(EXPANDED FROM 12/15/2022)
James A. Ward’s Packard book, The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company, is dwarfed by Automobile Quarterly’s epic tome edited by Beverly Rae Kimes (2002) as well as Stuart R. Blond’s (2021) two-volume biography of Packard’s final leader, James J. Nance. Yet when it comes to analyzing the automaker’s postwar management decisions, Ward’s book is often the most useful.
As a case in point, he provides more solid answers to a number of key questions than Kimes’ Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company. And while Blond’s books also display exhaustive research, Ward presented a more sophisticated and objective analysis of Packard’s demise.
Indeed, I would point to Ward’s book as a good example of why a scholarly automotive history can have big advantages over one written by a car buff.
“I approach this whole subject as a historian who just happens to be an automobile aficionado rather than as a car enthusiast who wants to try his hand at history,” Ward wrote in his book’s introduction (p. 1). “I view the automobile industry in a broader perspective and attempt to portray the company’s affairs against larger social, economic, and political backgrounds.”
Also see ‘Wheel spinning happens when car buffs and scholarly historians don’t collaborate’
If this sounds rather nerdy, Ward also managed to write in an unusually engaging fashion for a scholar. All in all, this is one of the most well-balanced auto histories written by an academic. The book’s main weakness is that its mostly positive view of CEO James Nance suffers from tortured logic grounded in Detroit groupthink. This partly reflects a downside of many scholarly histories — their authors haven’t spent enough time in the automotive realm to avoid errors that a car buff may often catch.
Ward’s take on parts-sharing agreement more balanced
Ward’s expressed enthusiasm for digging through corporate documents shows its value in his analysis of a major debate among auto historians: Who, if anyone, was the bad guy in a parts-sharing alliance between Studebaker-Packard and American Motors that tipped over?
Ward wrote that in early 1955 AMC asked to buy Studebaker V8s for its cheaper models. Nance refused, but then later realized that Studebaker would benefit by swapping its V8s for AMC’s more modern six-cylinder engine. Thus, a counter-proposal was made. AMC rejected it and later stopped buying Packard V8s because it was developing its own (pp. 205-206).
Also see ‘Five (arguably) unresolved mysteries of postwar independent automakers’
This is a more detailed and balanced analysis than what you will find in Kimes’ book, where a chapter written by George Hamlin and Dwight Heinmuller contended that Studebaker-Packard initially proposed that AMC buy the Studebaker V8 and blamed the unraveling of a part-sharing agreement on AMC, which cooperated “only at its own convenience” (2002c, p. 599).
Ward’s narrative sounds more credible because it was grounded in Studebaker-Packard memoranda — and Blond offered similar evidence (2021, p. 58-59).
Ward offered questionable narrative on ‘grand merger’
Ward’s presentation of another major historical debate was more questionable: Why a “grand merger” between Studebaker-Packard and American Motors fell apart. His narrative was similar to Hamlin and Heinmuller as well as Blond, who credulously repeated Nance’s insistence that he joined Packard only after Nash head George Mason had agreed to help engineer a four-way merger (2002; p. 557; 2021, p. 45).
Also see ‘Would Hudson have been Packard’s best merger partner?’
In Ward’s telling, Nance was promised the presidency of a combined company before he joined Packard in 1952 (p. 78). Patrick Foster has convincingly argued against that scenario, such as by pointing to evidence that Mason did not want Studebaker because of its high manufacturing costs (2017, pp. 124-125).
Hamlin and Dwight Heinmuller (2002a; 2002b) went on to argue that a grand merger died along with Mason because his successor, George Romney, rejected the idea. Ward offered a more nuanced take, suggesting that Nance spurned overtures from Mason as well as Romney (pp. 148-149, 157).
Terrific research undercut by questionable conclusions
Ward’s dogged efforts to better document Packard’s history is such a valuable contribution to the field that I am doubly frustrated with his book’s questionable conclusions. As a case in point, he suggested that Nance’s costly and overly ambitious expansion plans did not kill the firm. Packard could have managed the added costs if it had not been overrun by external events.
Ward insisted that what “killed Packard was the one-two-three punch of circumstances outside of the company’s control that, when combined with its other difficulties, made it impossible for Nance and his ‘key men’ to keep the firm in business” (p. 265).
