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Key and probably the major key element is financing. Gm had GMAC (since about 1920) while F and C had what i vaguely recall as named Ridisco.

What did Nash, Studebaker, Hudson and Packard have?????

However one mite argue that during the 50's time frame GMAC and Ridisco mite have mostly financedd dealers and businesses (very little private financing to individuals for car purchase) does not diminish the impact of more direct financing for increasing auo sales market share.

So the financing leg of the auto industry must be considered too.

mg,f and c, had the endless pockets, of the federal reserve.

You bring up a good point - and add yet another piece to the puzzle. Yes, financing (as well as advertising, marketing and distribution) would come into play in any proposed merger. While I don't believe that Packard had a GMAC-like "house financing" arm, I can't really vouch for the other players.

Anyone have any inside information on Studebaker, Nash or Hudson's ownership or interest in any financing institution? While even just a few years earlier, many new- car buyers still paid cash, by 1955 financing was quickly becoming the norm.

Amazing how many facets there are to the merger scenario. What else have we not touched on yet?

PV8 - great point about financing, totally agree and maybe we can explore this more. Didn't credit dry up around 1954 due to worries that too many bad loans were being made as a result of the Chevy/Ford battle? Didn't this hurt Packard and the others?

Steve - agree completely, great synopsis. Ideally such platform consolidations would happen at a major redesign so the public would never know. In the case of the '55 Hudsons, Mason had no choice but to close down shop and quickly graft enough "Hudson" into the large Nashes to reduce the market's laughter to acceptable levels. Note that the new Hudsons didn't hit the streets until Feb. 1955, four months later than the usual new car roll-out.

It should be noted that this and related matters exemplified a key difference between Mason and Nance. Mason thoroughly studied Hudson before merging, knew its weaknesses and took his time thoroughly working through the terms (negotiations took 6 months). Mason insisted that Barit liquidate his beloved Jet as a precondition to merger rather than include its investment in Hudson's assets. And Mason unceremoniously closed Hudson's vehicle operations (save for engine) with no attempt to try to save it. The merger was announced in Jan. '54, workers were notified of the shutdown plans in May '54 and the plant was closed in Oct. '54. Done.

Contrast this to Nance. Poor due diligence up front, quick negotiations, poor terms that somewhat favored Studebaker and no plant closings. Had Mason survived I could just hear his conversation with Nance when it came time for the entire combine to unite. "Well Jim, I know we've been friends but like I told Barit, business is business. I intend to pick up S-P for a song and there isn't much you can do about it. You can accept my terms now or wait a few years for me to pick S-P up in bankruptcy for 10 cents on the dollar. And by the way, I can't let you run this company once I retire. You've proven yourself a great sales guy but not the type of person I am looking for to handle white knuckled business matters."

Sorry about the previous comments, promised myself would not to go negative on JJN. Let's just say he and Mason had their differences.

Had a thought about product planning, particularly engines, and this is where Nance may have had something important to teach Romney. Nance knew that future Packards and derivative products (Clipper, Studebaker) that used its platform would need to be clearly differentiated in the market. As a result, Packard's powertrain planners developed two V8 engine sizes. Contrast this to AMC under Romney. The inability of he and Nance to forge a sharing partnership led him to order a redundant (to the combined AMC-SP effort) V8 of modern design and settle for an otherwise outdated long-stroke small Six by converting the old L-head engine to OHVs. What he arguably should have done was continue to use Packard's V8 and instead develop two modern short-stroke OHV Sixes that rolled down the same line.

For our would-be plan to save AMC-SP, I suggest that Studebaker's V8 and Six be terminated in April 1956 (the date AMC's V8 was launched) and replaced by these two new Sixes. Also suggest that Rambler get the smaller of the two while Studebaker the larger, and a longer hood to go with it (for style, not packaging). In this way Studebaker would be groomed to become the upscale compact, in keeping with the upscale Packards that would increasingly be sold alongside it in dueled S-P dealerships. There would be no Packard-based Clipper/Studebaker, only the medium priced Packard-based Hudson selling alongside the Rambler.

Does anyone see a viable future for Hudson in this mix, other than as a re-badged something else? I suppose the notion of basically just calling the Packard Clipper a Hudson makes some sense . . . It just seems as if the brand with the big 6-cylinder Hornet in it's recent past could fill a bigger role.

Maybe not.


I guess this falls into the same question category as, "Why did Pontiac get it's own version of the Camaro, but not Buick or Oldsmobile?"

Hudson in this mix?

It has been said that Hudson engineers loved their Six. Big cars like the Hornet couldn't serve up Sixes by the mid to late 50s, had to be a V8. Seems to me the only way Hudson could have gotten its wish after 1954 was to put an improved Six (OHVs or OHCs) in a sporting car of Rambler/Jet size. The Italia and Nash Palm Beach concept might have worked as a 2 door. For a 4 door, Hudson might have needed to develop a Jaguar Mk IV or Mercedes 300SE type car, maybe a Jaguar 2.4 compact sedan. One could argue that any of these is what Barit should have made the Jet into in the first place but it would have been a leap of faith in those years.

