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Had Packard waited for the inevitable Studebaker bankruptcy before buying them out...Keeping the customer faith that Studebakers were still going to be produced, not become an orphan, would have been the trick.

Keeping the customer base, and keeping the dealers on board. Buying the Studebaker assets in liquidation would have taken months, maybe a year. How could a dealer survive that long without new cars to sell, and could he even obtain replacement parts for his existing customers? Additionally, buying assets in liquidation requires cash, which Packard was short of. And Grant was telling Nance Packard was "on a path to bankruptcy" so the pressure to do "something" fast was extreme.

On the other hand, doing a stock swap for Studebaker as a going concern, as Packard did, does not require cash, but has another problem. As Ward spelled it out, because Studebaker was a larger company, the stock swap worked out so the Studebaker stockholders had a controlling interest. Any attempt by Packard to rationalize the operation by shutting South Bend would have been blocked by the Studebaker interests. The competing Studie and Packard interests on the Board of Directors were so deadlocked they couldn't even agree to consolidate testing at one proving ground and sell the other one. My plan to produce the senior Studebaker models as decontented Clippers would never have gotten past that Board.

A prickly situation indeed.

On the stampings, I recall reading that Studebaker relied on Budd to do a good deal of that work, as well as some in-house.

I know that Budd made the dies for the 53s, the ones with the front fenders that didn't fit. I have seen plans of the South Bend complex and there is a building labeled "stamping" in the middle, close to the head of the assembly line buildings.

Moving the Studebaker truck production to Hamilton would have been one escape route,

While keeping the truck line has crossed my mind, I'm not sure it would be worthwhile. When the R series was introduced in 48 it was very popular and Studie had a larger share of the truck market than they had of the car market. But they didn't make any additional investment in the line. They changed the grill a couple times, went to a one piece windshield and enlarged the window in the back of the cab, but that was it. By the mid 50s, it's design with the projecting fenders and a narrow cab was looking obsolete. Dodge had widened their cab in 48. Chevy did a dramatic restyle in 55 that made everything else look ancient.

The Hawk line had the potential to tap the emerging sport- personal luxury coupe segment

True, but the Hawk depended on the volume Studies for everything under the skin. I would have doubts of the economics of continuing production of those parts for such a low volume model, let alone developing the platform.

Plowing profits back into the business might not have been as good for the share price in the short term, but was beneficial long term.

Yup. Chrysler was also guilty of hanging on to obsolete plants. They hung on to Dodge Main until the early 80s. Probably Henry Ford was able to keep walking away from plants and building from scratch because he didn't have stockholders. I can just see a CEO at a stockholder's meeting saying "I'm going to walk away from the millions we invested in this plant 20 years ago, and drop tens of millions on a new plant." Ford could get away with it because it was all coming out of his own pocket.

Speaking of Packard buildings. The only modern buildings at EGB were built for the Merlin program 22 and 84. 84 was cut back to the tune of about 100,000 sq feet when the freeway was cut through. I was wondering when the freeway route was set, to see if there was some chance that the freeway could have been rerouted to keep 84 intact.

What I found was that a freeway running along Harper had been proposed in the 20s. The route was laid out in February 1941. At that time, there was probably nothing at the north end of EGB but the remains of the old test track that was at the north end of the complex in the 20s. So, it appears that 22 and 84 were built knowing they were encroching on the freeway right of way. The freeway was nudged a few feet to the north and the ditch narrowed to clear 22, but probably all concerned knew 84 was going to get chopped when it was built. That's probably why nothing important was put in 84 after the war. It was just used as a warehouse.

Since looking over the Packard side of the proposition, I have been looking at the Kaiser side, and got a surprise.

We have been working on the assumption that Willow Run had a significant stamping capacity. It did not.

I was reading "Kaiser-Frazer, The Last Onslaught on Detroit" and noticed a diagram of the plant layout after it was reorganized to accommodate C-119 production. I noticed how small ths area designated as the stamping plant was, and how large the area designated "stamping storage" was.