The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company does a good job of explaining those circumstances, such as the Korean War and the 1953-54 “Ford blitz,” but it has holes in its logic chain. For example, Ward acknowledged that no decision “was more destructive” than turning Studebaker-Packard into a full-line automaker. “Even the company’s bankers warned Nance that the country did not need and would not support such a company” (p. 267). Yet Ward discounted the prospects of Packard being successful as a niche brand.
Ward was fuzzy on how a two-brand strategy was viable
In addition, like many other auto historians Ward insisted that Packard’s key failure was not offering a junior brand. However, he was notably fuzzy about how that strategy could be viable for such a small automaker.
This is a crucial omission given the failure of American Motors to adequately differentiate its Nash and Hudson brands. Even the much larger Chrysler Corp. gave up trying to field both a DeSoto and Chrysler brand. By what logic could Packard have done any better?
Also see ‘1956 Packard booklet hints at how James Nance got too big for his britches’
My sense is that historians — both professional and armchair — get stuck on a two-brand strategy because in the U.S. we have internalized the idea of brand hierarchies so rigid that they must not straddle the premium-priced and luxury fields as Mercedes-Benz has done for many decades in Europe.
If one rejects the Mercedes model as inapplicable to the U.S., the question still remains: How could Packard have funded two viable brands with output levels that even in a rosy scenario would only have reached 125,000 units per year?
Why has Ward been ignored by other historians?
These nitpicks illustrate how Ward did not write the definitive analysis of Packard’s demise. However, he gave the automotive history field a great deal of solid research with which to update — and even resolve — some key debates. Unfortunately, The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company has still not received the attention that it deserves even a quarter century after its publication.
As a case in point, a few years ago I was moved to expand this review after reading a Collectible Automobile story by Richard Langworth (2021) about the 1951-56 senior Packards. He recycled narratives about Nance that Ward arguably debunked, such as that American Motors’ head George Romney pulled the plug on the grand merger.
Thus, my meta question: How can the field of automotive history advance if newer research is ignored for decades?
The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company
- James A. Ward; 1995
- Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA
“Macauley was not proposing another Light Eight; he wanted to sell hundreds of thousands of Packards. To do it he was obliged to restructure his company’s personnel and methods of doing business. The old conservative radically altered his firm and set it on a path from which it would never turn back. With all the new faces, machinery, and procedures, the public’s perception of the company and its products also changed, but much more slowly. In the short run this differential between reality and Packard’s reputation was a boon for the company. In the postwar world, however, this gap lulled the company into a fatal complacency until an industry outsider made one last frenzied effort to save the firm.” (pp. 22-23)
“Christopher’s ouster pointed up the weaknesses in the company’s organizational structure and the profound changes that had shaken the corporation since the end of the depression. Like his successors, Christopher left his personal imprint on Packard. Its organization, methods of handling business, plans for the future, and position in the national auto markets are all the products of his temperament. Packard had always been highly personalized, and Gilman and Christopher had drawn more powers to the presidency. When the board lopped off its head, it may have slowed the relentless march toward the financial precipice, but the action also left the company without a strong force to move it in new directions. Unlike General Motors, where a decentralized structure weighed all decisions, Packard preferred the less time-consuming and more flexible stance of trusting such strategy choices to its chief executive. For an Independent, that structure made a great deal of sense, but it also demanded talent waiting to assume control when anything went terribly wrong.” (p. 64)
“Nance identified as Packard’s first serious misstep Macauley’s decision to call his 120 a Packard instead of following Cadillac’s example with its cheaper LaSalle. That error, he thought, was compounded when Macauley brought out his 6-cylinder cars, which bore all the familiar Packard styling trademarks and the company’s revered name. Nance understood that the 120 and its smaller siblings were not a fatal error. The cars were absolutely necessary for the company’s survival in the depression. But they blurred the public’s conception of the marque.” (p. 262)
OTHER REVIEWS:
Kirkus Review | Amazon | Goodreads
RE:SOURCES
- Blond, Stuart R.; 2021. Spellbinder: The Life of James J. Nance — Volume One, 1900-1954; Volume Two, 1955-1984. Kindle Direct Publishing.
- ——; 2022. Spellbinder: The Life of James J. Nance — Volume Two, 1955-1984. Kindle Direct Publishing.
- Foster, Patrick R.; 2017. George Romney: An American Life. Waldorf Publishing, Grapevine, TX.
- Hamlin, George and Dwight Heinmuller; 2002a. “All-New Contour Styling.” In Kimes, Beverly Rae, ed., pp. 544-561. Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company. Automobile Quarterly Publications.
