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Today is the 56th Anniversary of the Announcement of the Closing of the Packard Headquarters/Proving Grounds & their move to South Bend, Indiana.


Via Autolife:

"The main entrance to the Packard factory complex in Detroit on August 15, 1956, the day its closing was ordered. Both Studebaker and Packard had been among the earliest car makers. Packard bought Studebaker in 1954 and formed Studebaker-Packard, but the company was unable to compete successfully against the Big Three."


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If we could only could get into the factory, when this picture was taken.

What happened at the Conner plant? Did the parts get moved, and the machines scrapped? How was the end handled? Is the end detailed in one of the Packard books?

I remember hearing Herb Mitch (spelling) talk at one on the PAC meets. He had to sign some of the papers.

Kind of sad that there are not ANY Packards in the picture either!

Truly a sad day.

It seems to me that Studebaker was a bit like a Black Widow Spider: She mates and then she kills.

On the flip side, Studebaker's period of ownership of Pierce Arrow was quite beneficial to Pierce at a time Pierce was on the verge of the big tumble to oblivion. Studebaker lavished plenty of money on Pierce, helped them develop that fine series of Pierce straight 8s (with some sharing from the Studebaker 8), enough $ to develop the Twelves, the Silver Arrows, and more. And took the burden of some coach building from Pierce, albeit to also help them reduce their own unit costs. IIRC correctly Pierce was then bought from Studebaker by Wall Street financial interests at the time Studebaker went into the financial soup themselves.

In my view Studebaker's most damaging deception to Packard was the misrepresentation of their break-even volume.

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Something that today would wind up in a monumental lawsuit. From what I have heard the reason for not telling Packard their break-even point was that the Wizards of Studebaker had no idea what it was. I've read that after Packard got ahold of the books the break-even point was figured to be at 186,000 cars. Studebaker was having a sensational year if the managed to sell 86,000.

It happens. In about 1960 the furniture factory my dad worked for gave my dad the job of finding out how much it cost to make every item they produced. From the time of the firms creation, 1886, they had more or less based their prices on what the competition was selling furniture for. The theory being that if the competition could stay in business at the prices they charged, then the company my dad worked for could too. The basis for my father's choice was that he held the production record for every machine in the place so he knew how much the labor was and he had training as an accountant. On the whole by dad's bosses were good guessers but there were still items that they were "giving away" and others that should have required the salesmen to where a black mask.