Re: What SINGLE factor MOST contributed to the demise of Packard?

Posted by Steve203 On 2015/2/23 2:32:17

<i>Merger with Hudson would have been a tougher road particularly since the ink would not have been signed until say, January 1, 1954 which would have been the earliest realistic date given Barit's intractable independence (he only began talking merger when the Jet failed). By then Hudson was losing money by the millions, had no clue how to design an attractive car and was facing (and someone please correct here if wrong) a loss of Jet body stampings because Murray was getting out. The 1955 Hudsons would probably have become "Packsons" or "Hudards" i.e. Clippers with a Hudson face job, or perhaps they would have been the actual Clipper, Nance deciding he didn't need Clipper now that he had Hudson.</i>

On the issue of the Jet, Murray did not exit the body business until the Willys Aero was dropped in 55, so bodies would have been available for the Jet at least until that time, close to a year later than when the Jet was actually killed. The question would be if there was enough Jet volume to keep the unibody line at Jefferson running at an economic pace. I suspect a sub 20,000/yr rate says "no".

<i>One unknown would have been whether Nance would have been as cold-hearted as Mason in shutting down Hudson operations. The warmer his heart, the more Hudson would have bled it.</i>

Nance was a job hopper. I don't see much indication of his loyalty to anyone but himself. He would have had no problem closing Jefferson, and some of the workers would have probably been taken on at EGB. The Hudson body plant, a few blocks north on Conner, would continue with it's existing staff, using Packard tooling moved from Briggs.

They would not have had Studebaker's appalling productivity issues, nor the wildly oversize and inefficient South Bend works, nor the split board.

Getting the merger done in time for the 54 model year would have had the advantage of that being the year Clipper styling started diverging from Packard. The unique Clipper taillights and instrument panel being reassigned to the Hudson, with the 308 for power and a front clip like what the 54 Hornet actually wore, while the Clipper carried senior Packard styling cues.

If the Hudson was accepted in the market, then start phasing out the "mid priced" Clipper in favor of the Executive, essentially a short wheelbase Packard, trimmed nearly as well as the senior cars, while the Hudsons see the 308 phased out in favor of the smaller version of the Packard V8.

Even if the Clipper based Hudson was rejected by the market, Packard would have still picked up 7,000 dealers, existing clientele, existing service parts business and the body plant.