Re: Nash-Hudson-Packard merger: observations and work-up

Posted by 58L8134 On 2019/1/31 13:27:46

Mason's merger idea was still valid even as late as 1953 but it was in its eleventh hour. For a chance to succeed, a good deal of rationalization was going to have to take place very rapidly to present a 1955 product line. Some things were going to have to give, there wasn't enough capital or financing to allow everything they might have wanted. All three makers were faced with significant plant underutilization being carried on diminishing volumes. One shared body shell was going to have to do for all three makes.

Not much doubt Mason would have pushed for all production to be consolidated at the Kenosha plant. Given his depth of automotive management experience, the post-merger BoD would have approved Mason's decision on this critical question. Where would this have left Nance? Either as second or third fiddle or, more likely, out the door with Romney leading the Hudson-Packard Division. Romney, as Mason's understudy with five years industry experience, was most likely to get the nod before would Nance. In the combined company, a Hudson-Packard Division was quite likely given their projected volume and market segments. It would have been analogous to the Lincoln-Mercury Division Ford created postwar.

As far as Packard's Detroit operation, it would have been what we saw with all of Hudson manufacturing, engineering, sales; consolidation, shut-down and dispersal . As it was, by late '54-early '55 Romney faced the reality that AM could afford only one major platform revision and that was directed toward Rambler as their best potential hope. Hudson's contributions were doing little to stem their full-sized car sales decline, all in a year of unprecedented industry growth. Packard in this fold was unlike to get any major investments.

But, as Paul has shown, a lengthened and re-skinned Airflyte was the only avenue the merged corporation could have afforded to pursue for a new Packard. The more they were able to disguise the basic shell's origins, the more likely it might have been accepted by loyal Packard buyers. The dreaded label "nameplate engineered" had to be avoided at all costs. Although they might not have disdained Nash Ambassador, Packard buyers had already bypassed it in favor of Packard 200/Clipper, holding it as a better value for their money.

To return to exclusively the top spot of the merged corporation, Packard was going to have to relinquish some of its upper-medium-priced customers to Hudson. As long as there were any lower-priced versions of Packard, it was going to detract from its prestige reputation. Hudson could have functioned just fine as the upper-medium-priced, near luxury marque with a performance aura.

Steve