Re: How bad WERE the '55 Packards?

Posted by Mr.Pushbutton  On 2008/12/25 10:29:25

If you look at the November, 1954 photo I posted above you can see the shopping center taking shape just to the north of the factory, the Kroger grocery store is already up and running and the footings are going in for the rest of the strip built around it. The demolition was completed August 8, 1959. As I said in my TPC article on Briggs/Conner the Chrysler land dept. paperwork I saw mentioned that "the plant was demolished due to its poor condition" and I pondered the fact that it was only 19 years old (which was practically new back then, Chrysler and other big three units were in plants that dated back to the teens and twenties then, and continued in those plants much later). It's hard to believe that Packard could run it into the ground in just three years, unless Briggs built it and never cared for it, which is also difficult to believe. I think it was too small to be anything meaningful to Chrysler, who had just built an engine plant in Trenton, MI (South of Detroit) and had yet again expanded their Jefferson Ave. Chrysler plant. I think they just got a better bang for their buck demolishing it and parceling out the land, which is what they did.
I took the two bus loads of conventioneers to the site of Conner during the 2006 PAC convention, we went right from the Boulevard site to Conner so that they could get a sense of the geographical distance, then we pulled the busses right onto the parking lot that is now where the plant once stood. Many people (well, actually the few who care about V-8s) really liked that, they felt they had a much better sense of how far apart these facilities were.
The Chrysler Conner engine plant is to the east of the railroad tracks, which were at the back of the Briggs/Packard Conner plant.