Re: SP merger

Posted by Mahoning63 On 2015/4/3 7:27:28

Well, the old saying is good product covers up a lot of sins. Maybe this is one reason Ford and Chrysler survived their snaffoos. If Packard really wasn't much worse than industry average in '55 then even if their cars had been perfect and the plant had been able to produce from the get go, sales would not have been a whole lot more than what they got, which means they were doomed with the '55 product strategy that Nance chose. But it does sound like they maybe reached a tipping in the market's mind in '55, a few too many quality problems?

That rogue '54 Hudson chop brings to mind a similar flogging of CEO and his product planning underlings... Darrin and his chopped '38 Packard parked in front of the plant at their national dealers meeting. Some of those '54 Hudson images were apparently taken at the Jefferson plant with Hudson officials looking on. The car's owner, Paul duCharme deserves to be inducted in the automotive hall of fame. After his Hudson visit maybe he should have driven 10 minutes down the road to EGB and had someone tell Nance to look out the window, see what he could be getting in on before Barit signs the papers with Mason.

Where in the world did the "designer" of that Hudson chop get the idea for the fender surfacing around the headlights? The '55 Merc and Packard were still a year away. Was it the Panther? If the Hudson body work was done in late '53, might have been before the Panther reveal. Did this stockholder have an in with the Detroit design community? Interesting.