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Hi

I have theories about when and how the luxury market dominance was lost, but before I put my opinion out here, I'd like to read what knowledge folks think.

Steve

Long story short: Packard was only in the luxury market, they weathered downturns in that market prior to the great depression. They sit out the great join-ups that GM and Chrysler participated in, despite many invitations to the dance.
After the 1929 stock market crash volume on all car sales drop, including Packard. They continue to sell some pretty expensive units, in low volume. During the early years Packard see the writing on the wall and goes into the middle, middle-low end of the market using their name and image rather than an alternitave brand image and sells those cars like hotcakes, had they not done this they would be in the same category as Peerless, Pierce Arrow, Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg and all of those Packard owners who belong to the CCCA and won't have anything to do with the PAC or PI would be perfectly happy.
During this time the all-steel body is accepted acroos the board by all volume car manufacturers and this seperates who will live and who will not--the extreme up-front costs of manufacturing all steel bodies demands that only a large corporation making many different brackets of cars can survive, and afford the costs of fabrication of the bodies and the soon-to-come rapid change of styling. Packard's old customers from the carriage trade days still like the beautiful pre-war senior cars despite the fact that a poor man's copy is being made and sold with the same name and basic appearance for a fraction of the cost.
After the war the senior dies are unusable so only the attractive, contemporary Clipper is available, sales continue to grow because of the high demand for cars at the time. This starts cheesing off the old-line customers, who start looking around.
Competitive brands(well, mainly Cadillac) offer different styling to the bathub style than Packard, Lincoln (and lower priced Hudson and Nash)that the public likes better than the tubs, GM has GMAC offering time payments on Cadillacs in a widespread campaign and the rest is history. Packard is stuck using the local bank as its finance arm, at the whim of the local banker. Lincoln and Imperial play catch-up against Cadillac (who has just unveiled the modern overhead valve, larger bore-than-strock V8)and Packard is left with a period where they don't know what segment of the market they want to appeal to the most, and sales continue to favor the big players, who are now on their knees to the federal government. Don't get me started on that!

Nice write-up and I pretty much agree. A friend some years back put it very well, with even fewer words.

"The bloom went off the rose when the wealthy Packard owners saw maid or the daily hired help drive up in a Packard (120 or 110)."

I agree pretty much with everything Mr.Pushbutton wrote. The 120 and Six saved the company from the Depression but at the cost of losing much of it's "cachet" with the monied class. Cadillac and Lincoln did not have to dilute brand identity down market to the extent that Packard was pretty much forced to do. My opinion is that the Six was what ruined Packards reputation with the rich and not so much the 120.

My opinion is that the Six was what ruined Packards reputation with the rich and not so much the 120.

Amen! I agree completely. (Edit, put yourself in the silk suit of the lord of the manor, admiring your new 38 Twelve LeBaron AW town car that you just paid over $5900 for, and then the gardener pulls up next to your carriage house in his $840 sport coupe.)

Selling to the monied people never made Packard any money.

The fact of the matter is that Packard always sold a cheaper model that made them a profit and paid the bills.

John F. Shireman

John, I respectfully choose to differ and I strongly resent being compared to PH. You being a self styled "automotive historian" know that Packard sold exclusively what we would term luxury cars prior to 1935. I may be sticking my neck out, not being an automotive historian, but while there certainly were great variations of price between models and the lower priced models likely were more profitable since production was higher no pre 1935 Packard to my knowledge, except perhaps the one year 1932 900 Light Eight , was what you would call anything but a car for the affluent in society and by that I don't mean just the Mellons or Rockefellers but doctors. lawyers and bankers etc. Packards were beyond the reach of what we would call the middle class until the 1935 Model 120 was offered.

Clipper47: I deleted the first portion about comparing you to PH, before even seeing your post. I was wrong in doing that.

Packard had no image problem before WWII in selling cars to the rich and people of position, while also selling cheaper cars to average John Q public. The fact of matter is Senior models such as the Packard V12 models out sold the Caddy V16 by a better than two to one margin.

To me the thing that killed Packard's image was when they started selling taxis. They never did anything after WWII to try boost their image as a luxury car maker, Especially when they came out with the 51 Packard.


John F. Shireman

John, Our differences appear to be mostly one of semantics. My definition of a rich person or a John Q. must be different than yours.

Clipper47: You can certainly take that as an apology. You have a PM from me.

John F. Shireman