Re: Packard & Hudson proximity

Posted by Steve203 On 2014/8/23 17:46:21

the Clipper would have been a good two inches higher and body-on-frame, taking away some of the most unique selling features that had kept Hudson going up to that point.

Given that Hornet sales had fallen each year, in spite of the Commodore being dropped in 52, which should have sent more volume to the Hornet, I would say the ride, handling and racing prowess was overridden in the market by 6 year old styling and the claustrophobic interior.

Then, what were Hudson's prospects? Packard had a new V8. Packard had Torsion Level, invented by a Hudson engineer who Hudson lent to Packard because Hudson didn't have the money to develop it. Packard could afford a much more noticiable rennovation of their product line than Hudson could.

And second, EGB's cost structure did not seem to support as profitably, on a per unit basis, the production of medium priced cars versus Hudson.

Barit was really tight with a buck. The Langworth book talks about his thrift, like the minimal materials the styling department had to work with vs the large number of clays we see at Packard. Chapin talked about what a hard negotiator Barit was in the merger discussions. Ward talks about how Packard had been keeping a lot of dead wood on the payroll and Nance's efforts to clear them out. Meanwhile, Nance was spending like crazy on his rennovation program, iirc on the order of $40M.