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Selling to the monied people never made Packard any money

Really!! I thought that's about all they sold to between 1899 and about 1934. Are you saying they were profitless for 35 years of business?

Owen: If you want to get down to the fine points of things then we will. Before WWI Packard and many other car makers made money selling high price luxury cars. However after the end WWI things started to change even for Packard.

Packard after WWI tried to continue selling high price luxury cars the single line Twin Six, but soon found out that to stay in business, they had to come out with a cheaper model. Packard sure as hell didn't introduced the Single Six in 1921 for the heck of it. They came out with a cheaper model so that they could to sell to a greater segment of the population, and give them a bread and butter car that paid the bills and made them a good profit.

John F. Shireman

Packard had no choice to but to bring out the 120 for their survival, it was a fine car and boosted their sales big-time in the ravaging times of the Great Depression. The 110's, 115's and 120's (though fine cars) were obviously not the same size, look, and quality of the senior cars.
However look at what George Christopher did, he made the Junior cars and the senior cars from 1946 through 1952 so similar it was hard to tell them apart, this is what i feel really hurt their luxury image. in 49 and 50 he made the super deluxe and Custom 8 nearly identically looking from the outside. Why pay more when they both look the same?

Ike, and thus his administration, were GM and Chrysler loyalists, and did not offer any support or bailout or contracts to Packard and pulled the plug on many of their defense contracts in 1953 and 1954 which crippled them

the Studebaker acquisition was a huge mistake but Nance thought he had AMC coming to merge also

Nance was blamed for a lot of things that were just not his fault.......... (even though he should not have merged with Studebaker until he had an inked deal with AMC too) Nance did a lot to bring up Packard's image like bringing back limo's and the Caribbean in 1953

The Conner Avenue body plant move after the Briggs body sale to Chrysler was a big mistake and some of the quality control issues and recalls on the 55's were a major problem that hurt sales, the 55's were a good basic design but just rushed to market due to the Conner Avenue body plant move,

also like today, some folks just would not buy a Packard due to they thought they might go under like some folks are not buying their GM or Chrysler right now until a bailout happens for the big 3. The press is hurting their sales big-time.

we should have not lost Packard but it was inevitable....

Quote:

Excellent post! I agree that the 120 was a fine car and probably a good decision to call it a Packard and give it the ox-yoke grille etc. but it was not an inexpensive car and did not diminish the brand identity to the same extent as the Six (110,115). Continuing to produce the six and sell taxi-cabs was probably not a good idea after the war. On the other hand many European countries I have visited with the exception of England relay almost exclusively on the small Mercedes-Benz Diesels as taxis and that doesn't seem to diminish MB's status with the rich so I could be wrong.

John, perhaps I took you too literally, or perhaps you made an unfortunate word choice, but you did say they didn't make ANY (as in none) money selling to the monied class. And of course that simply isn't true.

As to Packards history of introducing higher-volume, lower cost cars to appeal to a broader market, no one can disagree with that.

Good discussion, and many good points made. My take on this, at a macro level, is Packard should have stopped making the 6-cylinder cars with the introduction of the Clipper. The Six served its purpose and was no longer needed. Further more, Packard could have done a much better job of pursuing the luxury car market after WW-II, but they had become spoiled by the revenues the Junior cars generated. Thanks.

Great Points by all! what a knowledeable bunch! I've heard strong viewpoints I have never heard before!

especially the one where Mercedes still survived when making smaller cars and also taxi's
Mercedes made them where they did not look the same outwardly though, a 190 was nothing like a 300 or 600

nearly everyone could tell a 1937 115 sedan from a Super 8 or 12 sedan though when new

I use to frown upon the 110's , 115's, and 120's until I owned and drove them, some drive better than the senior cars due to more advanced suspensions

in 1940 and 1941/2 Packards indeed did get to begin looking more similar

the 47 clippers, 49 bathtubs, and 1951's sure ALL looked very similar..... it is sometimes hard to tell a 1951-52 200 deluxe apart from a Patrician!