- ——–; 2002b. “America’s New Choice in Fine Cars: The Twenty-Sixth and the Fifty-Fourth Series 1953-54.” In Kimes, Beverly Rae, ed., pp. 562–581. Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company. Automobile Quarterly Publications.
- ——; 2002c. “Let the Ride Decide: The Fifty-Fifth Series 1955.” In Kimes, Beverly Rae, ed., pp. 582-601. Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company
- Langworth, Richard M.; 2021. “1951-56 ‘Senior’ Packards: The Song was Over But the Melody Lingered On.” Collectible Automobile. December issue: pp. 47-57.
This review was originally posted July 10, 2020, and expanded on Nov. 16, 2021; Dec. 15, 2022; and Feb. 26, 2024.
Your comparison with Mercedes is meaningless. Mercedes was made in Europe, working with a different economic structure. The US was a small part of their production. The story of the fall of Packard can be summed up in two sentences. They ran out of money. They ran out of time.
Packard was dealt a bad hand and played it badly. All the books, articles, blogs,etc about how Packard could have survived assume that Packard executives would make decisions that in retrospect were right, but not so at the time, and legions of bankers would suddenly become stupid and give them lots of money.
Kimberly, I would speculate that if Mercedes had been based in the US that its one-brand strategy could have been quite successful in the postwar period.
But for the sake of discussion, let’s assume you are right that it wouldn’t have worked (at least with Packard). I have yet to see a well-structured argument that Packard could have survived largely, if not entirely, on luxury car sales in the 1950s. There just wasn’t enough volume there. So unless Packard found a way to subsidize its auto production with other ventures (such as with a steady flow of defense contracting), it needed to generate greater volume in the premium-priced field. My sense is that Packard was too small to be able to field two brands that were differentiated enough to be viable.
One might argue that this was the key reason for a merger. However, that still wouldn’t have meaningfully improved the economies of scale needed for a successful two-brand lineup. For example, if Packard had merged with Nash, the brand’s cars would have all but inevitably ended up being based on the full-sized Nash body and built in Kenosha. Where’s the cache in that?
My basic beef is that all too often US automotive history assumes that GM’s hierarchy-of-brands strategy was the one and only way for other automakers to be successful. Yet the historical record points to numerous examples of how this may not in fact have been so. As a case in point, Ford was oftentimes most successful in the postwar period when it challenged rather than mimicked GM. At the same time that the Edsel was flopping, the four-seat Thunderbird was outselling Buick’s top-end Electra.
This suggests to me that Packard had a better chance of surviving if it had smashed conventions. That’s what Romney did at AMC — with great success. Nance was too consumed by “GM envy” to recognize that Packard also needed to take a different road. All the money in the world wouldn’t have made up for that strategic mistake.
Your last paragraph is accurate, but again a bunch of ifs. However, the luxury car market is perhaps the most conservative and conventional of the various categories. Packsrd’s thinking in sports/personal car area ranged from the odd to grotesque. The nearest affordable thing they could do is drop a hot multicarb V8 into the executive, for a 300 letter car fighter. This is something that could be handled by Henney in Freeport (Go Pretzels) and would at least give the dealers a halo car and us a cool collectable However, you get back to Pachard’s nemeses, money and time.
I love the concept of an Executive 2 door hardtop with the Caribbean dual quad 374 V8, but it would not be necessary to bring Henney into the mix, as it was possible to order the V8 Caribbean’s engine in any Packard line as a special order. No special equipment changes were required for the chassis or body, it was a simple change of the order card to drop a dual quad 352 or 374 into even the lowly Clipper Deluxe sedan, even better if it had 3 speed & overdrive.
Amongst all the V8 Packard cars I’ve owned over the last 50+ years, I’ve had a 1955 400 hardtop and two 1956 Patricians, all with the dual quad engine from the factory. By 1955 Henney was no longer of interest to Packard, and I’m told it still owed money that Packard had paid out for Limousine construction, as Henney didn’t have the funds to complete the orders.
When comparing Mercedes to Packard, it’s important to remember that Daimler had a large, profitable truck division in addition to its passenger car division. Unfortunately, Packard had shuttered its truck division in the early 1920s.
And while Daimler has sold its passenger cars under one brand, a Mercedes S-Class isn’t just an E-Class with a longer wheelbase, better trim and a slightly bigger engine. It shares Mercedes styling cues, but it is designed and engineered at the outset to compete with the best the world has to offer. It isn’t simply a longer, better-trimmed version of a cheaper model.
