the Lark, but Studebaker thought Chrysler Corp, went too far. Studebaker prodded the Justice Department into filing an antitrust suit charging Chrysler with pressuring dealers who were selling the Lark to drop it or not get the Valiant franchise.
Of the remaining Lark dealers, Egbert says, "I was surprised at the amount and the depth of their loyalty," but he was dismayed at their salesmanship. "I told some guys—who didn't know me— that I wanted to buy a Lark, but maybe it wouldn't be big enough for me to get into. It took me half a dozen visits like that before one guy showed me how easy it is to get into a Lark."
Lark advertising "stunk," and the agency was given two weeks to produce "something new." The result is a "30-day hate yourself" campaign telling car buyers they will hate themselves for not trying the Lark first. Egbert is moving ahead on a program to absorb Studebaker's tax loss credits ($94 million) by merging with prosperous companies. It was the slow pace of this program that led to the easing of former President Harold E.Churchill into a consultant's post and the hiring of Egbert.