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Hi

Quite true, the body-on-frame versus unibody strategies would have to be settled among many other things. Given the greater flexibility that BOF afforded then, at least for large cars, that should have been the route. Unibody state-of-the-art worked out well for smaller cars which was fine for the Rambler and Thunderbird. Everyone is probably familiar with the disastrous problems Ford ran smack into making the '58 Lincolns by that method. A dozen years later, Ford backed away from that mistake. If large cars built with unibody construction were an advantage, GM would have jumped in before anyone else.

Plant utilization was going to have to be worked out to keep the best, most efficient, closing the rest.....regardless of location. Trucking components many miles might have been something the Big Three could afford, but not the then-integrating former independents. Ideally, geographic footprint reduction would have ruled the decisions as to what became the main production facilities. Of course, as things stood, with each executive still trying to protect his little fiefdom, make it survive intact, nothing useful was going to develope.

Steve

On the original question:
It seems to me that the single biggest factor was the failure of Packard to use the 120 to allow Packard to produce the senior cars in a cost effective and efficient manner. In my mind the Packard 8 should have been terminated a year early leaving the 120 to be the entry level car. The 320 straight 8 was only 7 years old in 1935 and could have been moved over to the 120. The money used to develop the 257/282 engine should have been used to bring out the 160 with the 385 engine and the 180 with the v12 in 1935.

Also the 120 should have had a different grill look than the 160/180 to keep the cars a bit more different. In 1937 the money used for the 115 could have been spent to both upgrade the v12 and use it to create a companion 6 cyl to put in the 120. The rest of the money could have been used to finish the 160/180 roll out.

The money for the 356 could have been used to bring out a family of 2 engines to replace the 320 and 385 engines.

This would have given Packard the ability to use a mid price car to support the tooling and assembly of senior cars allowing increased profit margin on the seniors to lower cost of production.

John

... the disastrous problems Ford ran smack into making the '58 Lincolns by that method. A dozen years later, Ford backed away from that mistake.

On the other hand, Chrysler shifted to unibody across the board in 60 or 61. Unibody did offer some advantages, first that comes to my mind being the ability to have acceptable seat height, with the lowered roofline that was fashionable in the early 60s.

Trucking components many miles might have been something the Big Three could afford, but not the then-integrating former independents.


Trucking powertrain components or stampings appears to be less economically questionable than shipping semifinished bodies. Look at the window sticker in most new cars sold in the US and you see domestic parts content, which can be less than 50% in some US brand cars, in spite of final assembly being in the US.

The independents did not have the money to build entire greenfield plants, like the big three did, so would have to build in phases, which introduces other problems.

In the case of E Grand, the city had grown up around the plant, so new construction would require buying up residential areas and clearing them. Like clearing the cluster of houses next to building 84 and expanding 84 to become the new engine plant. Buying up land on the east side of Concord to first build a body plant, then replace the body trim line, then replace the final assembly line, over a period of a decade or more.

Studebaker actually had a leg up, but they didn't take advantage of it. At the end of the war, they bought the government built aircraft engine plant on Chippewa Ave on the south side of South Bend. Chippewa covered 1,000,000 sq ft. Instead of moving car final assembly there, they used it for trucks. A few yards north of Chippewa was Studebaker's plant 8, 660,000 sq ft of single story building, which they used for service parts inventory. There was then and still is today, plenty of open land around Chippewa for expansion.

Comming back to Packard, reportedly, the foundry was sold in 54 because it was "surplus" according to the annual report of that year. Anyone know why it was "surplus"? I am thinking that their production volume was so small the foundry and forge were no longer economic to operate, or else the facilities required a major capital investment that Packard didn't want to make. Somehow, Walter Grant must have figured it was cheaper to ship castings from Lakey in Muskegon.

I'm not buying that 1932 Grille idea, especially when some of the 1934 Packards are universally accepted as being one of the most beautiful cars ever made, now and then

also the post title "What SINGLE factor MOST contributed to the demise of Packard?" has been well proven by some of these great posts to be an unanswerable question, There were SO MANY factors that contributed to the demise of Packard

also, ever looked close at a 1938 Senior Packard? these are some of the most gorgeous cars ever made

The '32 grill comment should be taken to mean all grills through '39 since they were all nicely evolved from the original.

Agreed, the '38 Seniors are one of history's all time greats and a personal favorite but I think they need a custom greenhouse and rear to fully shine.