I figured there were only two reasons for having a lot of stampings in inventory: either they would set up the presses for a couple of parts and run off a couple week's supply, then change the dies and run off a couple week's supply of different parts, or they were still outsourcing many stampings. They were outsourcing.

In 50, Kaiser wanted to bring more stamping in house, but they didn't bring it into W-R. Kaiser built a stamping plant in Shadyside Ohio, equipping it with a mix of presses from government wartime stockpiles, and presses moved from W-R. In 52-53, the big presses that were producing the Kaiser floorpans and firewalls, among other parts, were in Shadyside. Shadyside stayed open until 57, supplying Kaiser construction after it moved to Toledo, then shipping to IKA until that company could find local stamping plants to support it.

W-R had a body assembly area, paint booths and ovens, but an insignificant stamping capacity by June 53. The plant had 1,000,000 sqft of free and clear space, where the C-119 line had been, in the high bay area of the plant, which could take as large a press as you could find. Problem is, Walter Grant's numbers said buying presses would not be cost effective unless production exceeded 200,000/yr. How much are we talking about? In "Last Onslaught" there were comments about presses costing $600,000 each. Then there is the cost to excavate below the floor of the plant and install footings to support the presses. How many presses to make everything in house? In a 1939 film about the Nash Milwaukee body plant, they mention that plant having 185 presses.

So even after coughing up $26M+ for W-R, Packard would still be outsourcing stampings. As Hudson production on Jefferson ended with the 54 model year, their body plant on Conner should have been available, but apparently when Packard approched AMC about supplying bodies, AMC was quoting producting and shipping from Milwaukee, which was prohibitively expensive. The Hudson body plant was sold to Cadillac in 56, and Caddy used it until Poletown opened.

So stamping supply would be a choice of Budd, if they had capacity available in the heat of the Chevy/Ford overproduction price war, or renting Conner from Chrysler.

Even if Nance and Co had thought about jumping on W-R in July 53, they would have rejected it as it still would not, in spite of the cost, solve their impending body supply problem.

I have been to the BMW Munich plant four times over the past 15 years, but only in the last trip did I take an evening tour that included their vast stamping operation. Treated sheet steel coils come in one end and stamped parts go out to the robot-tended assembly areas and other German plants producing other models. From memory, there are only four huge presses, each four or five stories tall. Across from them are stacks of dies, ready for use and moved by automated overhead cranes. Parts, big and small are made in batches, probably enough to last a week or so in production. Then the dies are changed and new stampings are made. The change-over process may involve one or two humans who mainly watch things move in and out of the presses while the cranes and die movers do their jobs robotically. A die change can take 10-20 minutes, in and out, with one guy to oversee the operation. Imagine how labor intensive auto stamping must have been at the Nash factory in 1939 or Briggs producing metal for Packard, Hudson, Chrysler and who knows what other companies.

Even at the Munich plant, the noise and vibration was significant enough to cause relocation of apartments and houses at least two or three blocks away. Only on the night tours, when things are relatively quiet would the public be admitted. The night quiet hours were negotiated with local authorities so that those residents, three or four blocks distant, could have some peaceful rest. Visitors to the BMW Museum, Welt and Olympic Park apparently don't notice the vibration from the stamping being done a half mile away.

I've been near Ford's Woodside stamping plant, modern as it is, but still out in Nowhere, south of Dearborn. I could hear nothing disturbing. But the noise and commotion that must have gone on in the 1940s and 50s when our cars were being made, must have been significant to the plant's nearby neighbors. But then again, a noisy plant meant people were making money by making cars. There was probably no complaining by the EPA-like authorities for matters involving noise, smells or industrial pollution. Times have changed, workers are much fewer but safer, and the cars with real character have gone away, except for the collectors who appreciate what went into the making of them and the sacrifices made by those who made them.