Which is exactly why Packard deserved a merger with a much better partner than Studebaker.
CJ, Packard might have had a less rapid demise by merging with Hudson or Nash, but it wouldn’t have solved the fundamental problem: The volume of a full-sized body would very likely have been too low to support two reasonably distinctive brands. There is both a short- and long-term component to this.
In the short run, the merged company would have invariably needed to pick one of the existing bodies to use for both brands. No one fielded a body that had adequate design flexibility to preserve each brand’s distinctiveness.
But even if the merged company had been able to come up with a new body that was more flexible, it wouldn’t have been able to give each brand enough unique sheetmetal to avoid looking badge engineered. And that’s only one expense, e.g., it would have cost twice as much to market two brands rather than one. Why bother with the extra expenses if 1) few people would be fooled and 2) you may have great trouble breaking even?
Here we haven’t yet talked about how on earth any full-sized car from an independent could have survived the tanking of the premium-car field in the late-50s. If Packard had merged with Nash it would have most likely ended up as a fancy Rambler. In other words, not all that different from a 1957 Packard.
In 1951, Buick sold a 52 sedan that was priced similar to the 200. It racked up 92,886 sales. The Buick 72 sedan’s body was identical to it except that it had a longer axle-dash/hood/front fenders. It saw 48,758 sales. That body shell minus door outer panels was used to create the Cadillac 62 sedan, which sold 54,596 units. And finally, the 62’s body including its front and rear door outer panels, was then used to create the longer wheelbase/rear quarters/deck 60 Special (with the rear quarter panel stampings probably used for the 62 sedan, trimmed at the front). That car saw 18,631 total sales.
For 1951, Packard sold 59,614 200 sedans, with pricing similar to the Buick 52 sedan. The 200’s hood, front fenders, windshield, front and rear door assemblies, and decklid were then used to create the 5-inch longer wheelbase 300 sedan, which sold 15,000 units and was priced similar to the Buick 72 sedan. The 300’s entire body was then used to create the more richly trimmed 400, which had its own 9-main bearing version of the 300’s 327 Eight. Pricing was slightly above Cadillac’s 62 sedan and saw 9,000 sales. The important thing to note here is that 1951 was a profitable model year for Packard despite being too generous with the dividends that it paid out.
Had the 200 sedan used the 300/400’s longer wheelbase and greenhouse, the increase in investment and production efficiency would have allowed it to sell the cars at not much higher a price than the shorter cars. We can’t know how the 200’s buyers would have responded to a longer version of it, only that Buick’s buyers overwhelmingly chose the 52 sedan over the shorter greenhouse/wheelbase 51 sedan.
This data suggests that Packard for 1951 demonstrated an ability to be profitable and might have been even more so had it tooled and sold only the longer of the two sedan bodies, still with two rear quarter/taillight sets. I think the company’s real problems, which started after the excitement of the first year, were lack of styling excellence and reach, and not being able to launch a V8 in 1953 as it had originally envisioned. The ’51s looked good in ’51 but much less so by ’54.
It’s interesting to consider how Packard responded to its ’48 straight-through fenders. Basically, it chickened out on the design approach. Meanwhile, Buick and Cadillac embraced it, creating a lower-body flow through that I think was just as ugly as Packard’s bathtubs. But the market saw it differently and that was all that mattered, and by the mid-50s everyone had flow-through bodies except Packard.
Would Packard’s volumes have been sufficient were the low and mid-models to have been marketed under a different brand such as Nash, Hudson or even Frazer. Why not? That which would have been lost by not having the Packard name would have been gained by having existing owners of the other names, and lots more dealers to sell them.
Would the large cars have been recession-proof? In retrospect, it is clear that however the independents found their way to the 1958 model year, they had to by then be selling fresh, spectacular cars with appearance and technical staying power, and with all major corporate investments behind them, at least for the time being.
Paul, what are your guesstimates for the level of production that could have been achieved around 1955-56 if Packard had paired with, say, Nash? And based upon those production levels, how much differentiation do you think they could have achieved (e.g., in terms of sheetmetal or even engines)?
James Ward’s book is on the most accessible shelf of my library. If we had a fire, l’d grab it first!
