Regarding the 1953 Introduction of the Starliner Coupe...

 Based on the references I've read, which
include documents in the Archives, when the tri star appeared, it
was summarily assaulted by Daimler-Benz which believed it to be too
close to their own Ring and Star to be tolerated in the marketplace.
They asked Studebaker to remove it from the line, and later sought
court relief. The Tri-star in its orignal incarnation didn't last
the full '53 model year, and was replaced with a modified version,
on 8 cylinder models, with an 8 cast into the design at the apex of
the V, with the lower elongated loop replacing the short tail on the
star.  
  This began in late '53 production and appeared on '54 models. But
even this iteration of the tri-star wasn't acceptable to
Daimler-Benz, and they eventually sought relief to have this emblem,
too, removed. 

  Daimler-Benz was less successful in their assault on the Chrysler
Pentastar, until they bought the company and killed it then and
there, replacing it with the traditional logo for Chrysler, stylized
version of the Plymouth logo, and the Dodge Ram which had been
previously reserved for trucks. 

  Incidently, the conflicts with Daimler-Benz over proprietary
designs didn't end in 1954. In an interview I did with Brooks
Stevens a few months before he died, he told me that the updated
grille on the GT Hawk was based on the Mercedes-Benz grille (the
gasket I put between the hood and the chrome frame on my 62 GT
grille was purchased from a Mercedes-Benz dealer in Chicago, and was
in hte parts catalog for my S class), the grilles on the later Larks
were direct rip-off's of the Mercedes grille, and a number of the
styling cues for the GT he took from the Mercedes-Benzes of the
period. (He also followed the time honored tradition of both leading
and following Ford, and no one said much about that. He was quite
blunt in his proud admission that the roofline for the GT was a
direct steal of the Thunderbird. And the headlight rings were
proudly lifted from the 55 and 56 Lincolns.) 
  Daimler-Benz was dishappy about all of it, and according to
Brooks, things got very warm in the Executive Suite with lawyers
from every side threatening to sue everyone within 500 miles. Most
of it was just noise, and little action ever came out of it. But
they were popping like corks in Stuttgart when he fielded the first
Excalibur built on a Stude chassis, a virtual steal of the SSK, with
a 289 under the bonnet, and they went absolutely ballistic with his
logo: A sword standing on it's point inside a chrome ring...on the
radiator cap. 

   Interesting man, Brooks Stevens. And he laughed like a school boy
when he told these stories.