Discussing Packard’s post-war merger opportunities is an online pastime that almost always focuses on the proud and defiant world of the Independents, with the Big 3 seen as the enemy. But not at CC, where commenters have on occasion pointed to Ford and especially Chrysler as the best fit. Their comments have served as a wake-up call to me, so I’d like to run out a scenario. And then learn from you.
The post-war worlds that Chrysler and Packard occupied did in fact intersect, with both sourcing their bodies from Briggs. And at times, each had what the other needed: Packard’s Ultramatic in 1949, Chrysler’s OHV V8 in 1951, and Packard’s more modern bodies in 1951, which Chrysler realistically could have adopted for 1952. But throughout these years neither company’s survival depended on sharing with the other, so they went their separate ways.
For Packard, the luxury of independence vanished in late 1953 after it suffered a collapse of sales in the latter half of the model year and saw its Defense work greatly diminished. If ever there was a time to explore a Chrysler or other tie-up, this was it. And for Chrysler specifically, we can assign an exact date to a would-have-been kick-off discussion. On October 23, 1953, the company announced that it was buying all eight Briggs facilities, which included the Conner Avenue plant that had made Packard Clippers since 1941 and almost every Packard after the war.
Upon hearing the news, James Nance, President of Packard Motor Car Company, called his friend Tex Colbert, President of Chrysler Corporation, to get assurance that Packard would be allowed to continue production. Colbert did agree, but only through 1954… after initially telling Nance it would be the end of 1953!
Chrysler didn’t actually need Conner (it was torn down not long after Packard vacated), but did welcome whatever money they extract from Packard.
Once, On a High and Windy Hill
With that background behind us, let me now attempt to join these two companies together, if not in marriage, then for a 1955 many-splendored thing.
The face-to-face in Colbert’s office would have needed to happen in late ’53 or early ’54, with Nance leading the conversation.
“Packard needs new bodies for ’55, and needs Conner to make them. But we can’t afford new bodies, so unless Chrysler can help with that, we will need to vacate Conner at the end of 1954.”
To which Colbert might have responded:
“Help? What… from us? What kind of help are you talking about?”
Nance: “You could allow us to buy your 1955 body stampings and other parts, and we will pay you a premium for them, in addition to leasing your Conner plant.”
Colbert: “Why in the world would we do THAT? The last thing we need is competition from our own bodies!”
Nance: “Yes, and we understand that. Our proposal is to position our cars so as to minimize direct competition with your cars. If we succeed, we’ll help get more of your ’55s on the road, building momentum for your new design.”
Colbert: “Let’s just say I’m skeptical. But continue.”
Nance: “We will use your smaller car for our new Clipper brand, and add content sufficient to compete in the upper medium and entry luxury market. So, we won’t compete directly with Plymouth or Dodge. And while our car will be priced against some of your larger-bodied cars, its smaller size will appeal to a different buyer. It’ll be a gamble on our part but we think we can carve out a niche.”
Colbert: “Interesting. You might have something there, but we’ll need to take a close look at it. Is that all?”
Nance: “Not quite. We also need your large body so that we can return Packard to its traditional fine car position. And let me say up front that, on the face of it, this might seem like it would create competition for your new Imperial brand, but we think we can style it to be much more restrained than your car, so that together we will cover the luxury market and drive revenues sufficient to pay for the unique tooling and advertising that each brand will need.”
Colbert: “How do you know so much about our Imperial strategy? And the rest of our plan, for that matter!”
Nance: “Look Tex, we work closely with Briggs every day. And people talk! Nothing intentional, but we hear enough to get a general idea of what you fellas are up to. My point is, Packard can help your new cars reach new markets and higher share, which will increase your revenue. We’ve both got to step back and see what’s really going on here. Chrysler and Packard aren’t enemies. It’s GM that’s the enemy… to everyone!”
Colbert: “Well, no argument there. So… its sharing or nothing, not even Conner. Is that what you are saying, Jim?”
Nance: “Unfortunately, yes. We’re probably 50/50 on surviving ’56 if we try to sell a 6-year-old body, and those odds make me damn uncomfortable. And I guess you probably already know this but George Mason is pushing hard for us to join’m. So that’s our fallback. But Packard would rather help you bring the fight to GM and Ford than have to compete with all three of you. Of course, if we do end up on opposite sides, you know I’ll be in it to win.”
Colbert: “Yeah, I know. We’re both cut from the same cloth. Hmm… sharing. Well now, just gimme a minute to think a little here.”
