Re: Packard Bikes

Posted by Leeedy On 2019/5/16 14:26:50
Quote:

HH56 wrote:
Does that hold true with other Packard branded merchandise? There is a post at PAC regarding a Packard vacuum cleaner for sale that the seller says was given away with the purchase of a Packard automobile.


There was a decent article done in the Packard Club Cormorant Magazine a few years ago regarding this very subject. I don't recall the issue but you may be able to find it by going to the Packard Club web site and looking back in the index for back issues (it is labeled "Mag Index" rather than something someone outside of the club might instinctively recognize).

Many years ago when I was doing some work for a big car museum in Washington, we had a Packard piano in there. Some fellow (who wasn't really old enough to know for sure) wandered in the door one day and began to spin a yarn about Packard pianos given away with Packard cars... and then went on to say that the piano company was "just up the street" from PMCC on East Grand Blvd.... and then went even further into the fantasy by claiming workers at PMCC and the piano company had production quota "competitions" with a Packard automobile rolled over to the piano plant while a piano was brought over to the Packard plant to be played to inspire workers on the assembly line for go faster. So help me!

And... people were going for the story!!!

Problem is that the Packard Piano Company (or Packard Piano & Organ Co.) was located in Indiana... and that's hardly just "up the street" and one helluva long way from the Packard Motorcar Company in Detroit-especially back in the heydays. BUT? Some folks will say anything about this kind of stuff... and there are always those who are all too willing to believe it.

The vacuum cleaner story? Nah. It may have happened somewhere, somehow, some way, some time... but I don't believe it anymore than the story about the Packard pianos or Packard bicycles given away with Packard cars. If this was a factory program it should have been in factory records.

Just because something was branded with a name "PACKARD" (whether it was an electric razor, a pair of shoes, cologne, or a bicycle suspension-yes there was such a thing) does not mean it was in any way connected with either PMCC or any PMCC-authorized sales program.

Here is a good hint for any claim that any item with a "PACKARD" brand name attached to it (and there were probably over a hundred such items that had zero connection with the company) was a PMCC promo.

Look for official factory programs of dealer sales promotions in PMCC factory publications, dealer publications, etc. If there was any official, real program to give away any item that just happened to be named "PACKARD" as an incentive to purchase a Packard automobile it should have been publicized, promoted or at least mentioned somewhere, somehow in PMCC publications. After All, a company promotion that dealers and sales people haven't been told about could not be very effective, could it?

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