Re: multistory assembly line

Posted by Steve203 On 2015/1/25 21:05:57

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I love a good conspiracy theory, but I don't see a big anti-Packard conspiracy here. Neither Chrysler, or Briggs was doing Packard any favors. They were maximizing profits with a customer who had little alternative. That's just "sharp" business practices.

GM did do favors for the independents. GM quite often contracted with Kaiser for stampings as Kaiser had surplus capacity at both Willow Run and Shadyside Ohio. GM sold Hydramatics to Nash, Hudson, Kaiser and Lincoln. When Hydramatic production was resumed after the fire in 53, they resumed shipments to their non-GM customers first.

We all know about the talks between Packard and Ford about Packard acquiring obsolete Lincoln tooling. At that same time, S-P was negotiating for obsolete Ford tooling for the next generation Studebaker.

There has been talk that when Charlie Wilson became SecDef, he went out of his way to funnel defense contracts to GM, and away from all the other automakers, including Ford and Chrysler. That may be true, or not. Drew Pearson did a scathing attack on Wilson on that issue. On the other hand, the "second source" policy that DoD had, and had resulted in the contracts to Packard, Studebaker and Kaiser, which Wilson started getting rid of, were enormously costly and wasteful.

In "Master Motor Builders" there is a discussion of the mine sweeper engines that Packard built for the Navy. The head engineer of that program, Marsden Ware, wend to Curtiss-Wright with the Utica plant and the engine contract. He wrote a memo to C-W management about how horrendously inefficent Packard's production of those engines was, how Packard overloaded the engine program with overhead charges and how those engines were costing the Navy twice as much as they should have. I have the prices Packard charged the Air Force for the J-47s. I would love to see what GE was charging at the same time. Kaiser was charging the Air Force vastly more for the C-119s it built than what Fairchild was charging. Kaiser claimed it was due to Fairchild interference, but, after investigating, the A-F cancelled all contracts it had with Kaiser.

I don't see any big three conspiracy against Packard. What I do see is a President of the company out of his depth and more concerned about advancing his own career, and a BoD drowning in hubris. This is based on reading half a dozen or more accounts of the activities of all the independents during that period, from Langworth, Foster, Ward, Critchlow, Mueller and Neal.

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I don't think so. While the Nash/Hudson merger was formally announced in January 54, The deal didn't close until stockholders approved it. Now, I'm going from memory here, rather than look it up, but I think the merger closed around April, and the announcement that Hudson production would end in Detroit was on June 1. Six months later, AMC had built the tooling for the Kenosha build Hudsons, which looked significantly different from the Nashs, and started production. That's a pretty tight schedule. I don't think it was a matter of AMC being asked to hang on to the body plant as much as AMC realizing they probably would not get a lot for it, Packard already having committed to Connor before AMC was ready to announce the Detroit shut down, and waiting on Packard to give them some stamping orders. The Foster book also states that Romney, still waiting for those Packard orders, heard a rumor that Packard was negotiating for the Murray body plant as Murray was ready to exit the auto parts business in mid 55, and hit the roof. That was probably about the time AMC started shopping the body plant, finally selling it to Cadillac in 56.