Re: Ok, I'm calling your bluff. Show me how Packards were "better".

Posted by Tim Cole On 2012/6/22 21:24:27

Now this discussion seems to be getting into the corporate area. I agree with Turnquist's opinion that the only way the company could keep going was by going down market.

However, blaming McNamara & Co. for the Edsel is not the way to go. Edsel was the brain child of Henry Ford II and Ernest Breech who was recruited from GM.

I have always thought the best route for Packard would have been a merger not with other independents, but into Ford. They would have gotten more for their money from a Packard buyout than they did from the Edsel. And it would have only cost a fraction.

However, Ford was in pretty bad shape and had turned down an offer to buy the VW (before the Whiz kids arrived) so it didn't look like a company interested in a new image. I'll bet if McNamara was given a plan to buyout an independent he would have gone for it as a way to kill off the E-Division Plan.