Period of silence, with Colbert intermittently mumbling to himself: …. “Sharing?”…. ….“Geez”…. ….“How would that”…. ….“And what happens if”…. ….“And that would leave us”…. ….“Oh, I see”…. …“Uh-huh, yeah”…. ….“It just might”…. ….“Maybe”
Colbert: “Maybe, Jim. Maybe there is something there. But I’m not making any promises. Let’s get our key people together and dig into this.”
Nance: “Packard needs to move fast to make ’55.”
Colbert: “So do we. You’ll be hearing from us soon.”
The odds would have been low, Packard/Clipper’s sales boost maybe adding 5-8% to Chrysler’s 1.26M in sales for the 1955 calendar year. But let’s have some fun by having Colbert sign on, driven by his knowing that his company had no use for Conner, and seeing income from Packard as easy money that might come in handy if Chrysler fell on hard times. He also would have liked the idea of a second styling perspective, and been intrigued by the possibility of eventually acquiring Packard, were Imperial to falter and Packard thrive. And finally, he would have agreed with Nance about increasing the new Chrysler bodies’ exposure, and GM being the real threat.
What would the all-new 1955 Clippers and Packards have looked like? Given the compressed timing and Packard’s lack of capital, they would have largely used Chrysler Corporation stampings. Packard spent $8M for ’55 to update the aging Contour’s appearance, so that would be its limit for these cars. Unfortunately, for the company’s hourly and salaried staff, the higher piece prices and reduced in-house work would have forced Packard to shrink in size.
The ’55 & ’56 Clippers
By using some combination of the new Plymouth and Dodge bodies, which were smaller than the De Soto/Chrysler/Imperial bodies, Nance would have finally been able to create a separate Clipper brand that was genuinely differentiated from Packard.
The ’55 Plymouth used a 115-inch wheelbase compared with Dodge’s 120 inches, and had a 203.8-inch overall length versus 212.1 inches for Dodge. Noteworthy, Dodge may have used Plymouth’s roof, with sheet metal trimmed off the C-pillar to create a faster rake. The rear glass might have been common too, but it’s hard to tell. Dodge’s wider rear doors were unique but its front doors were shared with Plymouth.
The ’55 Plymouth’s domed headlights looked similar to what Packard was planning, and were more modern looking than Dodge’s conventional design, so would definitely be a part of the Clipper program. Minor changes to the front appearance would have been all that was needed.
Dodge’s longer and more elegant body would have been the preferred design, and its taillights could have easily been replaced with Teague’s cathedrals. The Canadian ’55 Dodge Mayfair demonstrated that a Dodge front could be mated to a Plymouth body, which meant that the reverse was possible.
As has been previously called out at CC, Dodge’s elongated proportions and setback rear wheels looked odd, and the extra length only added a half inch more rear legroom than Plymouth.
To improve the Dodge body’s proportions, and because Packard would have been inclined to remove the raised feature line around the rear wheel openings as it had done for its own cars for ’53, new rear quarter panel lowers with flush skirts could have been tooled for rear wheels that were moved forward several inches. Because the planners would have wanted to reuse Dodge’s rear door assemblies to minimize cost, probably 3-inches was the maximum that the wheelbase could have been brought in, and even that might have interfered with tire flop, which would have forced a dogleg in the rear door inners. But for our purposes, let’s assume that all the elements would have worked… 117-inch Clipper with Dodge’s body and Plymouth’s front clip.
Reuse of Dodge’s wagon could have been investigated to see if projected sales would justify the effort. It’s unlikelihood, together with the utilitarian, ill-fitting greenhouse that was designed for the shorter Plymouth might have nixed the idea.
Inside, Dodge’s much better looking I/P would have been chosen over Plymouth’s.
The new Clipper would run with Packard’s new Utica-built 320 cubic inch OHV, Torsion-Level suspension, and 3-speed manual transmission as standard, with overdrive and Twin-Ultramatic optional. Pricing would start at the original Clipper Deluxe’s $2,586 MSRP plus $150 for standard Torsion-Level, or $2,736 total, and there would also be Super and Custom versions per the original strategy. That year saw almost 40,000 Clippers sold, and these new Clippers would have likely reached that level too. Hopefully, Packard would have been too consumed with its new Chrysler partnership to spend time and money moving final assembly to Conner, the plant folks hard-pressed just to set up new body assembly operations for two all-new vehicle sizes.
For 1956, the big news would be the addition of Plymouth and Dodge’s 4-door hardtops, adding new life to the otherwise unchanged Clipper. That’s right… Clipper and Packard would largely opt out of fins and annual design changes in the last half of the 1950s, to keep their distance from Exner, continue Packard’s tradition of conservative tailoring with lasting appeal, and preserve capital.
