Re: 6 cyl in a 55...another wacky idea?

Posted by 58L8134 On 2010/12/27 19:23:47

Hi

"... I've always felt that bringing out the 110 was a catastrophic error in terms of maintaining their status as a luxury car maker."

AHEM to that, Owen! You've identified the key move that, while generating volume on low unit profit models, did more long-term damage to Packard reputation and position in the market than can be calculated. The immediate result was to cannibalize 120 sales volume which never really recovered once the 115/Six/110 arrived. If we had the unit profit figures for each series, I suspect we'd see how little financial benefit the company derived from Six production.

A prestige/luxury car reputation was the most fragile thing in the auto industry. Fielding any type of downmarket model quickly diminished the prestige with which the make was regarded. This was the case in the pre-war market, the experiences of Mercedes-Benz postwar are a different situation.

The taxi business: highly competitive, based completely on lowest-cost fleet prices, paper-thin unit profits on cars built to heavy-duty specifications. Worst of all, taxis were regarded by the general public as durable, basic workhorse transportation appliances, to be used up and thrown away and forgot about. Nothing took a car's prestige reputation down faster than seeing it consigned to taxi service. Of all the businesses Packard should have run away from, taxi was the main one.

That said, I'm sure the Packard taxis rendered yeomen service at low-cost, were a good value for those companies that had fleets of them. I do know, if I spent $3,500 to $5,000 for a Custom Super Clipper and the first thing I saw upon alighting from my chauffeured Packard was a Packard Six Taxi plying Park Avenue, my next step would be have the chauffeur drive me to the Cadillac dealer to trade for a nice 60 Special or Fleetwood which I wouldn't see as a Cadillac six taxi! Call me elitist, can't help it!

Steve