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Brian - I have seen your posts - am convinced you are a good wrench turner - I bet your V-8 Packards are good performers, giving good reliable service.

I bet if YOU had been running Packard in the 50's, again, had YOU been running the place, I BET I could order a brand new Packard TODAY - I do NOT hold you personally responsible that Packard products of the mid 1950's were failures in the market-place.

I did not run around chasing away eager buyers of Packard products from those lines that formed outside Packard show-rooms..and I dont think you did either !

Try and get it thru your head that ways to build up a company, a culture, a nation, and ways to destroy it, are IMPORTANT lessons that should be studied - they do NOT reflect on any one individual. So stop taking ANY of this personally !

I've been watching this exchange for close to five years now on about three or four different forums. I drive a '55 V8, daily, in town and on the highway. Packard V12 Fan has a valid point and he's right that it needs advertising. The manner of presentation probably detracts from the fact that he's right. Packard was first in many things. They were, until about 1951, one of the best examples of all that was right with American manufacturing, concentrating on their product's quality, workmanship and durability. Unfortunately, post-war, they were one of the first to turn the company over to the accountants and salesmen and to subscribe to the, "modern," corporate mentality - letting the product slide and concentrating instead on advertising gimmicks and, "cost-cutting," in production so that they could pay big dividends to stockholders and bonuses to management. When the, "buy anything as long as it's new," mentality that followed the depression (when few could afford new stuff) and the war (when there was no product)started evaporating in about 1951 they were one of the first to get caught with their pants down. What happened to them is what's happened not only to the American auto industry but American industry as a whole. The, "modern," corporate mentality is just about as efficient as the modern government mentality - and for the same reasons. No one in management has any experience at maintaining the quality of their product and, in point of fact, do not see the need. When someone occasionally tries the bean counters and the salesmen shut them down.

I find my Packard V8 to be no more troublesome routinely than, for instance, a 1957 Pontiac Starchief that I owned. The problems are different and Pontiac was around to fix them. Packard's problems, different but no less vexing, were a little more difficult to deal with since the company killed itself and didn't make the cut. We are, as Petey says, car buffs. I love my V8 Packard. It retains certain unique vestiges of workmanship and quality that leads one to believe that, "management," hadn't quite managed to kill all of the tradition on the factory floor in spite of their mighty efforts. The quality and workmanship in the product did suffer after 1950. In my opinion no worse than the quality and workmanship in many other marques but, where the others stayed around long enough to fix theirs, Packard ran out of money and died. From one of the foremost manufacturers in the world to dead-broke and out of business in less than ten years. Contrary to some popular opinion, they didn't kill themselves by building down-priced products. Mercedes-Benz and BMW use the same market strategy today - but they still see to their product and maintain their reputations. Packard was simply one of the first of many, many American companies to commit suicide by, "management." Corporate greed, combined with a complete lack of foresight killed Packard - as it has killed the majority of American industry.

We DO need to have this alarming tendency pointed out to us, perhaps in a more diplomatic manner, but the problem cannot be corrected as long as nobody mentions it.

I love Packards. To me, for the most part, they remind me of a time when this country was the world's foremost producer of quality manufactured goods and the fact that, consistently for most of their existence (from about 1910 until about 1950) you could occasionally buy a better car for the same money as a Packard - BUT NOT OFTEN AND NOT CONSISTENTLY. Considering the resources and money that they had to work with, the 1955 and 1956 Packards (with all of their shortcomings) were a truly valiant effort on the part of the little that remained of a grand old company. They weren't the company's best effort but, considering the harm that lackadaisical and inept management had played in their demise following the war, the people who busted their asses - against all odds; competition and their own management - on the floor of the factory in those last years deserve to have their efforts preserved, recognised and, above all, seen. In that light, alone, the '51 - '56 cars are pretty remarkable.

Them's my two cents worth. I'm sticking to them and this is the first, last and only comment I'll ever make on the subject.

Let's stop throwing rocks at each other and maintain our Packards.