Studebaker
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50 free Studebaker trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Studebaker spent more than a century on American roads, first with horse-drawn wagons and then with some of the most distinctive cars of the mid-twentieth century. Few carmakers have a story with so many turns: family beginnings, wartime contracts, bold styling, a troubled merger and a long, stubborn fight to stay independent. This quiz covers the whole run. There are questions on the brothers who started the business, the models collectors still chase, the designers who shaped them, the trucks and engines built for two world wars, and the last years of production. A few cover the company's surprising afterlife in film, television and museums. It is written for classic car fans, club quiz nights, Studebaker owners and anyone who enjoys American industrial history. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will finish knowing more than when you started.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01John M. Studebaker bankrolled the family firm with money earned in Gold Rush California making what?
Wheelbarrows
Wheelbarrows for gold miners earned him $8,000 at Placerville and the nickname Wheelbarrow Johnny. He took the money home in 1858 to expand his brothers' wagon works.
Q 02Studebaker spelled out its name at its Indiana proving ground, readable from the air, using what?
Pine trees
Pine trees planted in the late 1930s still spell STUDEBAKER across what is now a county park, and the living sign is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Q 03Which beer brand's famous horse-drawn hitch pulls wagons that Studebaker built around 1900?
Budweiser
Budweiser's hitch wagons are Studebakers from about 1900, when the firm ran the largest buggy and wagon works in the world.
Q 04In which 1979 film does Fozzie Bear drive Kermit across America in a 1951 Studebaker?
The Muppet Movie
The Muppet Movie used two 1951 Studebaker sedans. One, steered by an operator hidden in the trunk watching a video monitor, is now on display at the Studebaker National Museum.
Q 05Which Studebaker model name, meant to imply it set the standard for rivals, was dropped in 1937?
Dictator
Dictator was chosen in 1927 to say the car dictated the standard that other makes would have to follow. Overseas the same model was sold as the Director.
Q 06Most Studebaker US6 army trucks built during World War II were shipped to which Allied country?
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union received them under Lend-Lease, where troops nicknamed the truck the Studer and the Red Army made it the standard carrier for Katyusha rocket launchers.
Q 07Which Detroit luxury carmaker merged with Studebaker in 1954 and built its last car in 1958?
Packard
Packard was the smaller but healthier partner. Its executives soon found Studebaker needed to sell 282,000 cars a year to break even and had barely sold 82,000.
Q 08Which French-born designer of the Lucky Strike pack led the team that styled the Studebaker Avanti?
Raymond Loewy
Raymond Loewy's team shaped the Avanti in a 40-day crash program, working in a house leased for the job in Palm Springs.
Q 09After its Indiana plant closed in 1963, Studebaker built its final cars in which country?
Canada
Canada's plant in Hamilton, Ontario, turned out the last Studebaker, a Cruiser sedan, in March 1966. It had been the company's only car factory for over two years.
Q 10Studebaker's old military-truck division became AM General, the maker of which famous army vehicle?
Humvee
Humvee maker AM General began as Studebaker's defense arm, which Kaiser took over in 1964 and American Motors bought in 1970.
Q 11Which Indiana city was home to Studebaker's headquarters and main factory for more than a century?
South Bend
South Bend is where Henry and Clement Studebaker opened shop in 1852. When the plant shut in 1963, the company was still the largest employer in its county.
Q 12Which compact, launched for 1959, sold over 130,000 in a year and gave Studebaker a reprieve?
Lark
Lark sales earned a $28.6 million profit in that first year, then fell away once the Big Three launched compact models of their own in 1960.
Q 13The Studebaker Avanti's name, supplied by the company's advertising agency, means what in Italian?
Forward
Forward, or onward, is what Avanti means. The name suited a halo car rushed out in 1962 to lift the company's sagging image.
Q 21Which famous college football coach gave his name to a low-priced Studebaker brand of the early 1930s?
