Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Click to enlarge and sorry for the quality.

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And the sad thing is as much as I like the 54's you really can't argue with some of Cadillac's points. Packard was getting a bit tired by then.

Money helps a lot and I do believe GM had more than an adequate amount available to spend on refining the Cadillac. I believe it was Dick Teague that remarked in an interview something to the effect that GM could throw more assets toward redesigning a minor piece on a door than some companies had available to design the whole car.

Let's face it; in 54 Packard was the ugly stepchild.

For 1954 Cadillac could make many un-refutable claims as to size etc. The '54 Cad was an all new body which was bigger and Cadillac did fill it with many desireable features. If you compared a 1954 Cadillac to a 1951 Cadillac, you could make the many of the same arguments (1951 Cadillacs didn't offer Power stering either). Styling wise, I think it came down to be largely a matter of Taste. Cadillac simply screamed "LOOK AT ME, I'M RICH!!! Packard's Caviller and Patrician understated it.
I've had a 1955 (2nd year with '54 body) Cadillac (Fleetwood) and a '55 Packard Patriian. The fact that I'm here writting this shows which CAR I prefer. A lot of Cadillac's vs Packard's sales can be attributed to the fact it GM's money behind it. If Packard had GM:s organizational resources behind it I think the sales numbers - same cars - would have been condiderably different

Another three pages of the contrasting juxtaposition. Packard comes off badly but that's no surprise.
Unfortunately the quality of the scans is again bad. You will need a magnifying glass to decipher it. It's a mercy!


[picture source: ebay]

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On actually reading the text it comes across (to me, anyhow) as nit-picky and not very convincing.

I just think the Caddy looked cool; the Packard looked stuffy. Definitely your Grandfather's car.....

Assuming you wanted an upmarket domestic boat in '54, something Tom McCahill and knowledgeable others personally did not, i'd prefer a '54 Chrysler New Yorker to either.

Hi

Thanks for posting this, it's instructive to see how even a make so well entrenched and dominant as Cadillac was by then would still bother to make comparison arguments to persuade prospects.

As much as we like the Patrician, one has to realistically admit it comes off as less modern and less of a bargain in that time. Pile on top the second-to-none resale value retention of Cadillacs and every Packard dealer was really up against it, to say nothing about how Buick and Olds were eatting his lunch too.

This also points up how critical the model year 1954 was for Packard to field significantly restyled, updated and upgraded lines. Management had to know if they analyzed the competition correctly that Olds, Buick and Cadillac were overdue for a new body for '54. GM was, for the most part, settling into a three year body cycle by then, the '50-'53 stretching it a bit.

Nance should have started immediately when he arrived in May 1952 on a crash program to heavily restyle and modify the existing Contour models into lines that would compete more affectively with those new GM offerings. A new body was out of the question since there wasn't sufficient time between summer '52 and fall '53 to do a proper styling, engineering and tooling job for timely introduction. And when it came to engine, he should have done whatever necessary to light a hot fire under Engineering to get that new V8 engine ready for '54!

Steve

Regarding the '54 Chrysler New York Deluxe, it was the optimum choice as a road car.....only if one could have ordered them with stick shift and overdrive.

One other factor GM had in their arsenal was GMAC, they didn't offer Cadillacs through GMAC until the dark days of the depression, then to move product they offered GMAC financing for the first time. After the war this paid off in spades for GM. The local Packard dealer was still at the mercy of the local banker, who could, and did charge whatever he wanted for that loan.
On the product side the Cadillac had the buzz around the water cooler, the V-8 engine and Harley Earl's lower cowl and beltline really made products like the Patrician seem old and stuffy. The Chrysler was an enticing product for that year, except for the transmission, as 58L8134 mentioned. The Chrysler Hemi was copied from the Cadillac engine, verbatim.
The Hemi head was the only difference.

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Wasn't the studebaker pretty much a direct copy as well? I would have thought Chrysler would have been more original....