Hi

Did anyone else have a ball at Hershey? I did! It was great, an embarassment of riches, more interesting Packards and old cars of every make per square mile than anywhere else on earth!

Steve

Hi

I'll be trooping around the car corral and flea markets mid-day Thrusday, all day Friday. Saturday is 'christmas' for me on the show field! I'll try to remember to stop by, though I'm easily distracted by whatever interesting cars are nearby!

Steve

Hi

Ralph has done a wonderful job of restoring and preserving this part of Packard history. I recall seeing it at Hershey as well, glad it's now in the hands of such a capable conservator. How they located the original engine and supercharger is amazing.

Now, here's my personal reaction to the car: does it strike anyone else as looking proportionally like a Packard version of an El Camino or Ranchero? While it's a one-off custom, it certainly isn't on the aesthetic plane of Ed's pre-war personal customs.

Steve

Hi

Michael Lamm in his book, co-authored with Dave Holls, A Century of Style: 100 Years of American Car Design notes Kaptur's many contributions. You may want to contact him for biographical information he may have gleaned during his research.

Steve

Hello Kevin

My condolences on the passing of your Mother. Her legacy lives on, we see it daily in the care and generosity you display providing us with his wonderful website.

Steve

Hi

To bolster my position on Joe Frazer, this biographical information may be instructive:

http://richardlangworth.com/frazer-1

All three parts are an interesting read and sure to enlarge one's knowledge of a great automan. Particularly like Frazer's comments about Packard in Part 2.

http://richardlangworth.com/category/auto

Steve

Hi

Following up on post #2, here's my take on who would be the head of the combined corporation and it's division leaders, plus a bit of explanation on choices and caveats.

Corporate President/CEO: Joseph Frazer

Packard-Hudson Division President: James Nance

Nash Rambler-Studebaker Division President: George Romney
Truck-South Bend Division: Harold Churchill

Why Joseph Frazer? Assuming George Mason suddenly passed away, and given the animus of Nance and Romney, the corporation primary need was a leader with deep industry experience and an objective position regarding his division heads. Romney had only about six-seven years actually in active auto company management by '55. Nance, as we know, was a complete greenhorn whose strength was product development/content/sales, badly lacking in manufacturing and finance. He could be developed in the position with considerable oversight by an experience manager.

Yes, Joseph Frazer, late of Kaiser-Frazer, was the other half of that company for a while. As background, he divorced himself from active management in a 1948 show-down over Henry Kaiser's plan to gear up for 1949 production of 200K units. Frazer, in the auto industry since 1912, understood if one's company had no new models in the face of all-new competition, one always retrenched, took the defensive course. To which HJK bellowed "The Kaisers never retrench!", which given his greater financial share of K-F made his plan final. To make 200K unit year happen, HJK wanted Frazer to sign on for millions more in loans float the company through as well as front the Henry J and new '51 body development costs as well. Frazer foresaw Henry's plan as a roadmap for a sales disaster resulting in major losses which ultimately it did, had staked most of his personal fortune just to get the company going. For HJK, the auto venture wasn't much more than a sidetrack fascination, wouldn't leave him broke if it failed. The upshot was Frazer resigned as president to be replace by Edgar Kaiser, who turned out to be the Nance of K-F. Frazer was put on a sales consultancy contract which ended in 1952 when he was still in his later 50's, time enough to assume another key position with an independent automaker. There may have been other men with auto industry experience available and willing within the Big Three as well.

In the near-term 1954-60, the managerial acumen of both Romney and Nance were needed by their respective divisions to navigate the choppy waters that were a rapidly changing market. While Romney was up to the task, Nance still had to be coached along, which Frazer could have done very well. If either balked at a being just a division head, Frazer would have done well to replace him with a candidate immediately underneath whose skills demonstrated he would be a good division leader.

For the Studebaker Truck/South Bend Foundry Division, Harold Churchill would have been the ideal choice having deep familiarity experience with those functions.

Next, further comments on models selection and engines, various details presented here.

Steve

Hi

By late '54, all four were really under the gun to act quickly to stem further erosion of their market share. A four-way merger would result in too many nameplates and models spreading very limited resources too thin if all were retained. For the make and model structure, some old standbys would have be to dismissed. It was an absolutely necessity for survival that plant and product consolidations take place; would leave considerable casualties and debris in its wake. So, without further ado:

Detroit Operations: Body-on-Frame

Factories:
East Grand Blvd: Packard and Hudson, body production, final assembly on separate lines.
Utica, V-8 engine and Ultramatic production

Packards and Hudsons share body shell (P-H Body), frames with 122" & 127" wheelbases.