I agree with Steve that there were opportunities that would have allowed Packard to survive as an Independent. The all-new 1951 24th Series certainly gave the company a fresh start to carve out a profitable share of the evolving post-war industry. I laid out a few thoughts on Richard Langworth’s website:
https://richardlangworth.com/packard-patrician-1951-53-2
https://richardlangworth.com/packard-cars-1954-56
Perhaps the biggest mental hurdle that Packard needed to clear was the 180 degree shift in mindset from pre-war wood-composite bodies that permitted one of the most expansive catalogs of body styles in the industry, to investment-intensive all-steel bodies that forced the opposite, and where an independent Packard needed to offer an expansive range not of bodies but interior trims, engines and other technical advancements for the same body. In that world the company could have realistically afforded to tool at most, two completely differentiated bodies.
The 1941-2 Clipper 4-door notchback sedan and 2-door fastback coupe were an example of two unique bodies, if one includes the Clipper program’s two sets of front fenders/hoods. I question only Packard’s decision on the details of the 2-door model, as I am starting to believe that Packard could have better improved its competitive position in the luxury space by always making its second all-steel body car a more style-forward design that allowed it to reach deeper into the luxury space. For 1942 this perhaps could have been done with a 4-door version of its fastback style, and with a longer axle-dash and Packard’s traditional vertical grill that was used on the ’40-42 cars. This two-model, functional body plus style-forward body is the same strategy that I offered in my response to Richard Langworth in the first link above.
Just a personal note on James A. Ward. He was one of several featured speakers at an automotive conference held at my alma mater, Youngstown State University in 2008. I drove down from Detroit (at the time I was working at Ford) specifically to hear him, and afterward made it a point to say hello and tell him how much I enjoyed his book. Because he introduced himself to me as Jim, that is what I have since called him. We immediately hit it off and spent the rest of the day palling around together, culminating in the entire conference taking a bus ride to Lordstown for a plant tour. He was probably in his late 50s/early 60s, tall and thin with short, graying hair, the occasional cigarette in hand, and endowed with a quick mind and wry sense of humor. As we walked into Lordstown’s main entrance I explained my hometown’s vibe. “Youngstown has its fair share of both entrepreneurs and organized crime.” To which he witfully replied: “What’s the difference!”
I stayed in touch with him for a few years and learned of his wife’s eventual passing, which greatly affected him. We have not been in touch for many years now, and I’m not sure how to contact him. Hope he is still around and doing OK.
I think I also included colorful politicians, which made his response all the funnier.
That last sentence in the third quote reads a bit on the odd side: “…But they blurred the public’s conception of the marque.” (p. 262)
Shouldn’t that have read “the public’s perception…”? The way it is written implies that the public was, to quote Google, “…forming or devising of a plan or idea” of Packard. It seems like a strange use of the word conception, IMO.
What if, in the late 1930s, or as late as 1940, Packard had approached Nash with the intention of body sharing to create a new, smaller, more efficient replacement for the six cylinder Packards? Such a car could have been based off the new for 1941 Nash 600 and featured different fenders, unique front styling (in a non-traditional Packard fashion), revised rear styling, upgraded interior and different dash/steering wheel. This new car could have been marketed as the Clipper, allowing the company’s all new 1941 models to be branded and marketed exclusively as senior Packards. If such a plan were to have worked, resulting in good sales for Packard and cost-efficiencies for both automakers, perhaps this cooperation could have led to an early post-war merger of the two companies. A new dealer network (“Visit your nearest Packard-Nash dealership today!”) would have given them greater marketing power and the ability to focus on selling in the low-medium priced fields with Nash and the premium/prestige fields with Packard, while potentially utilizing only 2 distinct architectures. Further savings would have resulted from joint drivetrain developments. Rambler could have been a spin off brand of the parent corporation. What if they had survived and remained to this day as Packard-Nash-Rambler-Jeep?
Remember where most new car dealerships were located in the 1950s: Largely in the downtowns of urban areas. New dealership facilities came about by pressure from G.M. (and later, Ford), the move by a post-war (largely white) citizenry to the suburbs and the demolition of many old-line dealerships when the interstate highways were built in the downtown areas. Indianapolis, for example, lost the major Buick dealership, the eastside downtown Chevrolet and A.M.C. dealers and the downtown Ford dealer to the Interstates. Chrysler’s Lynn Townsend did not begin the corporate push to upgrade and modernize their dealership network until 1964. The Packard, Studebaker, Nash and Hudson dealerships dated well into the 1920s and 1930s…not the atmosphere to compete with the much nicer Cadillac facilities.
