Re: Packard & Hudson proximity

Posted by Mr.Pushbutton  On 2013/2/12 21:38:31

The one event that signaled who would survive going into the future was the industry-wide adaption of the all-steel body in the late 30s. The tooling and facilities and staff needed to produce these bodies was immense, just the tooling and equipment alone. Prior to that car companies had a lot of money tied up in chassis/engine/transmission but the body building was a 19th century job shop, more labor than equipment. The costs of producing the all-steel body shook out whose pockets were deep enough, and who could spread that costs out more over multiple makes and models, like the big 3 did.