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equipment using steel and wheels. These were by and large also the companies that made the motors, chassis, transmissions, axles, and every other vehicle component. In the postwar economic boom, all these companies returned to making their money by building things for and selling things to consumers.

Struggling carmakers Studebaker and Packard merged into the Studebaker-Packard Corporation in 1954 and plodded along for around a decade. The final Packard rolled off the assembly line in 1958, and the last Studebaker in 1967.

Although historically considered one of the ugliest cars ever made, the Gremlin, like this 1973 model, was a popular AMC creation.

AMC found a place in the car market by building small, inexpensive, and fuel-efficient vehicles more than a decade before fuel shortages motivated the development of fuel- efficient cars by the Big Three. The AMC Rambler and Gremlin were the company’s most successful car models, though sales lagged behind AMC’s next acquisition. American Motors Corporation added one more independent automaker in 1970, the last US independent automaker with a star product: the Jeep. The Jeep, which had been designed and built for the US Military by Kaiser Motors in World War II, was the company’s only line of vehicles. They were popular, but with such a small operation, Kaiser was not able to make much of profit. So, they joined forces with AMC, and the Jeep turns out to be the only AMC product still being made today, though by Fiat-Chrysler.

Watch as the last Studebakers come off the assembly line in Hamilton, ON, in 1966.

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