Packard had been pushing advanced design at the time the '32 grill came on line. That grill and the shovel nose, and the Car of the Dome, speedsters and other '34 customs were fruits of that labor. So was the front wheel drive V12 experimental car, which would have given Cord-like lowness for appearance. But after 1934 the advance work came to a halt and the new master became mass production and fight for survival. This was understandable but should have only lasted a few years. The One Twenty brought the company back very quickly. Attention should have soon been redirected back to the company's fundamental mission: to create high quality, luxurious, mass-produced rolling works of art, of which the One Twenty line now made Depression-viable.

When an outside coachbuilder fundamentally redesigns an OEM's car in a spectacular and successful way, they are sending a message to that carmaker that opportunity has been left on the table. Such was the case with the '38 Eight Graber Victoria. It was clearly fussed over by its creator just as the '32 grill had been and it's a design the entire Packard showroom should have resembled, with a suitably lowered floor and rolling down the One Twenty line.

Hi Steve203

"Coming back to Packard, reportedly, the foundry was sold in 54 because it was "surplus" according to the annual report of that year. Anyone know why it was "surplus"?"

The details of why are in Mr. Neal's last book. I'd post it but I don't want to be a spoiler for those still reading it.

In the case of E Grand, the city had grown up around the plant, so new construction would require buying up residential areas and clearing them. Like clearing the cluster of houses next to building 84 and expanding 84 to become the new engine plant. Buying up land on the east side of Concord to first build a body plant, then replace the body trim line, then replace the final assembly line, over a period of a decade or more.


On the EGB plant, although it would have been costly to buy adjacent residential areas to clear for expansion space, seems if that might have been a better approach than eventually having far-flung operations. Just avoiding the handling, transportation cost and attendant logistical headaches should have made it worthwhile.

Studebaker proved that even when the opportunity to create a modern assembly plant stared in the management's face, they clung to the old outmoded brick piles even as it added to their unit costs. That long bridge for carrying bodies shows just how much the complex was a patchwork. Their best production year was 1950: 320,884 units. It must have been organized chaos using that factory to knock out so many cars.

Steve

The details of why are in Mr. Neal's last book. I'd post it but I don't want to be a spoiler for those still reading it.

So warn others not to read your post. Spill the beans!

Their best production year was 1950: 320,884 units. It must have been organized chaos using that factory to knock out so many cars.


The worst year for production havoc was 53, because the "Lowey coupe" was an entirely different body which shared no stampings with the sedan models. iirc, that conveyor system cost them on the order of $600,000

seems if that might have been a better approach than eventually having far-flung operations.

According to several accounts, Packard management had been brainwashed that they "needed" a single story plant, in spite of Dodge Main, Chrysler on Jefferson and Cadillac on Clark St, all as old as EGB, humming away until the early 80s.

My suspicion is that it was Packard hubris again that lead to building Utica, as if they expected to get jet engine contracts forever. Then moving the engine and transmission lines to Utica to make use of the space. The film on youtube about the V8 just says E Grand wasn't suitable, but doesn't say why. It shows Ray Powers saying Utica is "almost ideal". Moving the existing transmission and rear axle lines to Utica cost a few million dollars, and added the cost of trucking the parts back to Detroit.

Looking at the late 40s DTE aerials, you can see that the residential neighborhood next to building 84 was pretty sparse. It looks like half of the houses had already been torn down. A while back I was playing around with a photo cut and paste program, and imagined if building 22 had been built fronting on E Grand, where the new car storage lot was in later years. Then imagined what it would look like in 52, with the neighborhood bought up and 84/22 expanded to fill the space.

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Unanswerable question?

I don't think so. I concur with Turnquist that the depression killed the ultra-high end market and the fat margins that went with it.

Packard's equity position never improved above the 1929 level. The junior cars were using excess capacity available due to the collapse of high priced sales.

So after the investment in the 110/120 the company did not have the money to create new technology.

Granted they could have done better with marketing because they assumed everybody in the world wanted a Packard and that everybody loved that grille.

They were offered a Nash merger early on and turned it down.

And there was this Free Mason stuff. If that is true, it's no wonder they went bust. Any business that makes being a crackpot a requirement of advancement can't succeed. I'm inclined to believe the Mason stuff is true because people I have known with relatives that worked for Packard said the management was weird with a lot of "behind the scenes" activity.

