Re: SP merger

Posted by Rusty O\'Toole On 2015/4/3 14:18:28

"Well, the old saying is good product covers up a lot of sins."

But they weren't good products. They were bad products. That is the point. The fifties was a time when sales and production was at an all time high, and all cars were bringing out new models, new engines, transmissions, power accessories etc all the time. They had a high percentage of lemons, not just Studebaker and Packard but everybody.

I don't blame the 55 and 56 models for Packard's problems, by that time they were paying for mistakes that were made years earlier.

It was no longer possible to survive on sales of 50,000 to 100,000 units a year even of expensive cars. Maybe if they had stepped up production to 200,000 a year as they planned in the late 40s, and came out with products the public wanted to buy in such numbers, they would have had the financial resources to survive the blows they took between 1953 and 56. Or with better planning, avoided some of the blows.