Quote:
58L8134 wrote:
Hi Steve203
One wonders if that postwar "one-story plant envy" was more a reaction to Kaiser-Frazer emphasizing Willow Run as the latest, most modern thing...
Let the upstarts of Ypsilanti crow all they liked about their "efficient" new plant....while hiding their loss statements from the public! After the first year or so, K-F would have been better off hold up in the old Graham-Paige plant.....maybe rented the old Hupmobile plant as supplement if sales were high enough.
Steve
Quite possible Packard fell under the spell of K-F advertising, or some outside "management consultant". Ground floor plants had become the thing in the 30s. iirc Chrysler on Lynch Rd was built around 29, and was all ground floor. But Ford was the only one to walk away from multi-story plants that were not ancient, Highland Park and the original Lincoln plant. But then Henry didn't have any stockholders to justify his decisions to.
The production space of the Graham plant on Warren in Dearborn was all ground floor as well. At 1M sqft, it wasn't up to Kaiser's standards of thinking big. Graham also had a body plant on Michigan Ave in Wayne, just on the east side of the tracks from the Ford plant. Graham also had a body plant in Evansville, In, though I think they sold that to Briggs in the 30s.
In the late 40s, I believe the Hupp plant had a tennant. The Graham plant in Wayne was sold to Gar Wood in 47 and Wood built garbage trucks there until about 72. The Warren plant was first leased to the government for storage and display of surplus machine tools the government was selling. In 47, that plant was sold to Chrysler for asseembly of DeSotos and later Imperials.
From what I've read, Christopher had E Grand set up so it ran pretty well. The millions they spent on the plant in Utica. Millions more to move powertrain production up there, which created more cost trucking the powertrain components back into Detroit. Millions more to move final assembly into Conner. All so they could be "modern"?
This Post was from: https://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=156119