How the Dictator
lost its name
Mussolini, Hitler and the Studebaker Standard Six
Picking the name of a new model is not an easy task. Most of the time, buying a car is a gut decision, so companies want to find a name that will convey certain positive values that can be linked to the car carrying it. Also, this name has to be memorable, so it sticks in the mind of any potential buyers the very first time they hear it. It can be a real name, numbers or made up words, but above all else, it has to be right for the job. For that reason lots of money and time go into market research before a decision is made.
Even after this excruciating process, and specially when a model is launched internationally, some names just don’t work, sometimes with hilarious consequences. For example, Mitsubishi’s long running Pajero is known as “Montero” in Spanish speaking countries, as the translation of Pajero is literally “wanker”. Other Japanese cars with controversial names in Spanish are the Mazda Laputa, which translates as “the whore”; or the Nissan Moco, which means “snort”. Although it might be the most common reason to change the name of a car, idiomatic differences are not the only reason to do so. In one particular case, it was the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany that ended up with a rename. This is the story of the Studebaker Dictator.
In the summer of 1927, Studebaker introduced their new car, originally known as the Model EU Standard Six. The Standard Six would be the entry model to the Studebaker range, sitting below the Big Six Commander and the President. Soon after, it would follow its siblings naming convention, being commercialized as the Dictator. The election of this name wasn’t casual: according to Studebaker, the Standard Six would “dictate” the quality standards in the American car market. The name initially caused no controversy, although in some European countries the car was sold under the name of “Director”, because of the reticence of some monarchies about the original moniker.
In the States, the Standard Six was a hit. During its first year of production, more than forty thousands Dictators came out of the Studebaker factory in Indiana. In its ads, the company would advertise it as “a brilliant example of excess of power” (no pun intended?). The Dictator sales were quite solid for years, only dipping during the Grand Depression of 1929. But out of the blue, in 1937 Studebaker dropped the Dictator name, replacing it by Commander. For some reason, a name that had been used for more than 10 years appeared to be tainted.
Studebaker marketed the Dictator as “a brilliant example of excess of power”
Not that when the name was chosen, dictators were so different from what they were then. But for many Americans, the word was related to a dictator whose public image was relatively positive, that of Benito Mussolini.
When Studebaker chose the name for its Standard Six, Mussolini had been ruling Italy for five years, and had already proved that Italian fascism was not exactly peaceful. Studebaker executives probably already knew of the brutality of Mussolini’s regime, considering the wide coverage the murder of Socialist Giacomo Matteotti in 1924 received in the American press.
This does not mean that there was a majority of Americans who wished to live under a dictatorial regime. But maybe there was a minority on both sides of the political spectrum that look favorably the idea of a dictatorship. This was specially true after the advent of the Great Depression, which threatened to immerse the country in a chaos that fascism seemed to have eradicated in Italy. What is undeniable is that the figure of Mussolini captured the imagination of many -especially in conservative circles-, and helped to sell the Studebaker Standard Six for years.
Powerful, effective, modern… Dictators even had some erotic appeal to some. These traits, exemplified in the figure of ‘Il Duce’, are exactly what any manufacturer would want to associate to their products, especially in the automotive world. However, the image of dictators would start to shift in the second half of the 30s with Hitler’s rise to power in Germany.
Unlike the Italian dictatorship, the ascent of the Nazi party had a negative response in the United States from the very beginning. Repression of Hitler’s regime focused on groups with strong presence in the United States (Jews, unions and Christians groups), who would respond by showing the American public the ugly face of the Nazi administration, making the word “dictator” politically incorrect.
Suddenly, Studebaker decided in 1937 to stop using the name “Dictator” to refer to the Standard Six, using instead the less controversial “Commander”, which had been ditched two years earlier. Studebaker later admitted that his decision to get rid of the “Dictator” was in fact due to the rise of Nazism in Germany. According to the brand executives, Hitler had given dictators “a bad name”, something that for them, nobody could have expected in 1927.
