Re: New "What Ifs?"

Posted by Steve203 On 2014/6/27 21:48:03
If they had the 55 styling and V8 in 53, Packard might still be around.

Those are just two points in an overall lack of reinvestment in the auto line.

(my suspicion) when faced with the need to buy larger presses and build a larger building to house them, to make the larger stampings that the industry was going to to save assembly labor, Packard punted and outsourced to Briggs.

When the senior line dies were lost/given away/rusted/sold for scrap during the war, Packard punted and only made the Clipper.

When GM and Chrysler started making V8s, Packard punted and squeezed a bit more out of the straight 8.

When everyone else was bringing out new models in 49, Packard punted with a reskin of the 41.

According to Ward, build quality had always been a problem with Briggs bodies, but Packard never addressed it.

Then there is the issue of whether Cadillac and Lincoln were making a profit for their parents, or were just halo models. The Cadillac Clark Street plant looks to be just as obsolete as EGB. Caddy bought the mid 20s vintage Hudson body plant in 56, and used it, and Clark Street, until Poletown opened in the 80s.

If Caddie and Lincoln were leaching off of Chevy and Ford, there is no way that Packard could have held up, without a cheap line to subsidize it. And for the cheap line to be able to compete, the company would need to invest in state of the art facilities...which requires the capital investment that Packard repeatedly refused to make.

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