We could also wonder what if Packard offered a V8 engine more earlier like 1951 instead of waiting until 1955? Then also what if Nance accepted AMC offer to buy some Studebaker V8?
In my proposed scenario, a V8 engine should likely have been a joint development, with engines of various displacements being designed for use in both Packard and Nash products. There would be no need to outsource any engines. This presumes, of course, that the management of a newly merged Packard and Nash would have seen the need for a V8 engine by 1951.
Packard was extremely fortunate that the quality and reputation of its cars, the company and its finances saw them through the depression. Cadillac and Lincoln only survived the 1930s because they were division’s of giant corporations. Due its low volume of production, it is very unlikely that Lincoln, most notably, would have had the financial resources that Packard did to go downmarket and save themselves from extinction. To deal with the reality of a far more egalitarian and aspirational post-war marketplace, Packard needed to do what Cadillac did. Beginning in 1950, Cadillacs became increasingly more glamourous, glitzier and powerful. Packards did not (at least not soon enough). A pre-war merger with Nash might, as a previous comment of mine suggested, have given Packard the opportunity to sell in the low-medium price field with a car to compete against Pontiac, Mercury and DeSoto. Might this have given the company impetus (and a better bottom line) to design more adventurous Packards for the early 1950s? The 1960s ushered in a more conservative ethos of American luxury car styling, something Packard quite likely could have exemplified. At the turn of the decade, a new generation Packard could have followed the lead of Lincoln’s Continental and found new owner loyalty by offering an American luxury car of quality and distinction, worthy once again, of the slogan, “Ask the man who owns one”.
If one studies the three “YouTube”-available films by Packard / Wilding on the 24th-series Packard, it is immediately clear that while the cars were carefully engineered and built, Packard was still mired in the past. Why did the 24th-series not introduce a new V-8 engine for the 300 and Patrician models but instead unveiled three “new” flat-head-eights for all models for 1951 ? Both Oldsmobile and Cadillac had their new O.H.V.-high compression V-8s for 1949. Where was Packard ? While the 24th-series cars were seen as rather plain, in the right colors and trim, they were attractive and certainly very contemporary for 1951. Performance cars in 1951 ? The Cadillac, the Olds 88, the Mercury and the Ford V-8. Would a 1951 or 1952 Packard 300 with a modern O.H.V. V-8 be considered a “banker’s hot-rod”? I guess the world will never know.
Oh, and I forgot the 1951 Chrysler Saratoga, which with the 331-cu.-in. hemi-V-8 and the right suspension, was definitely a “banker’s hot-rod”!
I have an odd thought here. Did the mergers of Detroit and non-Detroit based companies inevitably lead to one car line becoming a badge engineered version of the other? If all four independents were based in Detroit, wouldn’t that make it easier for parts sharing without the cloning?
While I agree the ’51 Packard was an attractively designed car, and was a step above the contemporary Lincoln & Imperial, it completely lacked the Cadillac’s glamour. Even staid Chrysler, as you point out, had the good sense to offer a modern V8 that year. Given the Packard’s tasteful, if restrained styling, one can imagine that an OHV V8 of sufficient displacement & HP under the hood would have made it anything but Patrician. Ask the man who races one!
While Packard might not have been able to tool multiple all steel bodies, what if it had commissioned European coachbuilders to fill out a distinctive senior series after the war? I’m thinking Hooper, H J Mulliner, Facel, Graber, Touring, etc. Would have been expensive, but exclusive. Even if not many sold the existence of such a line could have brought much needed glamor to the brand.
If I recall correctly that scenario was entertained by Studebaker-Packard management. This could have kept the Packard brand alive. One question is whether there was enough of a market to generate a steady profit. Another question was whether Packard still had enough cachet to be appealing to that level of buyer. Of course, the other question is how good the execution of the design and engineering turned out to be, e.g., a thinly disguised Facel Vega might not have gained much traction.
Yes, S-P considered bringing over the Excellence with a Packard grill, though legend has it Mercedes-Benz objected given the distribution agreement. But that would have been too late to accomplish the purpose I have in mind as there was no longer a Packard product in the premium class to benefit from the Halo effect (dubious perhaps anyway in the case of the Excellence because of chassis rigidity issues).
I’m not sure coachbuilt senior Packards would have had to sell in volume or make money to be useful. Rather, the point would be to make owning a Packard for Buick money once again something desirable by association with an excluaive prestige product. Rather like the way Mercedes today trades on the prestige of the S Class in selling its low line models.
