Re: Had They Merged

Posted by Allen Kahl On 2008/12/23 12:20:45

"Had Packard, Hudson, and Nash merged this is part of what might have happened.

The new Rambler would have been the basic volume car sold by all three divisions of American Motors. The Hudson Hornet, Packard patrician, and Nash Ambassador would have been all based on then current Nash Ambassador body shell.
With the body shells being produced at the Hudson plant and final assembly at the Packard on East grand."

That may have been a possible scenario if you are talking the post George Mason years. Don't forget the other part of that deal was the merging of Packard/Studebaker/AMC. With George Mason in the picture I think Studebaker and Rambler would have been the low end cars, while the Hudson would slide into the mid-range with the Packard and Ambassador bringing up the high end cars. Is there something(document, literature) available to suggest that the body shells would have been shared? I did not think body shell sharing came about until the later 60's. I could be wrong but up until 64/65 most of the bodies were very easily told apart. You tell a chevy from an olds from a pontiac etc. etc. Then uni-body contruction came along and the lines got very blurry.

Of course after G. Mason died all bets were off and the complete merger never came about as Romney wanted no part of playing second fiddle to Jim Nance, since the deal with Mason was that J.Nance would run the show.

Now I could be all wet on this, but these are the things that I have read along the way.