Re: The Demise of the Independents

Posted by HH56 On 2017/4/3 12:34:29

Something I've been curious about is how much a role did advertising and surveys play back then. Packard did a bit of advertising, Stude more but the big 3 seemed to go to extremes anywhere they could. Also surveys. I believe Consumer Reports gave the 55s and maybe Packard in general some fairly mediocre ratings while some of the test magazines did a bit better. Of course, we can't believe Consumer Reports all the time but still lots of people won't buy anything they rate low.

Don't remember the organization doing the survey but saw an ad the other day touting present GM models as top notch buys because some same GM models of past years were rated high in consumer surveys. Ironically, many of those high rated models then were the ones being shipped with known faulty ignition switches.