Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Thanks JD, appreciate the heads-up. Have changed the image's title, don't like being knowingly in error. Spend enough time unknowingly so...


"What if only the center section is cross-hatched (like a senior) but all the way down?"

Let's take a look, bkazmer. Have included a bonus (aka mistake) on far right, having accidentally lowered the center section all the way down to the bumper on my first attempt. Maybe it could have worked too. For both mods the problem area would have been the intersection of horizontal bars inter center grill because they are not on the same plane. Horizontal bars would have either needed beveled at the intersection or boxed in with a vertical piece alongside the grill. Both would have looked odd but the design could have been resolved with who-knows-what solution had the designers set out to make the center section taller in the first place.


Steve - agreed, a '49 Ford share was out of the question. Pondering the Lincoln share, if nothing else it points to the need to field two cars, one delivering volume, the other prestige, both with healthy profit. No question Cadillac lived off the Buick 70 share, that was its key. Luxury and near luxury. Packard's lux and near lux carried same name and general appearance, probably resulting in a fair amount of cannibalization of the top car over the years. A different brand in the near luxury space might have prevented that - Commodore or a more gussied up Ambassador - or more differentiation between the two Packard-branded cars. 23rd Series Super Eight moving from 122 to 127 chassis and offering a Deluxe trim is classic example of Junior eating Senior.

Confounding things is fact that Packard's dealers needed a volume car to stay alive, something well below near-luxury. Either that or Packard needed to make its cars so darn superior that per unit profits became highest in industry and everyone - dealers and factory - were able to live a healthy life on 50K units per year. See mid to late 1920s.


3/24 EDIT: beveled the horizontal bars at intersection with center grill, and refined image on right above bumper.

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With your last sentence in mind, this might be an interesting time to revisit my old analysis of Packard's history in terms of net profit per car sold per calendar year, I always thought it highly thought-provoking. Its been posted here years back, shall I dig it out and repost?

Yes, I would love to read it...Look forward to it. Ernie in Arizona

Absolutely Dave. Give us the food we hunger for!

OK, enjoy!

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Very interesting report, Dave - thanks for digging up and posting. It's hard to believe that in the late 30's, with the cheaper cars piling up the sales units, Packard was reduced to making less than $10 a car!! Also, not to nit pick, but some of those numbers didn't add up for me... maybe I'm doing something wrong?? Like in '31 where it shows a $.8M loss ($800,000) with 9010 units in sales - I get a unit loss of $88, not $757. And in '38, with a $1.6M loss ($1,600,000) and 50260 units of sales, I come up with a $32 unit loss, instead of $318. Am I computing that wrong?? In '34, a $7.3M loss in sales ($7,300,000) and 6265 units would be a loss per unit of $1165 and THAT agrees with your report??? Chris

The arithmetic anomalies aside, the real picture is evident only after adjusting for inflation. The postwar inflation of 1945-1949 reduces those figures significantly and paints a grim financial situation.

Chris, you're right about the two errors. I had corrected them years ago and just posted the uncorrected version of the chart, sorry about that.

Thanks Dave, very informative. Greatly appreciate the time and effort that you and Mr. Balfour spent pulling this together.

Will take some time to unpack and like Tim said, will need to take into account the things that effect direct comparison between years. Inflation is one. The other big drivers are corporate tax rates and defense profits. The tax rates jumped way up for Contours and gouged profits. Defense work hurt profits during production setup, helped once on line and at capacity.

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really interesting. 39 -41 look badly mismanaged. The volume is decent and they are not making decent money. I think this suggests that the margin on the 110 and 120 was too skinny.

How can you lose money in 1946 using existing tooling in a seller's market?

I think a theme is that after the mid thirties Packard didn't have sufficient market share in any segment to set pricing, and the higher costs of a lower volume producer squeeze margin.