Knute Rockne
Knute Rockne had been giving pep talks at Studebaker dealer gatherings and signed on as its manager of sales promotion in 1931, only to die in a plane crash soon afterwards.
Q 22The Erskine, a small Studebaker-built car of the 1920s, was first launched in which European capital?
Paris
Paris got the first look because Albert Erskine, the company chief who gave the car his name, admired small European cars and wanted buyers there.
Q 23Which incoming president ordered a full set of Studebaker carriages for the White House in 1889?
Benjamin Harrison
Q 14The Studebaker Avanti's body was molded from which material rather than pressed in steel?
Fiberglass
Fiberglass suited the Avanti's complex curves, which would have been prohibitively expensive in steel. The panels came from the Ohio firm that molded the first Corvette bodies.
Q 15Which early-1960s sitcom was sponsored by Studebaker and featured the company's cars prominently?
Mister Ed
Mister Ed, the talking-horse comedy, was first funded by Studebaker's dealers, who each put in $25 for every car sold, matched by the company.
Q 16Henry and Clement Studebaker opened their first shop in 1852 working in which trade?
Blacksmiths
Blacksmiths and foundrymen at first, the brothers made metal parts for freight wagons before they began building complete wagons of their own.
Q 17Army orders for wagons during which conflict turned the Studebaker brothers' shop into a major business?
Civil War
Civil War contracts with the Northern army helped lift annual sales to $350,000 by 1868, the year the brothers incorporated their company.
Q 18What powered the very first automobiles that Studebaker built and sold, starting in 1902?
Electric batteries
Electric batteries drove every Studebaker car at first. Gasoline models followed in 1904, and the battery cars were dropped within a decade.
Q 19The Studebaker National Museum holds the carriage that carried which president the night he was shot?
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln rode in it to Ford's Theatre in April 1865, and the museum's director has called it one of the crown jewels of any museum collection in the world.
Q 20Which animal name was given to the tracked M29 snow vehicle that Studebaker built in World War II?
Weasel
Weasel carriers were conceived for a commando raid on occupied Norway, then proved just as useful hauling loads through mud, sand and desert.
Benjamin Harrison went on to appoint company co-founder Clement Studebaker as a delegate to the Pan-American Conference of 1889–1890.
Q 24Studebaker built radial aircraft engines during World War II for which famous American heavy bomber?
Boeing B-17
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress engines became a Studebaker speciality: from January 1944 its factory was the only one building the R-1820 Cyclone fitted to the bomber.
Q 25The Studebaker Avanti broke 29 speed records, one car topping 170 mph, on salt flats in which state?
Utah
Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats were the proving stage, and the Avanti was called the fastest production car in the world when it was introduced.
Q 26What nickname did the 1950 and 1951 Studebakers earn for their pointed, spinner-style front end?
Bullet nose
Bullet nose styling was a facelift of the 1947 body, and its central spinner gave the cars a look shared with the 1949 Ford sedan.
Q 27The 1947 Studebaker Starlight coupe had which startling feature, likened to a railroad observation car?
A wraparound rear window
A wraparound rear window, made from four fixed panes of glass, gave a panoramic view and left critics asking which way the car was going.
Q 28What unusual feature let the 1963 Studebaker Wagonaire carry a refrigerator standing upright?
A sliding roof panel
A sliding roof panel retracted over the cargo bay, though early cars leaked. A rival's SUV revived the idea in 2004 and was wrongly advertised as a first.
Q 29Which industrial designer created the Studebaker Wagonaire and styled the similarly named Jeep Wagoneer?
Brooks Stevens
Brooks Stevens was told to widen Studebaker's range without costly retooling. He also restyled the ageing Hawk into the 1962 Gran Turismo Hawk.
Q 30For 1957 the Studebaker Golden Hawk's 289 V8 gained which device to reach 275 horsepower?
Supercharger
Supercharger height was a headache: the McCulloch unit sat so far up the front of the engine that the hood needed a hole and a raised cover to clear it.