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30 o mmWBmb His Car Is Named Desire Hne spring day in 1961 a tall, handsome man bought six dollars?╟╓ worth of sports-car mag- azines at Chicago-O?╟╓Hare International Airport, then boarded a jet for Los Angeles. The man, who bears the improbable name of Sherwood Egbert, had a problem. A few weeks earlier he had taken over as president of Studebaker-Packard (later re-christened Studebaker Corporation)! the in- valid of the auto industry. Just 40 and with no experience in the automotive field or as head of any firm, Egbert was supposed to come up with the trick that would boost the company?╟╓s fortunes. As the jet streaked over the Great Plains, Egbert pored over the sports-car magazines, as- sembling in his mind?╟╓s eye a dramatically new and different prestige automobile. ?╟úBy the time we were over the Rockies,?╟Ñ Eg- bert said recently, recalling the event, ?╟úI knew what kind of car I wanted, and the rest of the way to the Coast I sketched it out.?╟Ñ Birth of a Glamour Car Egbert?╟╓s airborne sketches, refined by indus- trial designer Raymond Loewy, have become the Avanti, one of the sexiest machines ever made in America. As befits a car conceived at Mach 1, the Avanti is high-powered and fleet of silhouette. The hood sweeps up from a ravenous-looking air scoop; the trunk flows back slickly from the greenhouse roof. Bucket seats, a roll bar and similar features should help lure the buyer who pays $4545 for the satisfaction of knowing that if he ever happens by Utah?╟╓s Bonneville Salt Flats he?╟╓ll be able to light out at 135 mph?╟÷or 171.1 mph if he indulges in a $210 supercharger. Although sanguine about the Avanti?╟╓s chances in that piece of the market now dominated by Ford?╟╓s Thunderbird and Chevrolet?╟╓s Corvette, Egbert does not expect Avanti sales alone to pull Studebaker out of the red. He does expect that his glamour car will pull large numbers of people into the showroom. There, presumably, after ogling the Avanti and boggling at its price tag, they will turn with interest to the lower-priced Studebaker Hawks and Larks. Studebaker is an old company. It made wagons and gun carriages for the Union Army during the Civil War and Conestoga wagons afterward for the pioneers. For the past half century it has been making automobiles without ever capturing a notably large share of the U.S. market. It now makes fewer automobiles than any other of the five major U. S. firms, little more than one in every 100 of the industry?╟╓s total of 6,000,000. In the last half-dozen years Studebaker has enjoyed only one substantially profitable year. The company con- cedes that about one-quarter of the country has no Studebaker dealers. Egbert, the man Studebaker picked to pope with its plight, looks and acts like a reinvigorator. He is physically impressive?╟÷big (six-feet-four; 195 muscled pounds) and handsome. He brought to his new job a reputation for hard-charging and making subordinates hop, and the reputation is holding up. When Egbert took over at Studebaker last year, the company was heading for a $3,100,- 000 operating loss. This year sales are ?╟╓way up; the company showed a first-half profit of $776,000. By ARTHUR W. BAUM Egbert was born in Easton, Washington, on the Cle Elum side of Snoqualmie Pass, on July 24, 1920. He became a night flagman on a road-repair job at the age of 12, a truck driver at 14 and a road-builder at 16. While he was in high school he held a monopoly of Easton?╟╓s three paper routes and on the side was manager of the local airport. He learned mechanical engineering at Washing- ton State between 1937 and 1940, attending when he could and never graduating. When Boeing Airplane Company built another factory in Seattle, Egbert got a laborer?╟╓s job with the contractor and at the age of 20 had leaped to assistant chief engineer with Boeing. He looks back with considerable cheerfulness and even some relish on the mistakes he made as a young engineer. He mismeasured the depth of a half- mile tunnel, and he managed to lose money for Boeing and hold up construction of a new build- ing by accidentally selling to a scrap dealer some new steel that had been delivered to the job. ?╟úThey.should have fired me,?╟Ñ he says. When he returned from the war, in which he served as a Marine aviation officer, he went to Washington to help design jet engines for the Navy?╟╓s Bureau of Aeronautics. Then, at the age of 26, he returned west to a small, young company in Los Angeles, the McCulloch Corporation. McCulloch made light-metal power chain saws and later acquired the Scott-Atwater Outboard Motor Company. Egbert^ became McCulloch?