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Apparently there was some sort of perceived kidnap threat. There were also the stock manipulation charges, that he had to face when he came back

The way I understand it, Cord simply lost interest in the automotive operations, in favor of aviation, which he saw as having greater growth potential. He owned the predecessor to American Airlines, Stinson aircraft, and Lycoming, which made aircraft engines, in addition to the engines used in Auburn cars.

There was a lot of vertical integration in aviation at the time. Boeing controlled United Air Lines, as well as Pratt & Whitney and Hamilton Standard.

The government wanted to break up these aviation combines, so banned airlines that received air mail contracts from being owned by aircraft builders. Cord sold off his airline, as Boeing disposed of United, Pratt and Hamilton. Cord's aviation interests were bundled under the "Aviation Corporation" banner, which was later shortened to "AVCO"

Here's an ad from the 70s for AVCO Lycoming jet engines.

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For all these cars the I/P that Packard used for the '35 Seniors was the ticket. The One Twenty's was nice but the Senior had that special Packard cache. Give the other to Auburn.

This might tickle your imagination. I found the application for the Auburn HQ building to be designated a national historic landmark. Includes an interesting history of the company.

The auto company was one of several companies that E L Cord controlled through his Cord Corporation. Cord's interest moved to aviation and he moved to California in 32. All that I knew. What I did not know: The executive committee of Cord Corporation voted to liquidate it's investment in the auto company on June 1, 32. They did not get around to completing the liquidation until 38, but the decision had been made.

The history also says their losses in 32 put the auto company into a cash deficit of $2.6M. The deficit grew to $3M in 33. I am not sure if the author means "cash" or "equity". If the company had no cash, it could not pay any bills or payroll. If Auburn was in negative equity, they were defacto bankrupt.

By 35, Auburn had lost many dealers, but 499, mostly multibrand dealers, remained.

So in 33, Auburn's major stockholder had decided to sell it's holdings, the comany was defacto bankrupt, but still had several hundred dealers and an established name.

http://www.nps.gov/nhl/find/statelists/in/AuburnCord.pdf

Packard and MB had a partnership in the fifties. What if that had continued -

iirc, the M-B marketing arrangement was brought in by C-W while they were the intermediary in the S-P bailout in early 56. Too late to save Packard.

M-B has, to my knowledge, always enjoyed a premium reputation in the US. While I remember seeing their diesels around in the late 60s, I do not ever recall seeing M-B taxis here.

There is probably a difference in what people in the US expect from a premium brand, and what Europeans expect. European premium cars are differentiated by engineering sophistication, while US luxury cars are bigger and flashier, but engineered little or no better than run of the mill sedans.

On reflection, regarding having a different brand for the junior line, I wonder how many people bought a 120, and paid Packard's price, because it had a Packard badge on it. Call it an Auburn or Studebaker, and the price people would be willing to pay might be significantly lower, which would defeat Packard's objective of fattening profits.

Lengthening the 120 to produce a new senior series might have caused problems with interior room, as you suggest. So go the other way, design the senior cars first, then cut them down lengthwise for the junior series, nip some out of the rear seat, nip some out of the hood, chop the top a bit.

Then do the same with the Clipper in 41.

some vehicles still providing tall glass and low window sills relative to driver position. Big American SUVs

SUVs are getting claustrophobic too. I used to have an 08 Ford Taurus X, which had a relatively low beltline, large windows, and excellent sightlines all around.

When the Gilmore museum had it's Lincoln show a few weeks ago, the local Lincoln dealer had some new models for people to try out. I climbed into three SUV models and they are all cramped and claustrophobic inside. Sightlines are terrible, especially to the rear quarters.

The city of Auburn would not have been happy but such were the times.

The company was toast anyway. By some accounts, it had been running on autopilot as Cord's interest had shifted to aviation, then he took it on the lam from stock manipulation charges.

Packard could have afforded it. When Auburn was liquidated in 38, the parts inventory and the rights to the name were sold for $85,000. The HQ building sold for $25,000.

Auburn somewhat weakened by 1933 (who wasn't) when One Twenty planning began.

Packard may have been able to buy the rights to the name earlier, while the company was still a going concern, but it would have cost a lot more. From reports I read, Auburn sales held up fairly well when the depression first started. Sales crashed in 34 and Gordon Buehrig did a refresh of Alan Leamy's 1931 design, then did the Cord 810, so they were not ready to wave the white flag.

Earliest possible time to buy the Auburn name on the cheap would have been when Auburn production ended in 36, which would be in the nick of time to put the name on the 115.

Making both a junior and a senior line on the same platform makes a lot of sense. Some have put part of the blame for AMC's failure on platform proliferation which strained the company's finances by having to keep, with the advent of the Pacer, three platforms up to date at the same time.

It would have probably been better if Packard could have had a secondary brand for the cheaper line, like Lincoln had Zephyr, Chrysler had DeSoto and Cadillac had LaSalle, to get into a higher volume price class, without devaluing the Packard brand.

Packard could have bought the rights to Auburn for a song in 37, but 37 was probably too late. Stutz failed in 35. They would have had to move on a mid market brand in the early 30s....about the time Studebaker went bankrupt in 33, but Studebaker would bring baggage that liquidated companies like Auburn and Stutz would not bring.

Of the alternatives, I like Auburn because it was known for stylish, moderately priced cars powered by flathead sixes and straight eights. The timeline is just not optimal.

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.

In the Langworth book about Hudson, the author talks about how Hudson designer Frank Spring was obsessed with Buicks and he pressed for the beltline to be raised to be more like the Buicks that he admired. Spring was delighted with the result in 48, but then tastes changed to favoring larger windows and the stepdown could not be revised, at least within Hudson's budget. to give it a taller greenhouse.

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Yes, I read "Last Onslaught" and "Built To Better The Best" by K-F owner's club historian Jack Mueller.

When the museum had it's open house at the hanger last June, I had a chance to talk to the head honcho of the museum. He mentioned that, after the front of the hanger had been power washed, he could just make out some of the lettering from when "Kaiser Frazer" had been painted across the front.

The Ward book about Packard talks about how Nance kept ordering research on all the other independent automaker as potential merger partners. He even had K-F studied, though it should have been apparent that Henry Kaiser would never get his fingers out of the operation and would drag Packard down along with his auto company.

So, there you have it, the likely scenario that lead to what looked initially like an advantageous situation for all involved that then turned into an immense trap which was never fully resolved. By the time Nance investigated re-instituting their own bodymaking operation, it had become cost prohibitive for their finances. One of the many factors that little by little lead to Packard's demise.


And by the end of 53, all the parties to that "gentlemen's agreement" were gone. Briggs and Macauley dead. Gilman and Christopher fired. The Briggs heirs already violated it by selling out to Chrysler.

I found a 1949 Hudson annual report on line. Projecting it's numbers ahead to 53 with the earnings posted for those years, less the dividends Hudson paid out, I get a book value of a little under $62M vs Packard's book of just under $83M

Using the cash price offered to Hudson holders that did not want AMC shares, I get a market cap of a bit over $16M, vs a market cap of over $50M for Packard.

In today's world of leveraged buyouts, activist shareholders and greenmail, Packard could have gobbled up Hudson, including their body plant, easily, and at far less cost than building a greenfield body plant. The 7,000 dealers, legacy service parts business and an established midmarket brand to fill the niche Nance was trying to slot the Clipper into, all would have been bonuses.

I have added Neal's last book about Packard to my winter reading list, along with a book about Nash that I found on Pat Foster's publishing web site.