Re: Merger of Nash/Kelvinator, Packard & Hudson

Posted by 58L8134 On 2015/4/26 14:09:53

Hi Paul

"...Mercury was $2000, Lincoln Capri was $2500 and Lincoln Cosmo was $3200. So yes, there was a $500 spread throughout the line-up."

Non-Cosmopolitan 1949-51 Lincolns affectively sold against Roadmaster, New Yorker and Super Eight until the 1952 Lincolns were pushed upmarket in price, if not size and horsepower. The one positive of the later $1,000 price gap was that those disinclined to GM or Chrysler, could resort to Commodore-Hornet or Clipper-Cavalier for their next carmake step-up.

"Looking at the annual volumes for each company one can see how Ford left much opportunity on the table in the middle and upper end of the market,....."

Especially in that immediate postwar decade, Ford Motor Company was all about "FORD......and our couple other minor makes....". Some of that was from trying to rebuild from the damaged mess left by Old Henry's late chaotic years; some about a young, inexperienced management team feeling their way through the process without tanking an industrial giant. They understood the Ford nameplate was their bread-'n-butter and its success was their very survival, the others makes were only peripheral entities.

"Noted how Mercury was originally supposed to fall below E-car but somehow they got switched. Could it have been a case of existing fiefdoms being protected and promoted?"

"Fiefdoms?", absolutely! Not only did the miss-reading of demographic trends but also the intramural political machinations and intrigues of giant-sized egos derail any chances for the Edsel's success. After years of Mercury management playing second fiddle to Ford directives, now it was going stand by and watch a new division created from whole cloth get all the expensive new tooling, development and promotion for a higher prestige line. Resentment must have fairly seethed throughout the Division even at the mention of the Edsel usurping what should have been Mercury's birthright as a junior Lincoln.

Pile on top of that how Ford dealers viewed trying to sell against the usual competition, now had a new Edsel dealer muscling in with his Ranger versus the Fairlane 500 V8. Anecdotes told of the many a Ford or L-M dealer who, when 'generously' granted an Edsel franchise for 1959 after the local upstart bailed to sell Ramblers, promptly parked his Edsel demonstrator on the back line, left the promotional materials boxed.

"The Continental Mk II was an interesting play on Ford's part, an attempt to one-up Cadillac. That they failed points to the difficult nut the upper end of the market was to crack."

The Continental demonstrated that Ford was truly back as a market competitor, that it could to build the very finest. Problem was most of the upper end segment wasn't interested in such rarified specialties or could even afford such cars then, at least in profitable volumes.

"I think the lesson was that, besides the need to be a bit shrewd with content and craftsmanship even in this rarefied segment, the bodies and manufacturing needed to be based on a somewhat lower priced / higher volume product to amortize costs."

The profitable upper end of the volume luxury segment in 1956 began near $6,000-tapered off $7,000. Building those as extensions of standard models such as 60 Special, Eldorado Seville and Biarritz was the prefect approach to fill the coffers with cash....and generate cache. The average twenty percent price premium of the 60 Special over the 62 sedan was smart marketing for minimal addtional tooling cost. Packard was on the right path with the Caribbeans but no premium sedan missed so much potential business. Chrysler noticed, added the LeBaron to Imperial for 1957, developed it into what Packard could well have done beforehand to create more profits and prestige.

Would Hudson and/or Packard been treated any better than Edsel or enjoyed exclusive models had they become part of the FoMoCo empire? "The Ford Family of Fine Cars" : Ford, Mercury, Hudson, Lincoln, Packard,.......maybe Continental, too. The next product cycle would have brought the 'interlopers' in line with the rest of the 'family', their independent content vanished for certain.

Steve