At South Bend

President Albert Russel Erskine of Studebaker Corp. tantalized holders of Studebaker motor car stock at their annual meeting last week. He told them that already this year their workers had produced 30,000 Studebakers and 7,427 of the new Erskines. Said he: "Studebaker cars are regaining the popularity they enjoyed in 1922 and 1923." This encouraged the stockholders, for although production records were highest in the company's history, profits for the first three months of this year were less than for the same three months of 1926.

Then President Erskine teased his stockholders by telling them to await "an announcement which will be extremely interesting." Some shareholders thought he hinted at a merger of Studebaker with other motor car companies, for the entire industry is alive with rumors of mergers and new alignments. But more probably, in the case of this old family corporation, the "interesting announcement" will be price reductions, similar to the price reductions made last week by Pierce-Arrow.

Yet Studebaker stockholders had other strong food to chew on last week. This was the report of the test of swift endurance, run by a stock Studebaker at Culver City, Calif. In 81 hours a four-passenger, closed model, six-cylinder car covered 5,000 miles (equivalent of six months' ordinary driving) at an average speed of 61.12 miles per hour.* No fully equipped stock car had previously been put through a 5,000-mile speed-endurance test. So Studebaker has a record.

*In 1919 an Essex covered 3,037 miles in 50 hours--average 60.74 m.p.h.