Re: An interesting discussion on the Hemmings blog...

Posted by su8overdrive On 2013/7/11 14:57:46

Mr.Pushbutton and most of us welcome unspun history, just as we embrace vetted tech insights. There's no ceiling on knowledge in either area. None. That's why we're here.

What Mr. PB and i decry are these fanciful what ifs which have as much real world bearing as the fairy castles and unicorns my nieces once revered.

Kindly read Mr.PB's thoughtful post above, #9, which is succinct an accurate, overarching view as you'll find. If history professors in Tennessee want to write wieldy postmortems and conjectures, that's fine. We produce entertainment, diversion, not things in the US today.

Most responsible books about Packard describe the Company's demise. That's part of the story. The end is part of any story.

But all this Monday morning quarterbacking by those either not born or not yet old enough to know the tenor of the times is for the birds; rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Simply: There is no parallel universe in which Packard as
Packard could've been saved. The Packard Alvan Macauley left in April, 1948 was n o t the same company that produced the seniors that still cornered over 40% of the remaining luxe biz in 1934-35.

The GM production men recruited 1933-34 to show Packard how to build the excellent One Twenty, the basis of ALL East Grand's products from 1939 on (other than the 446 leftover Twelves), were running the Company during and after the war and continued doing all they knew how to do:
Build B-O-P albeit with Packard's customary fine threaded nuts and bolts throughout, and roller or needle bearings where GMobiles used a plain bushing.

These former GM production guys were out of their league, hadn't a clue about sophisticated marketing, witness the embarrassing ads for the otherwise fine juniors of the '40s.

The old guard left. There's no such thing as a new old guard, which is what all these nonsensical parallel universe scenarios demand.

"One more once," as Count Basie intoned near the end of April in Paris, read Mr. PB's post #9 above.

All these postmortems focus on saving the Packard name,
which by the 1950s was devalued, even meaningless to everyone but a few coupon-clipping coots, or the few new owners who imagined their '51 200 a "Packard."

Packard ran its course and then, by bleeding their name white, limped along another decade, phoning in the cars while concentrating on their jet engine contracts.

The Company's sole engineering novelty in the '50s, Torsion Level, was from Bill Allison, an outsider.

As Mr. PB patiently, clearly, explains, ALL independents were doomed. Despite the slick marketing of various vehicles that look like angry kitchen appliances, how many basic platforms are there in the remaining auto industry? Eight, nine?

Times change. It's folly to lift Packard out of another, long ago era, and imagine them in business anymore than Apperson Jack Rabbits or Ruxtons. It's silly and has NO bearing on reality. None.

All Cadillacs from 1936-on were downsized, essentially junior cars sharing parts with lesser GMobiles. Rolls-Royce's focus 1935 on was aero engines, the cars a small, shrewdly marketed boutique sideline using bodies by Pressed Steel, who also whacked out panels for Austin and others, akin to England's Briggs. Hispano-Suiza survives today building nuclear power plant pumps. These are facts. What was and is.

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."

More hard history, tech insights, si hable. Bring 'em on.

BTW, i note that concrete engineering questions, like whether Saf-t-fleX IFS was really better than the GM-style IFS used in the 1941-on Clippers,
as it was in the '56-on R-R Silver Cloud/Bentley S-series,

remain unanswered. Same roaring silence when we ask if anyone can find ancient SAE and other hard tech papers from the day looking at various Packard engines contrasted with competing motors.

Instead, we get this sci-fi palaver. Mr. PB is right as rain. This horse is beyond dead. He's glue and/or dogfood.

"Just the facts, ma'am."

-- Sgt. Joe Friday, Dragnet