Re: Packard & Mercedes Benz

Posted by su8overdrive On 2016/6/18 1:03:06

Under a management contract from aero/defense giant Curtiss-Wright looking for tax write offs in May, 1956, Studebaker-Packard wound up with the Mercedes-Benz distribution rights. Some senior visitors here can tell you how difficult it was to buy an import car in the US in the '50s, at least compared with today's international climate described by NY Times op-ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman ("The Lexus and the Olive Tree", "The World is Flat," etc.).

One of Packard's last ditch ideas was to import Chrysler-drivetrained Facel-Vega Excellence sedans rebadged as "Packards," but Mercedes objected to even this paltry competition.

Similarly, Ferrari's marketing men had a couple years earlier respun Enzo's open respect for the Packard Twelves of the '30s, he owning several, into his being impressed by the 1915-22 Twin Six, these more distant offerings seen as less of a threat from the company whose Caribbeans and Mayfair coupes were even remote competition to the street cars Maranello purveyed to playboys and girls strictly to fund Enzo's real interest, racing.

Anyone who knows the car biz can understand the above laughable insecurity, especially when a Packard addicted to less hassle defense contracts faced a new postwar world dominated by marketing and glitz, no longer a leader, but increasingly phoning in responses to GM's leads, as with the Caribbean, a stock convertible festooned with 200 lbs. of "sporty" dreck, aping the Olds Fiesta, Buick Skylark, Cadillac Eldorado. Perhaps no surprise, given that, according to Michael Lamm's and Dave Holls' thorough "A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design," the '51 Packard was the result of East Grand engineers "bringing in a new 1949 Olds 88 and asking John Reinhart to go with the same roof and cowl heights."

The Packard of yore would've matched the R-Type Bentley Continental.

Compare the '34 Packard Twelve Lebaron sport coupe debuting at the January, '34 New York Auto Show with the Mercedes Autobahnkurier aero coupe prototype at the Berlin Motor Show the next month.

An irony not lost on many of us is that Mercedes and BMW were and are able to sell "junior and senior" models with no loss of image from the top lines; C-, E-, and S-Class, 3, 5, 7 Series, and Toyota went not downscale, but upscale with their excellent Lexus.

Perhaps off-subject, but Germany, Inc. (Audi, BMW, Mercedes, VW, Porsche) has higher unit and labor costs than Detroit, but this hasn't slowed our Teutonic friends in the least. So often, those who want to blame "thuh government....thuh bureaucrats" for Detroit's fall curiously never, ever mention one word about the out-of-touch execs in their Bloomfield Hills mansions, the same characters who flew to Washington in their private jets for their welfar---ooops, "Federal bailouts."

No Federal bailout for East Grand, who was in any event increasingly less interested in the car biz each year from 1946 on. Too many buffs think what was left of Packard "deserved" to be saved. But this is oft the trouble with clubbies. They'll salute anything wearing their fave make's badge.

It'd been too long since a stock 1935 Model 1201 sedan ran wide open for 25,000 miles at the Packard Proving Grounds 2.5-mile banked oval, then the fastest track in the world, at a time when Mercedes and Rolls-Royce were warning owners to avoid continuous high speeds on Hitler's new Autobahn, Packard still securing 44% of all fine car business ($2,000 up).

Too long even since the opening of the new 160-mile 1940 Pennsylvania Turnpike on October 1st of that year, initially without speed limit. Half the chariots for the dignitaries' inaugural run of the complete limited-access modern highway were furnished by area Buick and Cadillac dealers, the balance by Packard agencies. The debut cruise, well covered by the day's media, quickly became the impromptu race you'd expect, the sides of the new turnpike strewn with Buicks and Cadillacs overheated or worse. Not one Packard was sidelined.