I have been to the BMW Munich plant four times over the past 15 years,

Fisher body opened a stamping plant in Kalamazoo in 65 or 66. The plant had an open house, and my 12 year old self got a good look at an old school stamping operation.

iirc, each stamping line had 5 or 6 presses. The man at the first press fed cut sheets down a ramp into the press. After that, sometimes people, sometimes a prehistoric robot arm, would take the piece out of the press and drop it on a conveyor to the next press in the line. Each subsequent press would trim the piece or make the impression from the previous press deeper. The guides pointed with pride to the safety feature in those pre OSHA days: the trigger for each press had two buttons a couple feet apart, so the operator had to use both hands to trip the thing, to make sure he didn't have a hand in the press. At the end of the line, the stampings were nested in crates for shipment. The nearest assembly plant would have been Olds in Lansing.

I don't recall the place being excessively noisy, but I was so absorbed in watching how they did things the noise may not have penetrated....and the plant floor was wood blocks, just like EGB had.

The pic is of Budd in Detroit just before it closed down. Just about as I remember Fisher Body in Kazoo: 6 presses in a row.

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Maybe Packard should have stayed in Ohio.

Today Michigan is nothing but corrupt government and roads that are worse than Africa. One road has a sign "minimum speed 55 mph". I get a kick out of that. As if putting up a sign means the road is safe.

One four letter word company used to beat workers with baseball bats. Today the descendants of that degeneracy are still making work in Michigan a rotten experience. So why keep the business in Michigan anyway? The weather, roads, and government are better almost everywhere else.

Next comes senior management. Those people don't know anything about cars, only how to devalue people. Consider how poorly they treat Mexicans. Those decisions are being made by MBA's who think they are entitled to financial welfare from the poor. If it wasn't for the UAW (a pretty sad situation in its own) they would still be hitting people with baseball bats. Hopefully one day south of the border will riot.

I am sure that if, magically, the Packard worker from either EGB or Conner were transplanted in a modern U.S. auto plant, at least half of what they'd experience would be completely foreign to them. Sure, parts and stuff goes in one door and a new car rolls out another, but the in-between has changed mightily in the past 10-15 years. Most new cars have robots putting them together more than human hands and eyes. While less romantic than the hard and boring labor of old, new cars are put in place in a much more uniform manner. The materials, from zinc coated steel, through aluminum and plastics, to the exotic carbon fibers, are greatly different than sixty years ago. Roof panels and glass are essentially glued in place rather than gasketed and welded. Where there are worker functions, videos and computers are present to check the quality of what's been done. One thing that has remained constant is that manufacturers still expect their products to last about a decade unless special care is taken by the owners. The fact that some Packards are still with us sixty to more than 110 years is tribute to that care more than the quality that was included at their inception.

If you haven't seen the inside of a modern U.S. auto plant in the last ten years, I heartily endorse making a visit. The sights, smells and colors are still exciting. As a size comparison, try the Kentucky Corvette plant and match it up to the Conner plant of 1955-56. Corvettes come off the line in a single 10 hour shift at about 17-20 per hour. Packard averaged about the same, with perhaps 25 at the good times (faster meant more costly corrective fixing would be necessary). Corvettes and Packards combined parts from both inside the plant and external sources, but in very different ways. A.O. Smith made frames for both Packard and Corvettes at external plants; today's alloy frames are made inside the plant by 33 workers and 90 robots. Packard made its own engines and transmissions internally; most Corvette engines are made in Canada (although some are hand-built at the new factory facility). The Corvette plant has a UAW workforce of about a thousand workers while Conner was four times more to make about the same number of cars. The closest Conner got to robots might have been the body welding jigs Briggs used, or the state-of-the-art Utica engine and transmission lines. Both Corvette and Packards were brands even the factory workers could aspire to, although that was usually a painful stretch. I'd also presume workers at both were proud to say that they worked there.

The guides pointed with pride to the safety feature in those pre OSHA days: the trigger for each press had two buttons a couple feet apart, so the operator had to use both hands to trip the thing, to make sure he didn't have a hand in the press.