The ’55 & ’56 Packards
The 130-inch wheelbase Imperial sedan’s 4-inch longer roof and front doors versus the 126-inch De Soto and Chrysler, presumably created to increase rear legroom and, in 8-passenger enclosed drive limousine form, to position the division window at the B-pillar, would be the new Packard 4-door sedan’s starting point.
To it would be added the 2-door Imperial Newport’s 4-inch longer end panel between the base of rear glass and decklid, which that car used to bridge the gap between the De Soto/Chrysler’s hardtop roof and Imperial’s longer wheelbase (unlike GM, Chrysler used a single decklid for all of its large cars). This would have given the Packard sedan its own 134-inch wheelbase, and elegant proportions. Packard’s hardtop coupe would use Imperial’s 130-inch wheelbase and end panel, along with the shared De Soto/Chrysler/Imperial greenhouse. A convertible could have been offered too.
To maintain styling differentiation from Chrysler and Imperial, De Soto would be the exterior starting point, though in actuality all of the company’s large cars started with the same stampings except for the front and (possibly) rear fascia. For Packard, the goal would have been less indiscriminate trim and more strategic use of brightwork to minimize the car’s shortcomings, such as by covering the wide B-pillar/window frames. It would also opt out of Chrysler Corp.’s optional “Sun Cap” windshield header, which became a visual identifier for the large Chrysler cars. There’d be extra body shop work and scrap at Conner to lengthen the rear fenders by 4-inches.
In the rear, De Soto’s taillights could have been extended downward and Packard’s ’56 Circle-V with crest pulled ahead a year. Because the rotating crest would not have aligned with the decklid’s low-mounted keyhole, the keyhole would have needed to be positioned a few inches higher. Maybe only a longer lever arm would have been needed. Packard would have been free to sweat the little things because Chrysler had already done the heavy lifting by tooling the bodies.
Up front is where the new Packard would have made its presence known, by using a modern, stylized version of the traditional Packard grill. Teague rendered a particularly nice one on what appears to be the ’54 Panther concept’s body. If he had dreamed it up early enough in 1954, the design probably could have met the ’55 launch timing, and provided the car with a level of character that had alluded the company for far too many years.
Inside, De Soto’s I/P would be used, with unique Packard instrumentation and trim added.
The fact that the ’55 Imperial sedan’s longer roof was dropped for the ’56 Imperial suggests that it was not a one-piece stamping but instead created by adding a 4-inch insert to the De Soto/Chrysler roof. Likewise, the ’55 Imperial’s longer front doors may have been cut-down coupe doors. All of this would have driven cost at the plant, which is probably why the ’56 Imperial switched to the shorter roof and front doors. Those changes, together with the car’s new 133-inch wheelbase resulted in an end panel fully 7-inches longer than standard. But with Packard in the mix, tooling a longer roof for ’55/’56 may have made financial sense, and who better to do it than Conner, with Packard paying for the tooling and Chrysler – in a reversal of roles – paying Packard for each stamping.
A long-wheelbase 8-passenger Packard might have bumped Imperial’s 149.5-inch chassis out to 153.5-inches. But Cadillac had already locked up that market.
A more promising approach might have been to let Imperial chase the 8-passenger business while Packard created, or rather resurrected, its 2-row Formal Car, by applying the Imperial limousine’s small backlight and division window to Packard’s 134-inch sedan.
Would rear legroom have been sufficient? According to Automobile Manufacturers Association (AMA) data (https://over-drive-magazine.com/), rear legroom in the 1955 Cadillac 62 and 60S sedans was 46.3 inches. Per the Hamtramck Registry (https://www.hamtramck-historical.com/library-6.shtml), Imperial’s rear legroom was 48.4 inches. For reference, the 1951 Packard Patrician had 46.5 inches per AMA, and a few of those ’51 – ’54 cars were sent to coachbuilders such as Derham to have a division window and small backlight installed.
Ah, but Packard would have had one additional lever to pull on behalf of “the money” sitting in the back: move the rear seat rearward four additional inches to position it like De Soto. Now rear legroom would be 52.4 generous inches, and the blind rear quarters would strengthen one of the attributes most desired in this segment: privacy.
But “Formal Car” might not have been spirited enough for the hip Fifties. Maybe “Executive” was the ticket.
Loaded overall height per AMA was 62 inches for Cadillac’s sedans and 60.9 inches for the New Yorker, which would have been another win for Packard especially since it’s Torsion-Level suspension allowed it to sit a bit lower. For overall length, because the ’55 De Soto was 217.9 inches, the ’55 Packard Patrician and Executive would have both been 225.9 inches, right up there with the ’55 Cadillac Sixty Special’s 227.4 inches, inclusive of its roBust pair of Dagmars. Packard’s 2-door cars would have been 221.9 inches long.
