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Those with a broad interest in Packard's finances over the years may find this little picture I put together interesting. And for those interested in the real obscure, check the information on patent plates.

Hope you enjoy this stuff.

http://www.packardclub.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=12

O_D, enjoyable and important. Please keep your efforts going. Love slicing and dicing those data.

(o{}o)

Entertaining reading! Only thing that I might like to see added is the breakdown of defense business and civilian engine sales (aircraft engines, marine engines, truck engines, etc). That would make the postwar per car profit look even scarier.

Agree with 55/Motor City above. This is the kind of hard fact we like to see, not the "what ifs" from those with no knowledge of the tenor of the times, many buffs under the impression Packard existed to make toys for them 60, 70, 80 years hence. As they said in the detective movies, "follow the money trail."

In summation, sans excuses, which mean little to shareholders --and remember that even in 1933, after only GM, Packard was still the most widely held automotive stock, 107,000 shareholders to GM's 360,000 (Ford was privately held) --
note Packard's most profitable years were 1928-29, '30 still good. After that, other than a lift from the new juniors 1935-37, nothing 'til the war work, though thanks to Clipper styling, had not Pearl Harbor intervened, 1942 would've been Packard's biggest volume year other than 1937, which suggests styling even more important than price.
After the war, back to fiscal morbundity but took off with the jet engine contracts in 1948, otherwise declining into the '50s, as did all independents for the inevitable reasons; unable to match Big Three tool amortization, unit costs, component purchasing power, afford annual model changes, TV advertising.

Thanks for posting this chart of Packard fiscal history at a glance, OD.

Meanwhile, thanks, too, to Carol Mauck and Kev for saving that cache of Packard history, papers, records.

Hi Dave

Great summation of important financial data! If possible, could you add their annual working capital reserves, dividend payouts and percentage of profits. I don't ask for much, do I?

And for those of us without great facility for financial analysis, would those who do give us your assessments of how they managed their resources in various periods.

Steve

Steve, glad you found the data enlightening. And yes, more detail would be nice but the complete collection of the annual stockholder reports is not in my possession and I'm reluctant to ask the owner to go thru 50 years again for more detail data. But if one or two years were of particular interest to you I'm sure I could get a copy of the full report for those years.

Hi Dave

Was a bit much I was asking. Most interesting would be what their working capital was at the brink of the Depression, at the introduction of the 120, and as the Clipper came to market. Though, in the last case, separating the contributions of military contracts from automobiles probably is impossible.

Reflecting on the numbers, those first three decades were a situation the Depression, changing technologies, attitudes and the commodification of automobiles would eradicate. No contest the Junior models kept their auto-making alive, but at thin margins that must have given them pause to wonder if some models were worth the effort.

One other observation: once the 115/Six/110 was their primary product, their per unit profits trended toward the lowest. This likely is a reflection of the experience of all lower-medium and medium-priced automakers.

Steve