I can imagine how proud they were. There is a manufacturing video that has been linked here a couple of times of what I think might be a 30's GM plant. It might be postwar but at any rate there is a row of giant machines performing some operation. Those machines are all sliding in and out to do whatever their task. Standing what appears to be inches away and between them is an operator. The machine does something & slides out. The operator steps in and places a part and the machine moves in again. From what I could see the operation seemed to be automatic. Didn't see anything happening that commanded the operation or that would prevent the machine from doing it's operation if the guys hand was still there. Also didn't see anything preventing that operator from being in the wrong spot when the machine moved. Talk about nerves of steel.

If you haven't seen the inside of a modern U.S. auto plant in the last ten years, I heartily endorse making a visit.

I went through the truck plant at the Rouge a couple years ago. One thing that suprised me: to ensure paint match, the bodies are painted with the doors on, then the doors are dismounted and sent down a seperate line to have the internals installed, locks, window regulators and such, and the door line is coordinated with the body line so the doors come out just in time to be reattached to the body they came from.

Boggles my mind how Packard ever got the paint to match prior to 55 as, apparently, the bodies were painted at Conner and the front clips were fabricated and painted at EGB. I have never seen a perfect paint match from a body shop. Even if the paint looks OK at first, it doesn't after a couple years of weathering.

After looking at the entire proposition, it looks like moving to Willow Run was a non-starter.

The best move would have been to keep final assembly at EGB. Maybe move front clip fab and paint to Conner so the front clip and body go through the paint booth together, then they are shipped together to EGB, sent down coordinated lines so the trimmed body and it's front clip arrive at final assembly in the right sequence.

That would have saved much of the $12M cost of moving final assembly to Conner and avoided the logjam that developed there. Then they could have taken the money saved by not moving and bought Conner outright.

Having a seperate body plant is not a deal killer. AMC was still shipping bodies from Milwaukee to final assembly in Kenosha in the 70s. By Walter Grant's numbers, buying Conner, so Briggs wasn't draining Packard's pocket anymore, and running as they had, would save $8M/yr.

The operator steps in and places a part and the machine moves in again. From what I could see the operation seemed to be automatic.

Cycling the machine regardless whether the operator has the piece placed properly or not could be wasteful. The operator is probably tripping the machine with a foot pedal. Foot pedals were a favorite of Frank Gilbreth, as the foot pedal kept the operators hands free so the time spent moving hands from placing the part to tripping the machine was reduced. Those pedals are gone now, as it was too easy for the operator to trip the machine before he got his hands out of the way.

Talk about nerves of steel.


The kings of nerves of steel in my book are railroad workers. Before the air brake was developed, brakemen had to run along the tops of the cars to operate the individual brake wheels on the cars, with the train in motion, in the dark, with the tops of the cars slick with rain, snow or ice.

Before the knuckle coupler was developed, trainmen had to stand between the cars as they were pushed together, and guide the link from one car into the pocket of the other car, while dropping a pin in place to hold the cars together. It was said you could tell how long a man had been doing this by the number of fingers he had lost.

At both Corvette and BMW's South Carolina plants, any operation where a person has to place or position a part for another stamping or welding operation, there's a lucite set of doors that automatically open for the part to be placed in the jig, then the human steps back out, the doors close, and the operation takes place. No activity can take place while the doors are open and a person's eyes, fingers or other parts are at risk. The stepping forward, doors opening and closing, and stepping back to get another part may seem time wasteful, but, as they say, "Nobody gets hurt" and that saves money. At BMW, workers rotate to different job functions four times a day to cut down on repetitive motion injuries and boredom. I am not sure if that happens at Corvette.

File photos at both EGB and the St. Louis Corvette plant in the fifties seems to show a contrast in worker safety. At Packard, workers in the paint shop seem to be using suits, goggles and respirators. There are similar Corvette workers who are content holding just a paint gun. In the fiberglass finishing areas, they do have masks and respirators, though. I wonder how many of those men lived to see retirement without having a serious lung diagnosis, no matter the company they worked for?