╟╓s executive vice president. It was his tenure of 15 years there that spread the young man?╟╓s powerhouse reputation. For one thing, McCulloch was a spectacular manufactur- ing success, revolutionizing the chain-saw field on an international scale. For another, McCulloch was a vividly colorful company, thanks mainly to Egbert. The firm produced, advertised and pack- aged in gay pastel splashes. Egbert inevitably became known for his lead- ing role in this sprightly outfit. He also drew some attention as an industrial snoop. He appeared at more than 300 American industrial plants, asking permission to go through them in search of good ideas. He persuaded one company to hire him as a plant laborer for one week so he might watch the manufacture of grinding wheels. When Mc- Culloch acquired Scott-Atwater, Egbert promptly became an outboard boat racer. He Learned to Keep Hopping Egbert is happiest piloting a fast airplane or cruising an automobile at over 100 miles per hour, but sitting at a desk he appears almost lazy. His normal conversation is neither fast nor over- powering. He doesn?╟╓t mind being interrupted, grins likp^a schoolboy, smokes moderately and doesn?╟╓Jgfidget. Nor does he take himself too seri- ously. When I asked the source of his apparent appetite for incessant work, he smiled and said, ?╟úI guess it was living in a tent when our house burned down. We had a big potbellied stove in the middle. When that was going it was too hot, and when it was out it was too cold. You had to keep hopping every minute to be comfortable.?╟Ñ One American who became aware of the exis- tence of this high-voltage charge in the McCul- loch Corporation was Clarence Francis, an elder statesman of the business world and board mem- ber of a dozen large American corporations. Francis became chairman of Studebaker in 1960 and immediately began a search for a president to set the Studebaker house in order. On the record alone he selected Egbert. Before starting his search, he had never met the younger man. g|fegbert accepted a five-year, $125,000-a-year contract, with stock options, and went to work in early 1961 under challenging circumstances. The company had blown an early postwar styling lead-fwon hi 1947 by a line of Loewy-designed cars?╟÷with a dismal bullet-nosed flop in 1950, a setback which eventually led to frequent manage- ment shifts. Then in 1958 the Studebaker Lark, a roomy compact, came along to give the company a prosperous 1959. The following season that prosperity was nearly wiped out by competition from the Big Three?╟╓s new compacts. When Egbert became president, he moved im- mediately to investigate a weak spot, the thinning ranks of Studebaker dealers, whose numbers at that time had dropped to around 2,000. Egbert air-hopped around the country gauging their morale, which needed bolstering. Very quickly he decided on sending them a rather remarkable mes- sage of reassurance?╟÷the Avanti. This speedily conceived car, which was put into production in a single year, is a family car that looks and performs like a European sports racer. The Avanti reveals a split in the Egbert personality. He never knows whether to preach about the car?╟╓s safety?╟÷its braking characteristics, sunken control knobs, positive door latch and so on?╟÷or about its being ?╟úthe fastest production car in America.?╟Ñ Egbert Versus the Picket Dealers are receiving the Avanti with warmth, and orders are piling up. Studebaker planned to make only 5000 but now expects to sell more than 15,000. If Egbert was right, the Avanti is telling dealers, ?╟úThis is the youth and vigor you may expect in all the Studebaker lines from now on.?╟Ñ Although Egbert is expending his own youth and vigor like a greyhound pursuing a mechanical rabbit, he is not precipitate. (One picket claimed otherwise, however, during a strike against the company early this year; he said Egbert had offered to fight him. A judge dismissed the charge.) He has disappointed those who thought he would immediately lay violent hands on Studebaker?╟╓s bread and butter, the Lark. He has not done so, except to lengthen it a bit and change the grille. His personal influence on the company?╟╓s regular cars will not show up until the 1964?╟╓s. Meanwhile, however, he has made an imprint on other aspects of the business. He was astonished to find that Studebaker, a supplier of military equipment clear back to the Civil War, had not had a military contract in years. He quickly pre- pared the company for bidding on military sup- plies and has already won $45,000,000 worth of contracts and delivered 6000 trucks. Egbert has also stepped up a company diversi- fication program. Studebaker will need some