Re: SP merger

Posted by Mahoning63 On 2015/4/3 17:31:15

Looking at the sales figures Packard and Hudson racked up post-war there was untapped potential in 1955 especially with Hudson. We know Packard sold 69,000 cars and Hudson sold 27,000 large models that calendar year, for a combined 96,000 units.

If we extrapolate from the 1948 CY and ratio from GM's sales, 1955 P-H sales could have been:

1948 CY
GM - 1,566,000
Packard - 99,000
Hudson - 144,000

1955 CY
GM - 4,000,000
Packard - 252,000
Hudson - 368,000

That's over 600,000 P-H cars but let's assume this is overly optimistic because production quotas and other factors were probably holding GM back in 1948 more than they were P-H. If we use 1950 instead, with GM having introduced fabulous C-bodies and Packard and Hudson getting stale except for the end of year intro of 24th Series, we get:

1950 CY
GM - 3,000,000
Packard - 72,000
Hudson - 142,000

1955 CY
GM - 4,000,000
Packard - 96,000
Hudson - 189,000

That's 285,000 combined sales although Hudson's would now have included a lower priced Wasp, which came on line in 1950. Eliminating it for 1955 would have dropped sales to 200,000.

With these numbers in mind, had Packard and Hudson collaborated soon after Nance took over and took their time to carefully and methodically design and test a breakthough pair of low-slung cars for 1955, with next gen Hudson step-down unibodies and Packard V8s, a sales target approaching 300,000 units sans Wasp would not have been unreasonable. But let's say they would have fallen short, generating only 200,000 sales. This would have still yielded combined profits in the millions, maybe tens of millions. Such sales and profits were never possible with the '55 Packard, Clipper and Hornet that Packard and AMC seperately pursued, even if Packard's quality had been perfect, because the combined line-up was spread over two platforms and producton facilities.