The step down was gone after 1954 but would have returned with the '57 Packard/Hudsons. Not a unibody though, not the way Packard was headed. But still, not a bad return. As a large car with a V8 this new Hudson might have lent itself to special models like the Chrysler 300, something that packed a Packard motor with all the carburetion, intake manifold and other tricks of the day to make it a high performance stock car machine. Maybe even fuel injection.

AMC could have also groomed Hudson to be the top dog in the Rambler clan had they developed a new series of Sixes with the bigger going to Hudson. Had they developed a low slung coupe, might have served as a worthy new Hornet. The Javelin ended up being a spiritual descendent.

AMC-SP merger or collaboration... maybe the Packard V8 shoehorned into said low slung Rambler-based coupe... handling would have been nose heavy but straight line would have been a rocket.

Pulled some numbers from Fyreline's post and the Standard Catalogue for '56 and '57 then guestimated a proposed line-up assuming merger or love w/out marriage where platforms were reduced from 4 to 2 - Rambler and Packard.

Looking at the actuals it is pretty clear that the compact car class of engines got shortchanged in both variety and horsepower while redundancy occurred in the medium and large car segments.

The proposed line-up reduces the engine families to 2 and aligns each with the vehicle platform it would power. Since the medium-sized Studebaker and Nash would go away, no engine would be needed for them. The new Sixes would provide compact, lightweight power for the Rambler-based cars and eliminate the need for a nose-heavy V8 option. The money that Romney spent on the new AMC V8 would instead pay for this new family of Sixes and benefit both Nash and Studebaker just as Packard's new engine family would benefit Hudson and Packard. Guestimated the horsepower that Packard's proposed 440 V8 would have developed by extrapolating from the 374 V8.

Studebaker truck would tap both families of engines.

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Just an outside thought..maybe no one wants to entertain it..but the premise of this thread is that S-P would have merged with AMC. In all my own studies, I have absolutely no evidence that Nance (or the Packard board) ever really considered this as an option, the explanation from Nance that he never would have merged with Studebaker without the intention of then folding the two into AMC seems more self serving than accurate. Does anyone have any information to the contrary? Also, why would Mason insist on Packard merging with Studebaker before joining AMC..why wouldn't he welcome Packard into AMC as a stand alone company?

Hi

Following up on post #2, here's my take on who would be the head of the combined corporation and it's division leaders, plus a bit of explanation on choices and caveats.

Corporate President/CEO: Joseph Frazer

Packard-Hudson Division President: James Nance

Nash Rambler-Studebaker Division President: George Romney
Truck-South Bend Division: Harold Churchill

Why Joseph Frazer? Assuming George Mason suddenly passed away, and given the animus of Nance and Romney, the corporation primary need was a leader with deep industry experience and an objective position regarding his division heads. Romney had only about six-seven years actually in active auto company management by '55. Nance, as we know, was a complete greenhorn whose strength was product development/content/sales, badly lacking in manufacturing and finance. He could be developed in the position with considerable oversight by an experience manager.

Yes, Joseph Frazer, late of Kaiser-Frazer, was the other half of that company for a while. As background, he divorced himself from active management in a 1948 show-down over Henry Kaiser's plan to gear up for 1949 production of 200K units. Frazer, in the auto industry since 1912, understood if one's company had no new models in the face of all-new competition, one always retrenched, took the defensive course. To which HJK bellowed "The Kaisers never retrench!", which given his greater financial share of K-F made his plan final. To make 200K unit year happen, HJK wanted Frazer to sign on for millions more in loans float the company through as well as front the Henry J and new '51 body development costs as well. Frazer foresaw Henry's plan as a roadmap for a sales disaster resulting in major losses which ultimately it did, had staked most of his personal fortune just to get the company going. For HJK, the auto venture wasn't much more than a sidetrack fascination, wouldn't leave him broke if it failed. The upshot was Frazer resigned as president to be replace by Edgar Kaiser, who turned out to be the Nance of K-F. Frazer was put on a sales consultancy contract which ended in 1952 when he was still in his later 50's, time enough to assume another key position with an independent automaker. There may have been other men with auto industry experience available and willing within the Big Three as well.

In the near-term 1954-60, the managerial acumen of both Romney and Nance were needed by their respective divisions to navigate the choppy waters that were a rapidly changing market. While Romney was up to the task, Nance still had to be coached along, which Frazer could have done very well. If either balked at a being just a division head, Frazer would have done well to replace him with a candidate immediately underneath whose skills demonstrated he would be a good division leader.

For the Studebaker Truck/South Bend Foundry Division, Harold Churchill would have been the ideal choice having deep familiarity experience with those functions.

Next, further comments on models selection and engines, various details presented here.

Steve