Re: Merger of Nash/Kelvinator, Packard & Hudson
Posted by Mahoning63 On 2015/5/24 11:46:38
Just came across this film made by Ford in lead up to Edsel intro.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Z9F-svFAk
Am a bit suspicious of the accuracy of the company's recounting of the 10 years leading up to the Edsel intro but this historical revisionism aside, the data shown starting around 6 minutes into the film appears to be a good description of the market realities of the day. One thing pointed out is that GM's brand pricing resulted in much overlap, which is why Edsel pricing was so expansive.
It occurs to me that what GM was successfully doing in the medium priced field by offering different brands to give the market styling choice, could have been used by FoMoCo in the luxury field to beat GM at its own game. Lincoln and Packard on same body shell but with different styling. Including Torsion-Level would have prevented Chrysler from making such a big deal of its '58 cars shown in these films.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBNWBHYp41whttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrKAVfS3Ui0
Here's a blue version of earlier red Packard and now with door outer panels unique from Lincoln, and a backlight. FoMoCo in mid-1956 could have bought the Packard portion of Studebaker-Packard for very little money and made a '58 Packard out of the '58 Lincoln for $10-15 million. The Packard dealers could have sold the new Edsel too, reducing the $250M start-up cost of that brand. True, Packard would have become a corporate contrivance and I shutter to think what a 1980 Packard on shared platform with Lincoln, Grand Marquis and Crown Victoria would have looked and performed like. Nor would Packard be in good shape today, if current Lincoln is any guide. But we would have enjoyed a close approximation of the planned Predictor styling and a good run of cars through the Sixties and maybe the Seventies.
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Am a bit suspicious of the accuracy of the company's recounting of the 10 years leading up to the Edsel intro but this historical revisionism aside, the data shown starting around 6 minutes into the film appears to be a good description of the market realities of the day. One thing pointed out is that GM's brand pricing resulted in much overlap, which is why Edsel pricing was so expansive.
It occurs to me that what GM was successfully doing in the medium priced field by offering different brands to give the market styling choice, could have been used by FoMoCo in the luxury field to beat GM at its own game. Lincoln and Packard on same body shell but with different styling. Including Torsion-Level would have prevented Chrysler from making such a big deal of its '58 cars shown in these films.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBNWBHYp41whttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrKAVfS3Ui0
Here's a blue version of earlier red Packard and now with door outer panels unique from Lincoln, and a backlight. FoMoCo in mid-1956 could have bought the Packard portion of Studebaker-Packard for very little money and made a '58 Packard out of the '58 Lincoln for $10-15 million. The Packard dealers could have sold the new Edsel too, reducing the $250M start-up cost of that brand. True, Packard would have become a corporate contrivance and I shutter to think what a 1980 Packard on shared platform with Lincoln, Grand Marquis and Crown Victoria would have looked and performed like. Nor would Packard be in good shape today, if current Lincoln is any guide. But we would have enjoyed a close approximation of the planned Predictor styling and a good run of cars through the Sixties and maybe the Seventies.
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