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Hi

The Packard Plant thread brought to mind this What IF?

What if Nance acted quickly in 1953 and acquired Willow Run from Kaiser-Frazer, then moved all body and complete assembly there?

Your turn!

Steve

...and not merged with Studebaker....

Had Nance assembled his advisers or key men and really developed any firm plans that early? I seem to recall reading that there were still a lot of the long time Packard people in various management capacities who saw little need for change. The first year or so was spent trying to ease them out with pensions and whatever they called management pink slips before there were golden parachutes. GM buying the place in 53 might have happened before anything could be considered.

Howard hit the essence of the matter, speed in action, which was never a Packard Motor Car Company trait. By the time Nance arrived a stand-alone like Packard had all they could do to stay open in the plant they were in. As part of a larger conglomerate it may have made sense, if there were shared body shells happening the moment the factory was turned on.
The biggest impediment to this idea is the fact that the Willow Run plant was on the west side (Waaaay west side, near Ypsi-tucky) and Packard was an east side firm. You have to be an old Detroiter to get that joke.

What strikes me as odd is that PMCC built a rather lavish modern ENGINE plant while moving into cramped quarters to build the 56 cars. Ima conjecture that PMCC was poised to discontinue car production anyway and concentrate on just engine production. So any car production plans would have not been apropo. (Apropo: now there's a word that even Owen will most likely have to look up in a dictionary Gufwah hahahahaha).

IIRC Dodge Main in Detroit was a multi-story assembly up thru the late 70's.

Packard V8-- Refer to my first response on this thread--the Utica engine plant was built by Packard to be a defense plant, it's cost was to be borne by the considerable defense work Packard did, that building was constructed for the J-47 jet engine manufacturing that Packard did under contract from the gub-ment. "Engine" Charlie Wilson was successful in getting the contracts away from everyone else and over to GM, his old employer. I believe that in the case of the J-47 it was retired and Packard did not get the contract for the replacement. As part of a larger plan to get out of the East Grand Boulevard plant, and with plans to build a modern assembly plant in Utica they decided to shift production of the engines, transmissions and (for '55) the rear end assemblies in this modern plant they owned and had no other use for.
The Connor plant was a serious screw up, I have friends who worked for the company at the time and they were all convinced that Nance was out to kill the company as fast as he could.
Packard planned on adding on to Connor, they knew that it was undersized and saw that there was room around the plant to build "when things get better".
In my first response I cite Chrysler as the one company that held on to its multi-story factories longer than others, at the time of the end of Dodge main (pronounced "Dodche Main" to the Stosh and Wadju's who worked there) Chrysler was also operating the former Briggs Mack ave. body plant and the massive Jefferson Ave. Assembly plant.
I watched them demolish Dodge main, I have slides I took of it and the Packard plant back then, 1981.

PackardV8 wrote: Quote:

Except that you misspelled it, Keith.

apropos: Adjective: Very appropriate to a particular situation

Craig

Mr PB. Thanks for the more detailed explanation.

Craig. Thanks for the spelling correction.

Quote:

I've never gotten the impression that Nance was out to kill the company; seems to me he was juggling crises and simply ran out of time/money/made some bad decisions.

Am I correct that Connor was used because suddenly Packard found itself back in the body business? And because Nance was convinced he needed a 1-story plant?

Would things have been any different if he'd ignored that and somehow used East Grand to make bodies?

Or is there too much I don't know about Packard's facilities (not to mention I was born in the year of the "true" Packard's demise... )....

In the "Random Photo" feature here there was a picture of the Conner Plant. That plant looked to be a city block long and was not one-storied. At least it was three or four storied. How much room does a manufacturer need to produce bodies? And if the Conner Plant was multi-storied, why not use the Packard facilities on East Grand?

What ever happened to George Christopher's "twin-production lines" that were supposed to increase output to two hundred thousand cars a year? Were they left to rot or not used at all?

As for what ifs, I think if George Christopher spent Packard's postwar money on buying the Willow plant after Tucker's demise (around 1948-49)then the possibilities of what happened would be changed. The new '51 model could have been moved to 1950 as well as setting up Packard for the fifties through the sixties.