Re: The Greatest Packards of Them All

Posted by Ross On 2022/7/17 10:51:04

Chrysler bought all of Briggs and Connor was part of it. They offered to sell Connor to Packard, which Packard couldn't swing, so they leased it to Packard for a not unreasonable amount.

Now I agree that it was a mistake to have final assy. at Connor, but I'm a little more charitable about the decision than some.

Consider:
*hardly any of the machinery used for producing straight eights was applicable for producing the new V8 so it made sense to have that production in the Utica location. That way 54 production could continue even as the new engine line was being set up. So that portion of East Grand was not needed for the future.

*The new Gear Start and Twin Ultras also needed a lot of new machinery so that was moved up to Utica as well. Now all of the very specialized personnel that keep production machines operational are working in Utica. Sooooo, better have all heavy machining operations done in one location for the purposes of steel supply, cutting oil, tools, skilled craftsmen etc.etc. Thus rear axle and suspension components move to Utica. This really makes a lot of sense as far as heavy manufacturing is concerned.

So what is left in the huge Packard factory with its own powerplant and all manner of overhead and maintenance? Oh, and no further depreciation writeoff-- Just the two assembly lines--one of which was hardly ever used given typical volumes.

Now assembly lines can be huge long complicated things, but not so much when all of the major components are finished elsewhere and trimmed bodies are delivered on trucks. I'm guessing they occupied only a small fraction of the space in East Grand. So I could see a really good case for compressing this into the Connor plant. It is not so black and white.

We know that material handling was a nightmare at Connor, but I could also guess that a lot of suppliers had promised "just-in-time" deliveries in the modern manner that they could not fulfill.