While the actual ’55 Patrician and Four Hundred were priced similar to Cadillac’s 62, and found roughly 9,000 and 7,000 customers, respectively, these more expensive Packards would have lowered the boom on Cadillac’s Sixty Special, which sold around 18,000 cars for ’55. Maybe the new Packards would have seen 10,000 total sales between sedan, coupe and convertible, or even the 16,000 combined sales that Packard’s 5-year-old body saw that year. At this pricing altitude the name of the game was margins, and Packard would have had great cars that were efficiently based on mass-produced bodies from one of the Big 3. It would have been an interesting experiment.
For 1956, unlike Imperial, Packard’s body would be left alone, the company needing to direct its limited capital towards the all-new ’57s. And like Clipper, the big news for ’56 would be the introduction of Chrysler Corp.’s clever new 4-door hardtop.
The ’57, ’58 and ’59 Model Years
For the ’57 Clipper, rather than borrow the ’57 Dodge body, which along with the ’57 De Soto and ’57 Chrysler added four inches of wheelbase aft of the new corporate greenhouses that sat atop all cars except Imperial, the new Clipper could have instead used Plymouth as its starting point, and added the De Soto/Chrysler’s four inches of additional axle-to-dash to create a traditional long hood/short deck car. Plymouth’s rear fins would largely go away but its front styling would be retained, with its nicely executed grill replaced by something even more distinctive.
The big Packard would, of course, use the new Imperial’s gargantuan bodies with curved side glass, and also their 129-inch wheelbase, with no need to extend it. In the rear, the fins could have been cut down, with the reverse and brake lights relocated to the rear bumper. And the quarter panel lower stampings would need to be modified to fit flush-mounted skirts.
Front appearance is where Packard would again make its presence known, either by evolving the ’55/56’s grill or adopting the hidden headlight with projecting bumper-grill theme that Fred Hudson had rendered. He had also preferred a more rounded body over the rectilinear shape that William Schmidt had chosen for Packard’s ’57 Program. With Exner now in charge of body design, his wish would come true.
Headlights would rotate 180 degrees to come out of hiding.
Were the ’55/56 Executive Formal Car to have sold reasonably well, the ’57 follow-up would have needed a different method of increasing rear legroom, and probably the most efficient approach would have been to swap the standard 4-door car’s front doors with the roughly 7-inch longer coupe’s doors, with their lower rear outer panel corners being squared. A wide B-pillar cantilevered forward, above the front door would bring the side glass into acceptable proportion and enable a division window to be positioned directly behind the front seat. All body work would have been done at Conner, with no need to make that expensive call to Ghia.
What of Chrysler’s 1957 quality issues? Well, because Packard would have been in charge of its own body production, it would be free to institute whatever actions necessary to make its cars drum tight, even if it meant delaying the launch. The ’56’s could have hung in there just fine through the end of the year.
Ah, but what about that darned ’58 recession? A roll-call for all brands to be sure, with intense interrogation by the buying public. Part of their criteria would have been recent quality, which Clipper and Packard would have had full control over. There was also the question of true value, with Sputnik the orbiting PSA for America to start taking life more seriously. Clipper’s competence and quiet demeaner might have strengthened its hand, while Packard would have arguably represented the truest of all Jet Age automobiles.
OK, now the biggest question: what if Colbert had said no?
Then Nance, as first order of business, would have dropped in at the Boulevard of Broken Dreams and tipped one with EP, Marilyn, Bogey and Dean. Then went home and got a good night’s sleep, and in the morning phoned Mason with a merger offer that called for all-new Nash-built bodies for 1956, rather than the major refresh that Nash intended to offer for ’55. The new cars needed to be significantly lower than the existing Golden Airflytes, with Pinin Farina’s 1955 concept demonstrating what was possible using what might have needed to remain the existing Nash underbody.
In this scenario, the ’55 Nash would be a carried over ’54 except for the front wheelhouses opened up and the track increased, as Rambler’s were that year, and would get Packard’s V8. The ’56 Rambler, which Romney had pulled ahead, would revert back to its original ’57 or ’58 launch date, funneling all capital to the all-new large ’56 cars.
Packard and Hudson would keep making cars at their plants through the end of 1954, with the last four months spent building ’55s that would get their dealers through the model year. The ’55 Packard would include the new 352 OHV V8, Twin-Ultramatic and Torsion-Level, which would boost sales and provide a needed shake-out period for the new technology, which had issues. The ’55 Hudson would offer Packard’s 320 OHV V8 and Twin-Ultramatic as an option, and add a sport sedan that married the Hollywood’s roof and rear deck with the sedan’s doors.
