Re: Conner ave plant

Posted by Dave Brownell On 2017/3/24 13:05:37

Wasn't Conner (either under Briggs or Chrysler) also producing the last of the "Step-down" bodies for Hudson? There's some mention in the Crestline Hudson history book and photos showing trucks transporting incompletely trimmed Hudson bodies to the Hudson plant (the one GM bought at bargain basement rates and where the 1956 Cadillacs were produced following the GM renovation.

In my opinion, the first big error in the Packard demise saga occurred when Briggs was awarded the contract to build Packard's bodies in the early 1940s. Soon thereafter, Briggs asked for a price increase and things would never be the same on East Grand again. The war production push merely masked the odor of a very bad deal until the seller's market dissipated later in the decade. Multi-stories or not, I suspect most of us would have supported Packard-built bodies continuing to come out of the recently re-tooled and renovated dual line East Grand plant. Bad advice be damned, hindsight is often twenty twenty.

One other thing that several of you with Packard production order documentation might answer; both of my 1956 In-transit/bill of lading show notations of "WAS sales". Does anyone know what that might mean? This also appears on other people's documents for their cars.