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Well, regardless of product, the path from the producer of goods to the consumer can get pretty complicated.

Most manufacturers don't want to bear the cost (and headache) of dealing directly with the public, but prefer to sell their wares through agents or dealers. Yet, some manufacturers seek to achieve greater cost savings by offering deep discounts to large volume purchasers, who - in turn - break their purchases into smaller lots for resale to smaller sellers. There could be one or more layers of intermediaries between the producer and the retail dealer, and those middlemen are often known as wholesalers, distributors, or jobbers. Mind you, that's a very simplified view.

Today's distribution of vehicles (at least those produced by domestic automakers) is pretty much a direct relationship from the factory to the franchised dealer, with some product traded between those dealers, on occasion. Once in a great while, where a manufacturer wanted to maintain a retail point in a location where no private investor was available, the manufacturer would hold an equity stake in a dealership, which was then run by a general manager of their choosing (whom they hoped will eventually be able to buy them out).

PMCC's distribution channel was something of a hybrid. Some dealers were able to purchase large numbers of vehicles and serve as a distributor, where smaller dealers in their area were required to purchase vehicle from them. Yet, some distributors were apparently factory-owned (known as branches) - perhaps where no other dealer was willing to take on the role. As years went by, however, this system began to break down, and smaller dealer were buying direct from the factory (resulting in some pissed-off distributors).

At least, that's my understanding of it. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I wonder how the Zone Offices figure into this equation and timeline, given the existence of dealer lists, by Zone.

Dave,

I guess I am confused. Where does it say that all the dealers on that sheet fall under Mack? I guess there is something lost in translation or I didnt read it right.

I suppose we can add a columns to spreadsheet that specify type (Dealer, Distributor, Branch, etc), and also another that specifies the know distributor of that dealer. Both of those would of course be optional detail fields. From a database/mapping perspective Name, City, State (Country) are really the key fields at a minimum.

I guess since I am going to be the one that has to tame all the data into the database I will volunteer to maintain the central list. so if you folks can send me what ever you have (via email to bigkev@packardinfo.com), in whatever form it exists, then I will try to normalize it into a spreadsheet with as much or as little details that exists. If someone wants to put their information in excel before sending it over, then that makes it much easier for me. But that is not required. A scanned copy of a page, or it whatever format you can put together will work also.

Dave, if you can send over the PDFs version via email I think that would be the fastest, and would help as that reduce any quality degradation from you copying it, mailing it to me, and then me scanning it back into the computer.

My father's dealership in Santa Fe, N.M. was serviced out of the Kansas City, Mo. zone office. I believe that earlier (1920s) there was a distributorship in Albuquerque operated by Roland Sauer. I am not sure what the distributor's role was in those days. I remember going with my father to the Kansas City zone office to take delivery of new cars. He drove them back to Santa Fe. There were dealer drive aways from the factory and zone offices too. Different times.

I think the quickest and easiest way to get dealer information to the members is as I recommended earlier. Have members provide paper copies to Kevin so he can scan them and post the scans on the website. If we feel the need to elaborate on this then it can be started. In the mean time we have added another feature to the site.

Some time back I tried to contact the PAC dealer roster keeper to add my father's dealership to his roster. I don't know the reasons, but he never responded to me. Maybe someone else will have better luck. It would be nice to see what he has.

I can't believe how much traffic this topic has created, which is good, I guess, as it shows how much interest there is in the subject.

I'm not a PAC member, so I will have to reply on someone that is to try to see if the PAC Rooster keeper is willing to share his information for this project.

I will try to contact the folks I know at PI and see if they have anything to contribute from their side.

Thanks,

I can't believe how much traffic this topic has created, which is good, I guess, as it shows how much interest there is in the subject.

So am I, especially since there are perhaps no more than 5 -10 queries a year on this site about dealers and locations.

I had a response to my query to PAC's roster-keeper for dealers; his data is far more extensive than I thought, perhaps 10,000 dealer locations over the years, and still more to track down. At this point I think I'm just going to sit tight and let him do his work.

Dave, does than mean he is not interested in sharing what he has with us?

I don't know, please let's try to avoid a competitive situation here and put me in a difficult position; we'll have to wait and see what might happen when he's got his data where he wants it. Obviously his first objective would be to support the club he is a member of and whose membership I presume has helped him collect it. I think most of us just want the information accessible somewhere; if someone needs to hop over to a different site to get some info, so be it, we do that all the time as it is.

If you want to continue your efforts, you certainly can have access to the 1939 list that I have.

Dave, not trying to put you in any position at all, so I understand your position.

I need to house the data in the database here to be able to integrate it will some of the other features here on the website, so I will forage ahead with the project on this side and when done will be happy to share what we have found. If you would still be so kind as to send over the 1939 info that would be great.

Thanks,

I received a reply from Steve Chapman. My e-mail to him today about providing him with information on my father's dealership. He was open to me providing whatever I had. I will get this information to him soon.

I also talked about the activity on this site to compile information on Packard dealers and was there anything he had that could help us in this effort. I have not heard back from him on this. I will tread lightly with Steve on this topic. Like O_D says it does not matter where the information is located, this site or another.

A little update from my side. I was able to pull data from some of the various reference materials I access to and have added 472 different Packard Dealers(from 5 different countries) to the Master Spreadsheet. It's a good starting point!