As 1954 rolled into 1955 and Nashes and Hudsons were increasingly sold alongside Packards, there would have been no need for a Clipper brand or lower priced Packards. The ’55 showroom only needed the 122-inch wheelbase hardtop with the ’55 Panama’s updated taillights for freshness, a convertible based on that body, and a 127-inch sedan that also picked up the rear styling. Two trims equivalent to the Panama/Cavalier and Pacific/Patrician would be offered for the closed cars, and the open car would be Caribbeans only, with a rear mount included. The goal would be 30,000 sales and good margins. with Torsion-Level being the primary draw.
Overall, it would not have been the worst situation that Packard could have found itself in; that belonged to what actually happened to it.
But let’s pretend that Chrysler came through for ’55. Then, for 1960, Packard would either continue its love-without-marriage with them, tie the knot, or find a different path. The important thing is that it would have still been around, and now with rising expectations as it confronted the ever-changing existential questions that every OEM must continuously answer.
Primary Attributions: PackardInfo, Imperial Club, https://www.exoticcartrader.com, Mecum, American Car Brochures (https://www.lov2xlr8.no/broch1.html)
Interesting the number of endless speculations and what-ifs regarding Packard and the other Independents. Some of the design proposals here are not bad, especially the ’57 Plymouth mod, the lower fins suit the car better than the original. As previous owner of 2 ’56 Packards, it’d have been great to have seen some of the scenarios come through and future Packards to come.
I don’t “know” all the little details of Chrysler’s and Packard’s late-1950s offerings, so I learned a lot here while enjoying an engaging and fun “what-if?” narrative (with delightful illustrations). Thanks for all the work that went into this!
Your welcome! Learned quite a lot by going through this.
The attempts to make the traditional Packard grille fit on a 1950s or later body have always seemed uncomfortable to me. Even in the Seventies broughamy era they don’t seem right. I do think your proposed modifications to the 1957 DeSoto and Imperial have merit, by keeping their nice basic lines and toning down some of their excesses. Whether those improvements would have been seen as such at the time is an unanswerable question, particularly as more and more of the car buying public was turned off by the cratering resale values of the Independents.
But it’s fun to play around with the possibilities. Now if we can just go back in time and get Colbert to agree!
Wow, quite a dissertation!! Thanks for all your time and effort put into this very interesting read!
My pleasure, glad you enjoyed.
Interesting scenario. Some years ago, I wrote up a “history” of the Studebaker-Nash merger, from 54 through 57. Paul asked me to send it to him, but apparently it didn’t make the cut, as I never saw it published.
Anything dealing with Packard has the problem that Nance insisted on being the big shot. Studebaker had the virtue of Vance and Hoffman being willing to step aside and let Nance be the big shot.
Walter Briggs died in January 52. The word had to be on the street by late 52 that the Briggs heirs were shopping the company. But Nance did nothing, until body sourcing because a crisis, when Chrysler bought Briggs. As they taught us in b-school ‘failing to plan is planning to fail”.
What if Packard and Studebaker had merged one year sooner? Packard could have sent it’s casting work to Studebaker’s foundry, instead of contracting with Lakey in Muskegon. The Packard V8 line could have been installed in South Bend, instead of Utica. The Ultramatic and rear axle lines could have been moved to South Bend, instead of moved to Utica. The final assembly line could have been moved to Chippewa Ave, in South Bend, instead of into Conner. I read that Packard installed an entire new paint line in Conner. That could have been installed in Chippewa instead. But, by the time Nance pulled the trigger on Studebaker, he had already invested millions in facilities in metro Detroit, so the merger ended up being synergy-free.
Another way Nance could have gone was Hudson. Early on, Nance decided he wanted to make two strategic moves: bring bodybuilding back in house, as Briggs was not doing them any favors on quality or price, and establish a mid-market brand. As soon as Ed Barit figured out the Jet was a failure, in mid 53, he reached out to Packard about a merger, but was rebuffed. Hudson would have been a perfect fit as it owned a body plant that was large enough to meet Packard’s needs, and Hudson was an established mid-market brand, eliminating the need to try to establish Clipper in that space. A chance to meet both of Nance’s strategic goals, but Nance wasn’t interested. Go figure.
Here is a 55 concept that could have been used as the front of a Packard based Hudson, that would not have the Packard shaped grill that Clipper historically used.
Paul asked me to send it to him, but apparently it didn’t make the cut, as I never saw it published.
I have zero memory of getting it and it certainly would have made the cut. Feel free to send it again.
I have zero memory of getting it and it certainly would have made the cut. Feel free to send it again.
I sent it last March 13th, to “curbsideclassic@gmail.com” It is four Word files. I lack the skills to provide fancy graphics like the post above.
