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

Posted by Mahoning63 On 2012/7/3 21:41:49

Any luxury brand touched by the Ford Motor Company turns to stone. Dearborn stumbled into those few truly wonderful Lincolns of yore then quickly bumbled right back to their bad old ways. A front wheel drive wimpy 2012 Packard made in Mexico? "No thanks" said the luxury buyer.

This thread's focus on what made Packards exceptional gets to the crux of the matter and Steve's comments in particular lay it all out nicely and belong in a nice hard cover book.

I usually don't take major issue with Packard folk on this forum when the lay down an argument that I don't particularly agree with but tonight am feeling a bit feisty so please forgive...

The argument about GM buying power, GM scale, GM this and GM that doesn't jive with me. Cadillac cars in the 1950s had a tremendous amount of unique tooling in their bodies and powertrain and the division had to pay for its own unique advertising. Equally true, Senior Packards in the 50s also had low priced cars to borrow tooling from and could leverage that part of Packard's advertising budget that was earmarked for overall brand building. Most of the Independents blew it, plain and simple. Bad leadership.

Packard stopped making true Seniors, exceptional Seniors, beginning in 1940 and the fact that the One Eighty rolled down the Junior's line had nothing to do with it. The Junior line was a good thing for a theoretical 1940 Packard Senior. The 356 was also fine and it didn't need OHVs until the late 40s. Packard's main problem was that it lost its deft styling touch and the ability to spec out proper Senior proportions. Of lesser but still important significance was that Packard was too late in getting out an automatic.