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Guscha:

When I was 17 and working in a gas station in Southern California, I saw all makes and types of cars and from an early age I was able to discern quality from crap, especially since I was giving most of the lube and oil changes to our customers' cars. It was at that time I saw the quality of Packards up close and the crap that was British cars such as MG and Jaguar.

Though prone to vapor lock in warmer climates and erratic electrical systems (though nothing on the scale of BMW, i.e. Bavarian Manure Wagon), the Mercedes cars I came into contact with were solid, well-appointed cars. Unless Daimler produced a complete low-cost line of cars by the same name, I never saw anything that I would classify as "cheap."

One of the most interesting Mercedes Benz cars that passed through our station was a 1955 300 SL Coupe, aka the Gullwing. It was one hell of a car!

Insiders report that Mercedes sheet steel was below their
usual quality in the '50s, during those bleak postwar years
in both Germany and England.

When Studebaker-Packard entered a management agreement with
Curtiss-Wright, who took on S-P s o l e l y as tax write off and to pick up S-P's jet engine contracts, C-W insisted they drop Packard, instead distributing Mercedes-Benz. Before this, if you wanted a Mercedes in the US, you got it through Max Hoffman, importer of various sports cars.

Mercedes objected to a later idea that S-P hawk Chrysler-engined Facel Vega Excellences as "Packards," seeing this as direct competition.

Meanwhile, it helps if you remember the tenor of the times. For example, Enzo Ferrari, like W. O. Bentley, was a huge fan of the earlier Packards, owning a succession of Packard Twelves from the '30s. But as Packard was still in business selling some luxury models in the '50s and seen as competition (if minor), Ferrari's executives spun the story of Enzo's Packard V-12 respect to the much earlier 1915-22 Twin Six.

Again, haven't we enough of this what if malarkey? There's plenty of yet unearthed Packard history, hard fact, to explore, let alone insights on keeping our cars purring.

Just a thought, but perhaps if we weren't a nation of
mouse clickers and Monday morning quarterbacks, the Packard factory might survive revamped and used to some productive means today.

And Audi's eating M-B's and BMW's lunch these days, anyway.

I rather have a star in my windshield than on the hood! M-B has the quality name but its not superior to other brands! It has what every german brand has: good solid vehicles; mb, bmw, audi, porsche but also vw.
In my opinion they're not superior to other brands.

Oh this is a good thread. Bring on the malarkey... if we can't get our arms around the past how can we shape the future!

I have never read one car review that ranked a Camry equal to a Mercedes E-Class. The Mercedes is the better car, period. You feel it when you sit in the seat, take the first turn, hit the brakes. Even Toyota wouldn't try to make the claim.

Re: 110, am not saying Packard should have never made an entry car, just saying not that car. Not a car that simply lopped 5 inches off the 120's hood and cheapened the interior. Had Packard engineered a genuinely smaller car and kept the same high quality Packard interior and good proportions, it would have been a good move. It would have helped keep the Packard name up there on the pedestal. I remember driving an '86 Mercedes 190E around 1989 as a possible used car purchase. It was the best car I had ever driven. Everything about it was pure Mercedes only shrunken.

Re: BMW and Mercedes prestige cars' role in polishing the brand... every marque has a center of gravity. For Mercedes it has always tended towards medium-large cars. For BMW it is the C/D-sized 3-Series. Nobody cares about the 7-Series, its sales stink. Yeah, BMW probably needed to upgrade it in the late 80s like it did with the V12, to show everyone that it could make a big Mercedes. But for the most part the car has been a drag on the company.

So who wanted the Packard 110? McCauley? - no, Vincent? - no, Christopher? - not really. The dealers wanted the 110.
The best description I heard about the depression was "you couldn't find a dollar". Nobody at the Packard plant wanted the tooling costs for another class of car, but once it went on the market it was the top seller.

