Quote:
Mahoning63 wrote:
In taking on Auburn, Packard would have been left in the same situation the 115 created... having to fund, develop and manage too many product lines for its size, and having no profitable Senior. Distractions born of volume fever, that's all these low-priced fantasies on Packard's part were. With the success of the One Twenty they thought the 115 would be a cake walk up to what, 200000 sales per year? Who has the BoD minutes for 1935-6 when 115 was being planned? What was the volume call? And what were Auburn sales in these years? Hadn't they tanked?
All the luxury brands had junior lines in the 30s. Cadillac had LaSalle, Lincoln had Zephyr, Chrysler had DeSoto. Packard was the only one that put the senior brand on the junior cars. Packard was going to do the 110 and 115. Creating or buying another brand for them would have prevented confusing customers about what a Packard was.
Auburn had never been a big company. In 1931 they sold 28,000. Sales fell to 11,000 in 32, 6,000 in 33 and 1848 in 36, the last year for the brand. The difference between Auburn and Clipper is that Auburn had provenance. Packard PR would hot have had to make up a story to explain to people what an Auburn was. They could have shown the Auburn history from 1900 on, with the stunning models designed by Alan Leamy and Gordon Buehrig.
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