Down, Set, Hupp?

Reading recently about the travails of Hupp. Among the interesting items: a proposal for a front-wheel drive Hupp & a Willys 77-based Hupp, as well as the famous Skylark.

The company ran into trouble thanks to (among other things...:rolleyes:) the screwing around of Archie Andrews (not this one:p).

It made me wonder: could Hupp have survived? Given a Willys-based model (my preference, with FWD, like the 810)... How early would that project have to have begun?

Could, indeed, Hupp have attracted Gordon Buehrig as chief designer, instead of Ray Loewy? Would a Willys-based 810-ish Hupp have saved the company, had Andrews been given the boot?
 
I don't think this might have saved Hupp: by the time the Buehrig-designed Skylark came along, Hupp was on its last legs: consider that (IIRC) they had to farm out the manufacture of the bodies to Graham because they lacked the wherewithal to accomplish the sophisticated body stampings even though they owned the dies.

Taking this a step further, had Hupp gotten the body dies from ACD in time for, say, the 1939 model year, that might have been a different story. There would have been just enough separation in time between the Skylark and its predecessor (Cord Westchester) to allow the Skylark to be successful without being seen as a cheaper knockoff.
 
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