It got knocked out in Clipper form because the power to weight ratio was rotten and the price too high. But bolt for bolt the 110 was a nice little car. Their best all around car.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that a lot of trades in were for the junior cars because they were that good. They wore out like every car in their price class, but if you drive a low mileage example they are very impressive.

I don't like German cars. All I think about as regards M-B is the way they rusted out. Dino Ferrari - great - you have to drive one to understand that Enzo Ferrari was a genius. It's news to me that he liked the V-12 Packard, but that is understandable. Especially a 9-11th series coupe roadster. E-Type Jaguar - fantastic - one of the greatest sports cars of all time. The 300 Gullwing - I don't know because I never drove one.

Today the car market is so saturated that a shake out is coming. GM is down to 16% market share and they shouldn't be spending lavishly on the Corvette the way they do. All those V-12's make no engineering sense. Heck they are so crammed into the car you can't even see the motor so who cares?

I'm not an armchair quarterback. I'm here getting banged up in the car business like everybody else. Problem is that if you aren't a stark raving lunatic or a man eating shark you aren't going very far in this world. I don't get upset anymore because I've had all the fight knocked out of me. The other day I was thinking that when I was young, restless, inexperienced, ignorant, and obnoxious people treated me a lot better. Go figure.

Good note Tim. Good notes everybody. We have a wonderful thing going with this forum.

G'day all, Hi from the Antipodes;

I have slogged though all of the posts and there are many notable ones including;
.Dilution of the brand by introduction of the 120/110
.Dependance on not-forthcoming Defence contracts after WW11.
. Brand stagnation in chasing Chev/ ford into the late 40's and Fifties.
. Disasterous merger with virtually bankrupt Studebaker.
. An inability to revert to manufacture of 50,000 pa luxury only market with manufacturing facilities for 200,000.
My head spins when I think of how the Packard Board was dealing with this and it was obviously troubled by all of these problems.

IMHO the single factor which most contributed to the demise of Packard was dilution of Public trust in the purchase of a Packard once Packard merged with Studebaker. Packard had assumed an orphan status which was a death wish.

Just my 2 cents worth PT

The big mistake with the 110 was calling it a "Packard". It was absolutely necessary for the company to survive in those years it was produced......but we must remember when Cadillac followed the same marketing practice of making a 'cheaper' Cadillac... GM didn't call it a "Cadillac", they called it a "LaSalle"......and when things got better with sales they discontinued it.... Naming the cheap car a "Packard" just cheapened the whole image of the company..... Hence the fact that the cheaper cars like the 110 and the Clipper outsold the senior cars many times over....and it was on those senior cars the company set its image and higher profits.....Marketing is a very tricky thing when dealing with a very fickle public... and Packard management failed miserably to ever learn this....That once the stellar image of their brand is diluted....its a difficult if not impossible thing to bring it back....especially in a timely fashion.....

I think the LaSalle strategy worked by accident. Sloan thought there should be more brands so GM introduced the Pontiac, Marquette, LaSalle, and the Viking.

Not calling the 120 a Packard may have made Packard the old maid who never had a kid because she thought her reputation was more important.

Why hasn't BMW gone out of business? How can they sell expensive 12 cylinder cars at they same time they sell much cheaper 4 cylinder cars?

Why hasn't Mercedes gone out of business? How can they be a prestige make when they sell 4 cylinder cars, taxicabs, and even trucks?

If you can figure out the answer to those questions you will know why I think the 110 and 120 did not kill Packard.

You can also explain why Packard didn't die until 10 years after they stopped making 6 cylinder cars. If the 110 poisoned the Packard name it was sure a slow acting poison.

By the way... Cadillac did not exactly drop the LaSalle. They only dropped the LaSalle name. They continued to make a cheaper model of Cadillac in the LaSalle price bracket. In fact they kept making the Model 61 until 1950 or 51. This was the lowest price Cadillac, based on the B body used on the Oldsmobiles and smaller Buicks . I never heard that this smaller Cadillac hurt the Cadillac name.