Re: Confidential Information for Cadillac Retail Salesmen

Posted by su8overdrive On 2013/9/16 18:34:39

Absolutely, Mr. PB. GMAC was a real boon, as was FoMoCo and Chrysler credit, but as mentioned, from 1948 when Alvan Macauley left, Packard's real focus was their jet engine contracts, Packard being one of only two domestic automakers to emerge from War II profitable and they now addicted to that. In fact, Packard's legal counsel Henry Bodman wrote the Merlin agreement, which became the basis for all US industrial military contracts for years to come.

So Packard increasingly phoned in their cars. The GM production fellows brought in back in 1933-34 to teach Packard how to build the wonderful One Twenty efficiently remained to run the entire show, and they were out of their league, witness George Christopher's "goddam senior stuff" lament. For all their production wiles, those guys were otherwise bumpkins, witness Packard's increasingly inept advertising and marketing, contrasted with Cadillac and R-R/Bentley, neither of which had better cars than Packard in the '30s and '40s.

My '47 Super Clipper, despite costing more than a concurrent Cad Series 62, and according to a former Chicago Cadillac dealer in that year, a better, stronger,
more reliable car, rolled from the factory with crummy hogshair and rubber front carpet, just like a lousy Oldsmobile. So it mystifies me that some owners today are so concerned about "originality" in that dept. I'm not
letting the legacy of some ex-GM production men tarnish my fine car.

The Chrysler's automatic notwithstanding, i'd still prefer
it to either the Cad or Pack. While none of these barges
were sports cars, the Chrysler tracked faster than the Cad, 16.2:1 steering gear against the Cadillac's clumsy 25.5:1, and better brakes. Also, the 1953-54 Chryslers were downsized those two years. Smart cars, but box office poison in those bigger is better days of chromed schmaltz and excess. There was really just a "Big Two" those years, since Chrysler's market share fell to only 12.9% for '54.

People oft forget that Chrysler was the number two automaker after GM nearly every year in the '30s and '40s.
Packard, however, was in the 1930s still the most widely
held automotive stock after only GM.

Of all the luxe domestic road cars of the early '50s,
i'd take either a New Yorker or a Packard Mayfair coupe but
only with stick and overdrive.

Perhaps time for a new thread, but just for kicks,
what would we own if we didn't have a Packard? Take some time, play with it. Doesn't have to be logical or make sense. For all our talk of engineering, i suspect most of us are as capricious, impulsive about cars as women are about clothes. Of course, i'm catholic in my tastes both
automotive and the distaff.