Although you focused on Packard's management along with the company's (mis)fortunes, there were always rumors of external forces that contributed to Packard's downfall. After WW2, the Big 3 seemed to gang up on the independents and there was some scuttlebutt regarding the sale of the mid-50's Packard tooling to the Russians. I don't know much detail and I'm curious if you had any insight.

The rumors of Packard selling its tooling (first for the pre-Clipper senior cars in 1941-42, then its final mid-fifties cars) have persisted for many years.

I'm not at all sure what to make of them. The idea that Packard might have sold or transferred the tooling in 1941-42 is conceptually plausible, but James Arthur Ward, who went through Packard's records at some length in the late eighties, found no documentation whatever of any official transfer, nor any mention of it in minutes of Packard board meetings. Other historians have suggested that the Soviet ZIS, despite its obvious resemblance to the prewar Packards, couldn't have been struck from those dies. The idea that Packard would have sold or given its 1955-56 tooling to the Soviets in the late fifties strikes me as outlandish. My suspicion is that the Soviets simply found or bought a couple of actual Packards and produced studious locally made copies, just as they did with the Boeing B-29 Superfortress (knock-offs of which were manufactured as the Tupelov Tu-4).

Even if the Soviets did somehow end up with the actual tooling, it hardly would have made any difference, because Packard had already stopped using them. The prewar tooling was abandoned in 1941, when Briggs Body Co. persuaded Gilman and Macauley to transfer all body stamping work to Briggs. In retrospect, that wasn't a good decision for Packard, but even if Packard had built the Clipper and later cars in-house, the outdated tooling would have been abandoned anyway. Much the same is true of the '55-'56 tooling; in 1956, Studebaker-Packard shut down production in Detroit, as we'll see in next week's article. S-P had little choice about consolidating production in South Bend, and they had to sell the only Studebaker plant that could have accommodated Packard's existing tooling. (Which at that point was seven years old, anyway.)

The only way the Big Three -- or, more precisely, Ford and GM -- "ganged up" on the independents was the price war between Ford and Chevy in 1952-1953, which we'll also talk about next week. I don't think there was any specific intent of smashing the independents, although certainly it was difficult for the independents to keep up with GM and Ford in pricing, frequent redesigns, etc.

GM senior management actually would have preferred for the independents to remain reasonably healthy, although they did little to make that happen. General Motors management (at the corporate level, not the individual divisions) lived in mortal fear that if they controlled too much of the market, the Justice Department would break them up on antitrust grounds. Still, I suppose you could compare GM's actions to 'incidentally' wiping out a species by overdeveloping its habitat and disrupting its food supply...at that point, it hardly matters if you're intending to cause extinction or not.

I never knew Packard had such a great reputation--I finally get the punch line of a classic James Thurber cartoon in which a society matron is showing her dog's new litter of puppies to another matron and says, "...and their father belonged to some people who driving through in a Packard!"

I founded a good text writen by Patrick Foster, about what if Packard had merged right away with Nash instead of Studebaker?

And here another "what if", if Packard had used the body of the Facel-Vega excellence.

Or a how about a Packard (should we call it a "Packoln" or "Linckard"?) using the 1956-57 Lincoln body?

This week's article will talk a bit about the prospects of a Nash/Hudson/Packard merger, and why that didn't happen. In hindsight, it would have been a better choice, because Studebaker was in far worse shape than anyone (including Paul Hoffman and Harold Vance) really grasped, but Packard's board saw them as bigger, and assumed they had more of a future.

The fundamental problem with Foster's theory, which was the flaw that also undid the Studebaker merger, was that consolidation and shared tooling take time. Studebaker-Packard also had a plan for shared bodies -- not the "slap a Packard grille on a Commander and call it a Packard" deal, but a GM-style shared-body plan. The problem was that they did not have the capital to implement it, and when Nance tried to raise money for exactly that purpose, his creditors said no. Nash/AMC was in somewhat better shape, but at the point where a merger would have been possible, it was also losing money, and the same problem would have existed. Nance and George Mason DID discuss building Packard bodies in Kenosha, but the cost of shipping bodies-in-white back to Detroit was just too high.

Packard did approach Ford in and ask to share the Lincoln tooling for the 1957 Packards, promising to make them look different enough to not infringe on Ford's business. Packard also offered to merge with Ford, suggesting that Ford either badge the E-car (which became the Edsel) a Studebaker, or badge it as a Lincoln and apply the Packard name to the high-end Lincoln line. The latter offer was not taken seriously, but Henry Ford II did make encouraging noises about the former. While Henry was potentially amenable, his ambitious executive staff was most certainly not, however, and when Packard executives went to Ford, the engineering staff flatly refused to even allow them to inspect the tooling. Those sketches, done by Dick Teague's staff, were as far as the plan ever got.