Exactly… “the point would be to make owning a Packard for Buick money once again something desirable by association with an exclusive prestige product.” There are many ways to achieve profitability and exclusitivity but Packard wasn’t able to find the right ones.
That is why in my “what if” scenario, Steve, I suggested a much earlier Packard merger. By the time they tied themselves to Studebaker, it was too late and of course, financially, Packard picked the wrong partner.
I would agree with the observation that, more than anything, Packard ran out of time. While they had a long standing luxury reputation and their straight eight was certainly a legendary, smooth running engine, but in the end, time had simply passed Packard by. I would contend the 1955 redesign launch/quality issues along with the loss of body builder Briggs and the controversial Studebaker merger sealed Packard’s fate.
Sure, a combination of all the independents at the time might have made sense for the parties involved, but it simply didn’t happen. Packard’s cash helped to bankroll a struggling Studebaker and not much else.
The last few Packard models represented badge re-engineering at it’s worst and proved a great way to kill off a grand old marque. But what if…
The 1958 doubled finned 2 door hardtop was novel enough and arguably should have been more luxurious as well as an exclusive and perhaps only Packard model offered from 58 forward, as the sedans were abysmal looking and the Packard Hawk, borderline ridiculous. Imagine if the hardtop could have been carried forward until the Brook Stevens Hawk redesign debuted with its more formal lines and perhaps a case could have been made for Packard staying on as a limited production personal luxury Studebaker division. Tuned and outfitted correctly, I can only imagine…the Packard equivalent of the Chrysler letter series 300 and a vehicle that would have lived up to the billing of Packard…ask the man who owns one. As for the GT Hawk? The Avanti was a fitting performance oriented Hawk replacement. Perhaps I’m a bit crazy and sentimental about Packard and Studebaker, but in the end Packard deserved better than being merely lipstick on a pig.
Ask the man who was around when the 58 hardtop debuted. It had a vaguely misshapen look about it. Maybe Brooks Stevens could have helped, the idea of making a Packard into a personal luxury car makes sense. First, make the Hawk exclusive to Packard. Offer a convertible. Just for giggles, try a shooting brake.
Have heard a claim during the early 1950s that Packard came close to producing a more compact yet conservatively built V8 with non-slipper pistons before they canned the project, reputedly being similar to the Studebaker V8 and having many headbolts to allow for higher octane fuel.
Can understand why the smaller Packard V8 project was abandoned if it was likely a result of the merger with Studebaker, though was wondering if more details are available?
Off the top of my head I’m not recalling that proposed engine, although it’s been a while since I’ve reread Kimes’ Packard book, which is the most comprehensive one currently in my library.
As a matter of general logic, I would imagine that engineers would have a preference for a larger engine, both because Packards were relatively large and in order to stay competitive with the Big Three. If they thought a smaller engine would work fine, why then not just use a thinly disguised version of the Studebaker V8?
So far the only reference to the proposed engine is found in the following thread in relation to the purported US-roots of the Volvo B8B V8, yet concede it is best to take it with a grain of salt until more concrete information is available.
It would make more sense for Packard to use a thinly disguised Studebaker V8, otherwise get the impression the proposed smaller Packard V8 may have been a project that preceded its ultimately ill-fated merger with Studebaker and canned before the latter was already in production.
https://www.speed-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=922880#p922880
I vaguely remembering reading something somewhere about Studebaker’s post WWII V8 being overbuilt because they figured much higher octane fuels would be available leading to 13 or 14 to 1 compresison being possible. Perhaps Packard was thinking the same.
“Even the company’s bankers warned Nance that the country did not need and would not support such a company” (p. 267). This is a key statement by Ward ! While Nance, Mason and Romney wanted to publicly be optimistic about their bright futures, the U.S. economy had its limitations. For example, while new cars were an aspirational item, so were television sets. The U.S. terrestrial broadcasting industry was grown by leaps and bounds as new TV and radio stations came on-air. Alongside N.B.C. and C.B.S., the Blue Network which became A.B.C.-United Paramount obtained TV station licenses. But as late as 1975, even the F.C.C. economists referred to the financial underpinnings of the radio-television industry as a “two-and-a-half network economy” with almost 50 % of radio stations losing money. How in that financial climate, regardless of how great the styling was, could four major full-line automobile manufacturers survive even a mild recession like 1957-1958 ?