Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

I did not know if another else had seen this from Automotive Industries Sept. 1, 1950, talking about Packard's Newest Design.
http://www.ai-online.com/Adv/catalog/getCatalog.php?id=496
There is a lot of information in these magazines.
Wes

Thanks, Wesley, for including this fascinating issue. Lots of Packard information and trivia is included in several articles inside. But there was more, just for the looking. GM's Ed Cole was moving from Cadillac to their Army tank engineering team for Korean War duty...I suppose that it might be an easy and quiet step to move to the Chevrolet V-8 engine team without making too much of a fuss. There's also a table for car and truck production that includes not only Packard but Autocar trucks, another set of our family collection addictions. Finally, there's notice that the Army is buying some Nissan trucks for their own use. How the tables would turn! Making a hundred Canadian Buicks a day in a new plant in Oshawa, Ontario was just the beginning.

Dave, glade to hear! So much information, I also saw an article about the ribs that were put on the bottom of the engine due to stress crackers using a special paint while checking the engine at Packard. And also seeing the sales of all the cars with Packard out selling Cadillac.
Wes

Vehicle quests and addictions can be inherited. Although my third son dismisses my Packard and Corvette collecting as foolish, he's doing much the same with his Autocar truck collecting. He's about sixty years too late to revise Packard history and survivors, but he pointed out how sad it is to see an Autocar truck work so hard for thirty or forty years of heavy daily labor and within hours be hauled off to a scrapper, still warm with its sweat. I don't know how many he's saved, but his older brothers think he's just the latest family fool to show up.

The Autocar and Packard companies have remarkably similar early histories. One gave up cars for trucks and the other trucks for cars. Both claimed their vehicles were the best of their types. Both saw massive restructuring in the 1950s and mergers took their tolls. Both were proudly American until their end, always the best and never the cheapest.