Paul, I sent the files to the same gmail address this afternoon. Did they arrive? If not, do you have another e-mail address I could try? Does Gmail have a very low limit on file size, that might not allow all four files?
Yes I got them. But it was in my junk folder. And that may be why I didn’t see it before. Thanks.
Another shot of a 55 Clipper proposal. The paint treatment on the side even has a Hudson vibe.
Steve, I think Vance and Hoffman played Nance. They weren’t able to make anything happen with Studebaker on their own, and he showed up with Packard money that he was willing to spend on Studebaker. In reality, it was they who were in control, because Studebaker people were a majority of the board. When it came time to get rid of a brand, it was Packard that got the boot.
I think Nance should have begun merger negotiations with Nash in late ’52, after he had a half year of learning under his belt and came to realize Packard’s fundamental problems wrt capitalization and scale. He Packard at the beginning of May, 1952, and only two weeks earlier Nash announced its all-new 1952 Golden Airflytes. Brand new cars, while Nance was staring at the Contour’s upcoming third year.
The guy came to town hepped up about merger… so merge! 1954 was the year to switch to Nash bodies.
Steve, I think Vance and Hoffman played Nance. They weren’t able to make anything happen with Studebaker on their own, and he showed up with Packard money that he was willing to spend on Studebaker.
Absolutely. Nance went into the merger with zero due diligence, relying on verbal assurances Studebaker was just a hair below break even. After the merger, he wondered where all the red ink was coming from. Send his head beancounter to South Bent. In reality, Studebaker was tens of thousands of cars short of breakeven.
I think the Lehman Brothers played no small part in that situation — they were pushing hard for the merger, and were more preoccupied with how the stock would be managed than with operational details — but both the Studebaker and Packard boards were panicking because they felt like they were hurtling toward bankruptcy. James Arthur Ward points out that while Nance did not seek an independent audit, neither did Studebaker, and there’s a good chance that Hoffman and Vance did not immediately realize either what a hole they were in.
Ward is candid that the lack of due diligence was “stupid,” but thinks that both Studebaker and Packard rushed into the merger out of desperation and a series of dubious assumptions: first that the merger would boost public confidence, and second that it would buy them time to arrange a further merger with AMC, after which all the finer points could be sorted out.
I think the Lehman Brothers played no small part in that situation — they were pushing hard for the merger, and were more preoccupied with how the stock would be managed than with operational details —
Lehman and Goldman both got their hooks into Studebaker early on. Fred Fish brought them in when he married into the Studebaker family. I credit those goons with Erskine paying out dividends when the company was losing money, in the early 30s, which helped tip the company into bankruptcy. After the war, they wouldn’t let Studebaker invest it’s war profits in new plant and equipment, demanded it all be paid out in dividends.
Not unusual. Paul Shields got his hooks into Curtis-Wright. Made the company pay out all it’s war profits in dividends. Would not invest in jet engine development. So C-W dried up with the market for it’s big piston engines.
I read the Ward book too, and also articles by John Conde, among others. Mason had groomed Romney to be his successor. Nance wanted to be the big shot, so rejected the merger offer from Nash. iirc, in an interview in Business Week, shortly after taking over at Packard, Nance said the only reason he took the job was to do a big deal. Apparently, part of his concept of a big deal, was for him to be the big shot in the big deal. The reality was, out from under GE’s skirts, Nance could not plan a trip to the head. A week or two after Nance had been turned down for another loan, the same money people met with Romney. Romney got the money, because he had a plan he could show the money people, that made AMC viable going forward. Nance could not do that.
I agree with you both.
Had Nance simply kept his cool and focused on nailing the ’55s, and said no to moving final assembly to Conner and merging with Studebaker, then Packard might have had a good solid year, and looked competent in early ’56 when the investors came to see the planned ’57s.
But those ’55s needed more excitement, like putting the Junior roof on the Senior body to create a sporting new Cavalier. The Four Hundred had already created the 5-inch longer end panel and internal wheelhouse extension. If they could have given the sedan the ’56 Senior backlight, all the better. But they needed to knock it off with all the body side tinsel and redirect some chrome to the greenhouse.
In the end it’s probably for the best that this merger with/buyout of Packard didn’t happen; at least it spared us this indignity…
I think the better play would have been a true purchase/merger. Chrysler had enough medium price brands, so there was probably no reason for Clipper. DeSoto probably needed to lose its own dealer network and be dualled with Packard. The payoff would have been a plug and play luxury brand. Chrysler had always struggled there, and they could have axed the planned Imperial and called it a Packard. There was already a dealer network.
