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GM's divisions were not as stratified as most consider them to be. Ford to a lesser degree. But none of the other auto makers ever tried it.

Consider a Buick owner pissed of at his Buick. He won't buy another one. So what does he do???? He runs and buys a Cadillac or maybe Olds. Same GM marketing ploy among Chev and Pontiac.

The idea was to keep the customer in the GM dealers rather than chase them off to F or C or Packard or elsewhere.


Packards problem is that when a big shot Dr or lawyer showed to the country club in his 160 oR 180 he had to park next to some factory rat driving a 110 or 120. What??? Other than wheel base a few chrome gee-gaws the cars were otherwise visualy indistinguishable from each other. Or at LEAST indistinguishable by Britny Spears and Linsay Lowhan types. Who else would anyone be trying to impress???

I think this question has been asked before but what would have happened if Packard had scaled down to produce exclusively for the upscale market? Perhaps 20,000 vehicles per year to an exclusive clientelle (ala Mercedes Benz or Rolls Royce/Bentley). Going after new money from Hollywood or Wall Street with flashy advertising, new V8 and maybe Italian designs from Ghia or Pinnafarina?

" ...sales were from non-automotive businesses..."

I'm not sure what the means. Does that mean businesses SOLD Packards TO customers from places like hardware stores, Sears and Roebuck, Kresge, A&P Western Auto or or other such "non-automotive businesses" ???

Give an example???

Non-automotive businesses means almost exclusively non-automotive engines, like marine engines and aircraft engines, civilian and military, both before, during and after both World Wars, industrial engines, the J-47 jet engine program, the V-8/12/16 non-magnetic marine diesel series for Navy minesweepers after WW II, and the like. I think you'd enjoy reading Neal's book, it's a great read, very professionally researched.

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I agree that Studebaker and Hudson were the least healthy of the group. But Packard just forgetting about them and building there own different line of less expensive cars could'nt work. That's the problem Packard had all along. They just didn't have pockets deep enough to do it.

Think of it in modern terms. GM needs to have a fresh sub-compact on the market. Instead of spending losts of $$$$ developing there own from scratch. They make a deal (or acquire) and established model, say from Korea. Market it in the US as there own and make higher margins. Yes maybe Studebaker could be left out of the picture completely. So then that means that a current Hudson or Nash line becomes the new Clipper, and Packard stays everything that a Packard should be.

Nash and Packard talked merger in the 1920s, and that would have been the time to get together. Charlie Nash was a tough manager, he watched expenses like a hawk, and his firm weathered the depression better than many others.

Any merger of the independents, in any combination, would have been more successful had it happened before the economic roller coaster that was The Great Depression, War-time shut-down, postwar boom.

Packard120C in post #45 above has the best solution. Concentrate on luxury car market as he posts. That combined with Packards non-automotive engine engine production as Owen cites would have kept the company a leader or perhaps the only player in those 2wo fields with Curtis Wright or no Curtis Wright involvement and no mergers.

I agree Nash would have been a great fit. Apparently it was Romney who decided on "love without marriage" as co-suppliers after Geo.Mason died and it looks as if he didn't care for the aggressive Jim Nance, who was hoping to be running the grand conglomerate he and Mason had plotted.

A lot of mistakes were made along the way, but it's the product ultimately that sells or does not. IMO no V-8 until '55, but far more importantly, very unexciting styling in '51, coming right after the great, but bloated looking , 48-50s, forced the upper middle and well heeled buying public's attention elsewhere. 1951 was the beginning of the Age of Flashiness, which was a natural result of folks finally free from decades of Depression and War. Packard cars just looked plain and frumpy, especially by 1953-54 standards. WE know that they were superb automobiles, but to most they just looked old fashioned, just the image not to have in the early 50s, the beginning of the period of greatest American optimism ever. Styling sells cars. Packard just didn't have it until 1955, too late. If the plant move, quality control, financial, and merger mistakes had not been made, Packard may have been able to recover, but they just didn't have enough time. As it was, only two years of great driving AND great looking cars couldn't do it after far too many years of uninspiring design, imo.

To follow up a bit, look at Chrysler, years of dowdy post war designs had them seriously hurting by 1954. The new Exner designed cars of '55 were a huge hit and put them back in the race, to be followed up only 2 yrs later by the fabulous '57s, which were 3 years ahead of everyone on styling and resulted in further sales gains for Chrysler, which they were unable to maintain in recession plagued '1958, and then the increasingly bizarre Mopar styling a couple of years later almost killed them again, only to be saved once more in '64/65 by Elwood Engle, designer of the '61 Continental,who went to Chrysler in '63 after Ex was forced out. Given that the product was well engineered, it was styling that sold it as long as anyone was buying, at least up until the 70s.