After the Twin-Six Packard never had a product that truly differentiated it from the rest of the world. The Single Eight was a rationalization of the car market and, even before that, dealers needed a cheaper model to sell so Packard turned out the Single Six. That in itself is the writing on the wall for Packard.

So in the end I think Packard management just plain sucked.

I worked for a corporation where I was doing financial models. The models indicated the unit was going to hemmorage over a billion dollars. The only thing management cared about was punishing talent, obstructing the facts, and playing office politics. The people responsible for those losses are still out there losing tons of money for their employers and getting paid more than ever. The notion that capitalism is a meritocracy is as crackpot as the Free Masons. I learned that the hard way.

Though offering everything i had to say on the first page of this fanciful thread, Tim Cole has added something concrete to the Monday morning quarterbacking/what ifs. Tim makes insightful, factual points. And his observation about the Masons is one i've long wondered about. It does seem there was something esp. kooky, insular about Packard management, certainly when compared with the occasionally hipper, breezier, worldly men at Chrysler, GM, Hudson.

Walter P. Chrysler, only a high school education, making money selling milk door to door from his mother's cow, began setting steam locomotive valves, nonetheless endowed symphony orchestras and the arts. At Hudson, you had Frank Spring, a cultured, educated vegetarian, who practiced a healthy way of living most Americans still can't grasp. At GM you had Nicholas Dreystadt, who fought racism, which saved Cadillac, to the benefit of increased sales with no diminution of brand name. Buick's advertising was breezy as a Cary Grant/Constance Bennett farce. R-R/Bentley's ads were not only lovely, but upbeat, without Packard's increasing and tacky shrill playing to Main Street. The hidebound East Grand Avenue Masonites with their secret handshakes just didn't understand what GM and R-R, even Chrysler (Saratoga, New Yorker, Royal, Windsor, Imperial) & Buick knew:
Main Street does not want to see themselves as Main Street, but to the manor born. That's how you sell upscale cars, not forever banking, as Tim Cole observes, on your grille. That Packard in the '20s turned down a Nash amalgam suggests they were doomed long before their second chance in the '50s, by which time they were boring also-rans, anyway. We like what we like, but if you really believe a '50s Packard was as good an automobile as a concurrent Chrysler New Yorker, i've a bridge in NY and some fine bottom land in Florida to sell you.

Meanwhile, it's telling that fevered history disregard continues but no one has yet unearthed any SAE or other vetted papers comparing Safe-T-Flex with the GM i.f.s.; anything other than Packard promotionals contrasting their 356 with Cadillac's 346, Buick's 320; anything comparing the Packard, Pierce and Chrysler 384s; any engineering journals contrasting the four-main-bearing Packard 445/473 V-12 with the seven-main Pierce 429/462 V-12.
I like my '47 Super Clipper-- no other car of the era had a better chassis -- but its Briggs body is not as finely executed as an upper-echelon GMobile's Fisher.

It's possible, sportsfans, to enjoy what we have while remaining objective. In the late '30s, R-R annually disassembled a new Buick Limited to glean the latest Detroit production tips.

Tim Cole well summed it. Maybe we can get back to "just the facts, ma'am;" tips on preserving our cars, and isn't it l o n g overdue that someone offered a modern epoxy coil with a base screw for those of us with 1941-47 Clippers with armored ignition wire with no interest in jerry-rigging?

When you get a chance, go to YouTube and watch "Auto-Lite on Parade 1940 Vintage Automobile Film." You can argue we're driving "Auto-Lites" as much as Packards.

It seems some here spend more time on their Hewlett-Packards playing fantasy car, ignoring history and the tenor of the times, than working on Packards.

Let's do something constructive, get cracking on a quality replacement six-volt coil per above.

So in the end I think Packard management just plain sucked.

So we come back to hubris. The Mason thing, if true, could compound blind arrogance, but companies can run themselves into the ground without that added factor.

I worked for a corporation where I was doing financial models.

I have worked at several places where I alternately laughed at management, and shook my head in amazement.

Of those companies: one was bought out and the honchos I knew were shown the door, the largest one went bankrupt a month ago and is being liquidated, the next largest one will be merged out of existence within the year by a better run competitor.

The common thread at all these companies was an insular management that thought it knew everything and rejected anything that conflicted with their view of the world.