The problem with that plan, even if Ford had been more cooperative, was that Lincoln was about to abandon its body-on-frame construction for 1958. That would have left Packard either having to start from scratch or once again facelifting an outdated body, as they'd been doing since 1951. Packard management recognized that problem, but they dismissed it as something to worry about later (the attitude in the board minutes discussing it was something like, "Yeah, we should all live so long.") It would at best have been a temporary stopgap.

the author is not very knowledeable about Packard, many errors contained, like:
"Darrin also built a modest number of Clipper-based Convertible Victorias, based on the One-Eighty chassis; this is the 1941 model. Production amounted to about 35 cars in 1941, 15 in 1942" Packard only built ONE of these, no mention of Nance and the great Caribbeans? too much opinion in this article

Jim Nance and his tenure are outside the scope of this article, which focuses on the period from the late thirties to the end of the 23rd Series in 1950. The Caribbeans are mentioned in the subsequent article, at least briefly; while they were magnificent automobiles in many respects, their sales and impact were sadly limited.

According to L. Morgan Yost's chapter in the Automobile Quarterly book Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company, there were about 50 Clipper-based Darrin Convertible Victorias in all, 35 in 1941, 15 in 1942. The one-off was the Sport Sedan, Type No. 1422. This was listed in the catalog, but apparently the only one built was for a Packard executive. If you have other information to share, I'd be happy to see it.

If you note other specific factual errors, feel free to point them out, and I'll investigate. As for the opinion, I make no apologies for that -- you're free to disagree.

It very interesting reading about the Packard tooling from the lean-lease program from ww2 and how the Russians got the tooling for free but every time I try to get an answer it scenes to me that there is government cover –up as to how the dies were sent to Russia during the war? It also scenes to me that even during the mid 1950’s when times were good that it was very odd how a ww2 military contractor was at the forefront of technology then is beaten in the ground! It is very to understand how a well run indention car company just went out of business when it was well diversified in car, aircraft engines, marine engines and even jet engines?

As I said earlier, there's considerable doubt as to whether Packard actually did send its tooling to the USSR at that point. (Even if it did happen, I doubt it would have been a formal part of Lend-Lease, since calling tooling dies for an automobile war materiel would be a stretch.) James Arthur Ward found no evidence of it in Packard's internal records, including board meeting minutes. I suppose if someone were motivated to investigate further, a Freedom of Information Act request might provide some answers, since I can't imagine anything like that would be classified, particularly now.

I don't see what anyone would stand to gain by covering it up. Used (and, one could argue, obsolete) automotive tooling hardly seems more sensitive than military aircraft, tanks, ships, etc., which are pretty well documented. Occam's Razor and the "cui bono" (who benefits?) principle would seem to apply.

The article on Packard in the fifties touches on Packard's defense contract woes, which Ward's book discusses at greater length. Basically, a lot of automakers who had defense contracts lost out in the mid-fifties, both because of contracts canceled following the end of the Korean War and shifts in U.S. defense policy under Defense Secretary (and former GM president) Charles Wilson.

Just a few quick comments -- The 1951 and 1952 "200", the 1953 Clippers and the convertibles from those years (except for the '53 Caribbean), all used glass taillight lenses. (In the taillight caption)

And, the California Packard dealer was Earle C. Anthony, not Anthony Earl. (In the pelican caption)

Other than that, a very nice and informative article. Thank you!

Thanks for the corrections! I didn't know the first part, and the second was obviously just carelessness. I've amended the text.

A couple corrections. The caption of the two-tone 1947 Packard Custom Super Clipper photo cites 0-60 in 19 seconds and a top speed of 108. 0-60 is around 13 seconds, and top speed around 104 mph, still the fastest postwar car 'til the '49 Cadillac ohv V-8 and '51 Chrysler hemi V-8.

The "1941 Darrin Clipper" isn't. Darrin did build one convertible using a '41 Clipper for his friend and customer Errol Flynn, but that car vanished decades ago in Mexico. The pictured car is a recreation on the more robust 1947 Super Clipper chassis by a gentleman in Seattle, who has never presented the lovely car as anything but a faithful homage to the original, which he briefly owned as a young fellow just out of the Navy in the 1950s.

Finally, all the corporate survival "what ifs" overlook that all independents were doomed by the 1950s because they couldn't compete with GM/Ford tool amorization costs, afford costly TV advertising, nor the increasingly "necessary" if silly annual facelifts.
For example, Rolls-Royce from 1935 was chiefly an aero engine manufacturer, the cars a boutique sideline with postwar bodies stamped by Pressed Steel, who also supplied Austin and much of the rank and file English motor industry.
Cadillac was downsized in 1936 and from then on essentially a GMobile, sharing parts with lesser divisions. A '41 Cadillac convertible, for example, shares every piece of sheetmetal with a '41 Pontiac ragtop.

By 1953, there was only a "Big Two," as Chrysler's market share had fallen to only 12.9%.

Nice article otherwise, but let's stick with "Just the facts, ma'am" and less conjecture.

I will bow to your recollections on the peach-colored car; I didn't have the opportunity to talk to the owner when I saw it. The acceleration times you mention for the Super Clipper sound more plausible, so I've updated the text.

I agree that by the fifties it was increasingly (and probably prohibitively) difficult for the smaller automakers to compete with GM and Ford on their own terms. However, that didn't necessarily mean that they were doomed, just that they needed to offer something the larger automakers did not, and not just try to go head to head with Chevrolet or even Oldsmobile. AMC did that and survived for more than 20 years, arguably stumbling only when it backed away from the niche philosophy to try to become more mainstream.

In any case, I reserve the right to conjecture -- if you disagree, that's certainly your prerogative.