Re: What SINGLE factor MOST contributed to the demise of Packard?

Posted by Craig the Clipper Man On 2013/10/15 19:39:51

My 2 cents would have to be look at the sales numbers in the mid 1950s. GM and Ford were selling millions of cars, compared to thousands for the independents. Luxury maker Cadillac alone in 1955 sold almost as many cars as medium-priced Studebaker. The Big Three had a choke hold on television/print advertising, literally muscling out independents like Packard or Hudson, and advertising made a huge difference in sales. The independents therefore were perpetual also-rans from the early 1950s on.

Even if George Mason had lived and successfully linked Nash, Studebaker, Hudson, and Packard into American Motors, it would have still been too late to truly make any difference. The time for that merger would have made a lot more sense in the 1920s or 1930s, at the latest.

Manufacturing automobiles is an expensive, high-risk business and like the law of Nature, it gets down to survival of the fittest. And Packard by 1955 was in no way very fit, especially in competition with Cadillac or Buick or Chrysler.