Would this plan have been any more successful for either Chrysler or Packard? Probably not. Packard’s management talent was no better than Chrysler’s at that stage. Packard had a good engineering operation, but so did Chrysler. It probably would have been AMC at a bigger level, with the dominant company surviving and the subservient brand disappearing from both the organization and the market.
I thought about the merger scenario but couldn’t find a way for it to happen, at least not in the ’50s. Colbert was focused on his own brands and Nance was never going to give up power. That’s where the idea of a collaboration came from.
Once I got into this, came to realize that for all the talk of the Big 2 in these years, with Chrysler a more distant third, when it came to C-bodies there was also a Big 2, and FoMoCo. was not one of them. Chrysler and GM sold broadly the same level of large cars in these years, while Lincoln was down there with the Independents. And Chrysler had much more discipline than GM when it came to investment. Even penny pinching Ed Barit at Hudson must have been impressed.
Your article made my day. Well researched and interesting. I love automotive “what if” scenarios. Thanks for taking the time to put this article together.
Your welcome, Jonathan. Glad you enjoyed it! Was a fun thought experiment, especially the conversation between Nance and Colbert.
And it’s just a matter of time before Chrysler fades from the automotive scene; today, they are owned by an automotive conglomerate based in the Netherlands. A sad ending for one of the Big Three automakers.
I was raised in a Mopar family, and will keep my two Mopar’s … a ’65 Chrysler Newport that has been in my family since 1966, and a ’70 Plymouth Sport Fury that I bought as a tired, but pretty good used car in 1980.
IMHO, Chrysler has been going downhill since 1978 with the introduction of their Lean Burn ignition system, followed by their downsized ‘A’ bodies in 1979.
Paul, this is a terrific article in the subjunctive. No doubt, the egos of executives had a role in all of these “planned” failures. It is sad to see good marques lost from the market. I read your article with much interest. Your knowledge of the complexity of these bodies and how to make them fit to create competitive/non-competitive autos is fascinating.
Glad you enjoyed, Thomas. For me, this thought process is good exercise for how to fix today’s broken EV business model. One must get comfortable freely moving pieces of the puzzle around in unorthodox new ways.
I would have gone a much simpler route – pretty much leave Dodge, Plymouth, De Soto, and Chrysler as is, drop the Clipper altogether, and have Imperial remain a top-of-the-line Chrysler and not a separate marque. I’ve long thought Imperial shouldn’t have broken out as a separate make until 1957 when they had a distinctively different car to attach it to; the 55-56 was too much like the Chrysler brand cars to register in consumers as a distinct brand and likely hurt their efforts to establish Imperial as a separate marque.
With Packard being part of Chrysler, I’d continue the ’55-56 Packards as they were. The new V8 was almost ready by this time but no longer necessary since Chrysler had a solid V8 available. Perhaps the tooling and the Utica factory could be sold to AMC or Kaiser. Instead of the new Imperial for ’57, there’d be a new Packard with the same engineering but completely different body and interior from the production Imperial, with design continuity from the ’56 Packards. It wouldn’t have been easy no matter how it was done – it’s important to remember that Packard had lost its cachet by 1954 due to the push downmarket that began in the 1930s, along with dated styling and unfashionable inline-8 power.
One of the reasons frequently given for moving production from E. Grand to Conner was that is was a “modern” single-story factory. In the photos, it sure looks like it has four storeys though. Was it actually a single floor with a very high ceiling and multiple columns of windows? Were the upper floors strictly administrative offices? Or was it not actually a single-floor assembly line?
Re: Conner, here’s the source where I found good info, which includes some discussion about the number of floors.
https://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=19088&forum=3
Re: Conner, here’s the source where I found good info, which includes some discussion about the number of floors.
Page from the Packard annual report, talking about the plant, and the millions they sank into it, just before they merged with Studebaker.
Perhaps the tooling and the Utica factory could be sold to AMC or Kaiser.
The Packard V8, and the 55 Ultramatic, were a steaming pile. I have a copy of a Nash 56 training film. The film assures salesmen all the problems experienced with the Packard powertrain had been fixed, but urged salesmen, if they think their prospect would go for a six, don’t try to upsell them to the V8. Romney funded development of the Nash V8, to get rid of the Packard. As it turned out, the Nash V8 was ready just as Packard went toes up.
I think the Packard V8 would have been become sorted had it had a bit more time and money in development. The lubrication issues can apparently be solved by grafting an oil pump from an Oldsmobile. Of course Packard should have had a V8 ready before 1955; the cost of bringing the Ultramatic to market in the late ’40s would have been better spent on a V8 engine, and just buy transmissions from Borg-Warner or GM like Lincoln did.
Thanks for the article!
I think the only way to do it would be a merger.
But really, the most logical merger partner was Hudson, since it had a body plant right in town, and a low-middle priced make that had a good reputation not so long before.