Packard: luxury only, P-H body, 127" wb, 352 ci V-8, Patrician, 400 & Caribbean.
Later addition: 133" wb LeBaron Brougham

Hudson: replaces Clipper, mid-range prices, P-H body, 122" wb, 320 ci V-8, Commodore, .

Factories:
Kenosha: Nash Rambler and Studebaker, unibody body production, final assembly
Engine production: Nash 196 ci ohv 6 cyl and Studebaker 259 ci V-8.

Nash Rambler and Studebaker share body shell, (NR-S Body), 108" & 117" wheelbases.

Studebaker: low-priced, NR-S Body, 117" wb, longer hood and deck, sedans & wagons, 259 ci V-8, Commander.
Later addition: 2 dr hardtop and convertible.

Nash Rambler: compact car, 108" wb, 196 ci ohv 6 cyl, initially 4 dr sedans and station wagons only.
Later addition: 2 dr hardtop and convertible.

Factories:
South Bend Chippewa Avenue continues Studebaker Truck assembly.
South Bend Studebaker Foundry continues.

Immediate Plant closings: Main Studebaker South Bend assembly, Hudson Detroit assembly

Five year plan for 1960: All-new, one story body and assembly plant adjacent to Utica for Packards and Hudsons. EGB closed.

Management structure shortly.

Steve

Hi

This was written mostly for the other thread, but I'll post it here since it's on the subject.

I've been following this intriguing thread, here's my ten cents.

By 1960, AMC had pretty well mined the rich market vein as the only domestic economy car maker to stunning success, Studebaker notwithstanding. Henceforth, the Big Three's compacts would erode the AMC market share unless they found some additional features or qualities which would retain their customer base as well as attract new adherents. Styling alone couldn't do it, every compact had to be pleasant, grand-but-bland and non-controversial. The tyranny of annual styling changes would consume precious dollars better spend elsewhere. Fortunately, beginning with 1961, Lincoln was championing a new approach which would also have served AMC much better long term. The AMC manufacturing structure and dealer network was largely uniform with the industry, its unit-cost/retail price relationship would have to stay within the established Big Three and imports regimen. Not much leeway gain to a market advantage. The main aspects the Big Three seemed glad to ignore in their compacts were overall build quality, fit and finish and engineering for long-term durability; only VW took these seriously, followed by the Japanese. This could have also been the AMC ace-in-the-whole.

How would Packard fit into this? An astute AMC management would have noticed the only other success car concurrent to 1958-60 was the Ford Thunderbird. Like Rambler, it bucked the '58 recession, racking up impressive sales gains, then settled into respectable volumes. The intangible benefit was the luster it brought to other Fords. True, AMC had their Rambler deluxe in Ambassador. But as Chrysler was coming to understand, it like Imperial would never be accepted as a stand-alone luxury make after decades of life as a model name. Still, there was an opportunity for AMC to participate in that segment with a careful, long-term approach which could include Packard. The first step would have been to quietly acquire rights to the name, trademarks, any design patents which Studebaker Corporation still held, keeping rumors of a sudden Packard revival from developing.

The next step beginning with the all-new '63 Rambler line would be to follow a practice of minimal annual styling updates teamed with continual, rigorous overall build quality and long-term durability improvements drive into each succeeding year. The point would be to learn how to cost-effectively include those aspects into lower-priced cars by internalized them as standard operating procedure. The objective would be to lift customer perceptions of AMC cars as far more than "off-brand, cheap, junky little Ramblers"; a reputation a goodly percentage of the population held. As the decade progressed, avoiding the short-term costly blind alleys such as the Marlin, Javelin and AMX as well as major costly restyles for basic lines, might have freed up some of the funding needed to make this succeed. All this would have demanded considerable expense and commitment, perhaps more than such a small carmaker could have borne.

After four to five years of careful engineering wrapped in a design by first-class talents such as Exner, Teague and others, built in a separate, state-of-the-art production facility supported by commitment to build the only best, only would then Packard have been re-launched as a new personal sport-luxury make. The line would be simply a sports sedan, hardtop coupe and convertible. It would share internal Ambassador structures including the immediate width, but paired with long hood/short deck proportions as Paul has shown. In marketing, only large, urban AMC dealers would have the chance to participate with separate, brand-new Packard dealerships facilities. It would not be sold at the AMC/Rambler outlets unless the dealer had demonstrated the commitment to the totally different approach which the luxury market demanded. Something of a similar approach Toyota took decades later with Lexus. Perhaps AMC would also allow franchises to dealers already selling high-end import makes.

Sound plausible?

Steve

Hi Owen

Thanks for the link, these are much better photos, are even annotated with year, marque, model, very helpful with the brass and European cars.

Humm, those Dietrichs, the '31 845 sport sedan and the '34 Twelve 1108 convertible sedan in subtle, elegant colors.....sublime!

Steve