Re: New "What Ifs?"

Posted by Steve203 On 2014/6/14 17:53:01

Patrick Foster by his own admission was not a fan of JJ Nance and has often misreported or left out important issues to distort the facts about both Packard/Studebaker and AMC.

The friction between Nance and Romney has been widely reported. Ward talks about a few incidents that make the friction look to be more Nance's doing than Romney's

-On the occasion of the S-P merger, Romney sent a congratulatory letter to Nance and said he looked forward to increased cooperation between their companies. According to Ward, Nance blew off the letter.

-AMC did not have a good engine for their mid market models. Between the Packard sourced V8 and the Rambler 196, they only had a choice of the big, heavy, Hudson six, and the ancient Nash 252 (4 3/8" stroke, peak of 135 HP at 3700rpm, 220ftlbs@1600) Romney contacted Nance about buying Studebaker V8s for their mid market models (Studie 259 170HP@4500, 260ftlbs@2800) . Nance blew Romney off again.

-By 56, the Studebaker Champion had grown to the point where it was hopelessly underpowered with the 186 (101hp at 4000) and Nance approched Romney about buying the Rambler 196 (120 @ 4200). Romney blew off the inquiry saying that Rambler sales were expected to be so high AMC would not have any extra capacity to make engines for Studebaker.

Romney and Nance are both gone now, so we'll never know for sure.