Let all Packard dealers and all Hudson dealers become Hudson/Packard. Drop the Jet of course. The sporty image of Hudson could be better taken advantage of as well, if one wanted to keep Clipper as the Pontiac/Buick to Hudson’s Chevy/Oldsmobile.
But back to drop Clipper. Packard dealers and Chrysler dealers all become Packard-Chrysler
Chrysler can take the technology from the soon-to-be aluminum Ultramatic and create a Torqueflite with a lock-up torque converter and an aluminum body. Perhaps only Chryslers and Packards get the lockup feature.
Drop Imperial. Chrsyler had been trying to play that game since the 1930’s with no real success.
The biggest question for the merger would be what to do about engines. It might make sense to move to the wedgehead/poly earlier for Chrysler/Plymouth Dodge and retain the Hemi only for Packards and perhaps the Chrysler 300. But probably it makes sense to drop the troubled Packard V8, though they didn’t know it was troubled at the time.
JM, I also like the idea of a merger with Hudson for the reasons that you stated. The big negative was that Packard/Hudson would have needed an all-new body for ’55, or 56 at the latest. And yet, between the two of them there wasn’t enough money to create it, so they would have needed to convince investors to give them a big loan at a time when both were losing money. That’s the problem with Hudson as partner, and its a big one.
The ’56 Lincoln was a great example of an all-new body that Packard needed. And because Lincoln didn’t have enough volume, Packard could have helped it reach scale.
But Lincoln had a big problem: FoMoCo. which in these years wasn’t sufficiently motivated to make it profitable, because they weren’t going to go under if it wasn’t. No way Packard was ever going to collaborate with such lethargy and internal back-stabbing. And its too bad, because the ’56 Lincoln would have been its ticket out of the trap it found itself in.
The one positive of Chrysler acquiring Packard would be the fact it now has an established luxury marque, otherwise cannot see the value of keeping Plymouth and De Soto in the mid-to-long term.
Could Chrysler have eventually used Packard as a means to introduce features like SOHC/DOHC and other more sophisticated stuff typically associated with Cadillac and Lincoln from the 1950s-1960s and beyond?
Could they through Chrysler establishing of a European presence via its ownership of Simca and ideally Borgward (in lieu of Rootes), have sought to take Packard in a more Euro-luxury direction by forming a European division?
Basically think of a Euro-Chrysler flavored Packard for the 1970s featuring a development of the Borgward P100’s self-levelling air-suspension and Fissore styling as seen by Monteverdi, paired with V8 and V12 engines designed by engineers who either left for BMW in the case of Borgward (e.g. new Isabella) or were likely influenced by the BMW M10 engine to some unspecified degree when developing the Simca Type 180.
http://unixnerd.co.uk/lost_engines.html
Why on earth wouldn’t there be value in keeping Plymouth? The endless bugbear of Packard from the Depression onward was volume, and Plymouth was by a wide margin Chrysler’s volume brand. Chrysler could have managed without Imperial, and obviously managed without De Soto, but losing Plymouth would have been absolutely deadly. I can’t see the value in a Plymouth-based Clipper, but Plymouth was Chrysler’s bread and butter in this era — and, since it was still paired with each of the other brands, was helping to keep Chrysler and DeSoto dealers solvent.
Nicely done What If? I realize it’s all in the realm of speculation, but I can’t quite get past the idea that Chrysler would be willing to even contemplate sharing their new “The $100 Million Dollar Look” 1955 bodies. Why dilute their huge impact; they were massively successful. All the divisions were way up in 1955: Dodge: +79%, Plymouth: +52%, DeSoto: +50%, Chrysler: +46%. Admittedly 1955 was a very strong year overall, but Chrysler outpaced the market handily.
The provenance of these modified Chrysler-body Packards is all too obvious.
Dilution or expansion would have been the projected outcome that Colbert and his team needed to estimate. There was nothing inherently wrong with provenance if it related to something welcomed by the market. The “GM look” in these years didn’t wear thin, instead it was copied by GM’s competitors. So, if those % increases for the ’55 MoPars were to have largely held up despite the addition of Clipper and Packard, then Chrysler would have made a good call.
I think Clipper would have been plus business for Chrysler Corp. Its the Packard that might have been a problem, or maybe the car that demonstrated Imperial’s fundamental problem, which was that it looked too much like a Chrysler, especially the one called 300.
Hmm, your comments made me realize that I didn’t give the Packard’s body sides any unique identifiers. The Patrician and Four Hundred had “Dual Courtesy Safety Lights” for ’55, which could have been worked into the new design.
Maybe like this, to also better enable optional two-tone paint.