I owned a 120 years back (a 1941) and agree it was one fine car, and of course that why it sold well. And of course it handled better than the seniors prior to adoption of IFS, but those years from the mid-30s on brought so many improvements. And I agree that you can tell a 110 or 120 for a Super Eight or Twelve, but all the trademarks and styling cues were there to annoy the buyers of the senior cars.

I think a more interesting slant on John's earlier thoughts that Packard never made any money selling to the monied class and often made downmarket moves, would be to explore those moves from a corporate motive and marketplace viewpoint. As 1 example, when the Twin Six came out, yes it was cheaper to make than the prior Dominant Six ("the "48") and sold for less I believe. But the "48" was becoming rapidly obsolete (who would keep such an antiquated design but Pierce-Arrow) and the Twin Six had lower cost, more power, better smoothness, and more panache. That move kept Packard in the top of it's class.

When the Single Six and Single Eight replaced the Twin Six, the Twin six design had lost much of it's glamor, was more expensive to make than the Single Eight, and offered less performance. So these two moves were to increase market share (but still selling to the monied class) by offering a less-expensive but better performing machine.

The Light Eight experiment (1932) really could use some enlightenment. It did not offer a better chassis or engineering (it was almost identical to the Standard Eight), the interior was only modestly trimmed down, but sold for significantly less, yet still was an upper middle class car. Most would view the Light Eight as a dismal business decision (though they are delightful cars).

Introducing the 120 was as everyone has said, a simple matter of survival, and a magnificent move it was. But I don't view the introduction of the 110 as a survival issue, it was the influence of all the GM folks Packard had brought in (some might call the motive greed) and that influence stayed around until George Christopher was finally sent packing back to his farm in 1950. Hugh Ferry was a holding pattern charged primarily with finding a new President.

Thoughts?

PS - I forget just when Alvan Macauley (Sr) retired, wasn't it about 1950? Apparently he took little active role in the company in the later years but one can wonder what his thoughts were postwar as the GM-whiz kids transformed Packard and continued on their binge of de-emphasizing the upper end of the line. Look what Buick did just postwar, they made extremely difficult to buy a Special so sales went to (presumably more profitable) upscale Supers and Roadmasters. Very clever move on their part.

Edit: I use to frown upon the 110's , 115's, and 120's until I owned and drove them, some drive better than the senior cars due to more advanced suspensions. Interesting, I used to frown on the V8 Packards until I bought one.

great post!

question, did they ever make any money on the 1932 900? I know the CCCA made them full classics due to their high quality

I know very little about the pre-1929 cars and appreciate this info

always liked the V8's but never owned one, always was captivated by the late great straight 8, how does a 56 Patrican drive, handle, and brake compared to say a 53 or 54 Patrician?

I've got a copy of Packard's 1932 annual report to the stockholders somewhere but a bit too lazy to go find it now. But I'm certain they didn't break out profits by individual car line, and I also seem to recall that Nash was the only car manufacturer to show a profit in 1932. The Light Eight did attain CCCA status, though it was a bit of an uphill climb, some detractors pointing out things like rubber-bushed spring shackles for example which did away with the need for the Bijur. But you could also view the rubber shackle bushings as an engineering advance, I suppose.

Certainly Packard planned on selling more Light Eights than they actually did, and the 1933 Eight line used leftover Light Eight bodies (with a conventional nose clip) in some body styles, with a decrease in wheelbase over 1932, and then in 1934 they returned to the former 129-1/2 inch wheelbase and bodies which were more like the Ninth series than the 10th (for the Eight line).

On your other question, I owned and drove a '54 Patrician nearly every day back in the 60s and 70s, so I can compare it to a 56 Caribbean which I currently drive a bit. The V8 certainly is far more responsive in acceleration, even when using the Twin Ultramatic in the conventional mode; I don't think the boulevard ride is much different but in more challenging road conditions the Torsion Level is superior. The 54 certainly had the edge in build quality though not by a great deal, and the 54 was far more trouble-free but of course lacked the advances that make the 56s so interesting. Anyhow, that's my opinion, others may see it differently.