Re: Magazine Article 1951 Packard's New Complete Design

Posted by Dave Brownell On 2015/5/31 13:07:22

Vehicle quests and addictions can be inherited. Although my third son dismisses my Packard and Corvette collecting as foolish, he's doing much the same with his Autocar truck collecting. He's about sixty years too late to revise Packard history and survivors, but he pointed out how sad it is to see an Autocar truck work so hard for thirty or forty years of heavy daily labor and within hours be hauled off to a scrapper, still warm with its sweat. I don't know how many he's saved, but his older brothers think he's just the latest family fool to show up.

The Autocar and Packard companies have remarkably similar early histories. One gave up cars for trucks and the other trucks for cars. Both claimed their vehicles were the best of their types. Both saw massive restructuring in the 1950s and mergers took their tolls. Both were proudly American until their end, always the best and never the cheapest.