Re: Romney's selective memory

Posted by 58L8134 On 2015/8/30 13:41:38

Hi Paul & Steve203

For all the ballyhooed smarts and savvy blared by the Big Three management of their acumen, they analyzed to death whether to enter the small/compact market before taking the plunge. Romney took indications from his current Rambler sales, that of imports, looked hard at the falling trend of Nash and Hudson acceptance and ran with Rambler. It was a calculated risk and a gutsy decision in 1955-56. But for a product planner who understood at least that segment who would embrace it; the frugal, conservative, no-nonsense buyer, a reasonably safe bet.

"Yes, compared to the competition the Briggs bodies were too expensive by the early Fifties but then again, the competition was selling lots more bodies. What would the numbers have looked like had Packard walked a mile in Briggs shoes and brought production in-house? Now it would have to amortize a huge initial capital outlay and live with the same low volumes versus the competition. Who knows, maybe the costs vs. Briggs would have been a wash."

Given the high capital requirements postwar for body operations, financial benefits may have been harder to achieve by in-house production on their relatively low volume. Bypassing Briggs mark-up and transportation would have reduced costs but less tangible benefits of direct control of quantity and especially quality would have made it worthwhile . Mr. Neal wrote in both his last books of frustration with order backlogs blamed on Briggs inability to supply on time and customer complaints detailing poor body assembly quality, squeaks, rattles, leaks. All of which Packard would have been in a better position to address if production occurred in-house.

"I think the question Packard too often kept answering wrong from the late - Thirties to the end was not "Who should make our bodies?" but "What bodies should we make?""

Falling behind in styling and progressive configurations such as lower height could be just as fatal as getting too far out ahead. Recycling the obviously pre-war Clipper body into the 22nd Series pseudo-envelope type when competitors were fielding all-new cars styled as truly modern envelope bodies gave customers one more reason not to buy. The initial popularity of the 22nd Series, still simply the beneficiary of pent-up wartime demand, deteriorated very quickly once the all-new 1949 competitive makes were introduced.

We've all read how when benchmarking body dimensions for the '51 Contour series that engineering insisted the belt-line be raised to reduce glass area as glass was heavier and more costly. They cited the '49 Olds 88 cowl height, and apparently overall height (62"-63") as ideal. But another successful (at the time) benchmark existed in the Hudson step-down, which exampled that 60" was acceptable. Reinhart knew the correct cowl height without interference, lower by two inches than eventually built, could combine with a 60" overall height for a progressive appealing style. As Paul points out, "what bodies (i.e. heights and styles) should we make?" was just as important. When a new type such as the hardtop became a hot item instantly, delaying for a year or two damaged their reputation, spotlighting them as a laggard, with the public more than the management could imagine.

Steve