re: Bird Flew

[<mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On March 7, 2006 Mahoney, John wrote:

> (Ooo, and do you know the other European make S-P once wanted to sell
to revive its own -Packard- nameplate, in hopes of, just as AMC would
hope later, to become a "bigger presence" on the automotive scene?
-Really-.

That would be Facel-Vega. I was just reading that F-V approached S-P
about the idea, but M-B threatened to pull out of their mrketing deal
with S-P, so the badge engineered Packard was not to be. If S-P was so
interested, why didn't they rebadge one of the larger M-Bs and create a
new Packard like grille/nose/tail ligts/int.-ext. trim for it? M-B might
have went along with that as long as it wasn't based on one of their
good selling models.

Speaking of cormorant, if the name had been capiltalized I'd have picked
up on it being a proper noun rather than an adjective. I'm sure more
people would have, though it would have still been a stumbler for most.
The first thought would have been it was a car name plate rather than a
bird! Yes, I know it's a common name for the bird and shouldn't be
capitalized. 


> Yes, I was just connecting S-P history to that of AMC: connections
that are (or should be) common knowledge and connections that folks like
Pat Foster don't write on (or know about) still.  I snuck one of those
into the last post: George Mason saw REO as a truck division within AMC.
He saw REO even more clearly after Studebaker trucks slipped out of a
deal.  (He also didn't stop seeing Packard as an AMC flagship ---
eventually.) 

I was reading a bit of Packard history looking for the cormorant
notation. I ran across this statment: 
"James J. Nance became Packard president and general manager in 1952. He
was also elected to the board. Nance moved to Packard as part of a plan
to form the fourth largest automotive manufacturer. Nance would merge
Packard with Studebaker, while George Mason at Nash would merge Nash
with Hudson which was for sale. Nance would then become president of the
four car company." 

I assume Mason was to be CEO. Of course when Mason died unexpectedly in
1954 Romney took over. Nance and Romney must not have got along, because
the first step in the merger, reciprocal parts building, never
materialized in a favorable manner. Maybe it was a good thing -- AMC may
not have survived an S-P merger. It would just depend on how things
went. If most production had went to Kenosha and South Bend closed
except for military and maybe some other truck production, it may have
pulled through. 

I just don't see any where AMC would have benefitted from a merger any
more than it actualy did. AMC acquired Studebakers military facilities
in the late 50s anyway when S-P started falling apart. The Studebaker
name brand had no more value than Rambler, with the only two nameplates
worth keeping being Lark and Avanti. The Avanti could have been kept
alive, but wouldn't have added much to profits. The Lark was to similar
to the American. Either the Packard or Studebaker V-8 would have been
used until the GEN-2 AMC V-8 came out (or something similar -- you'd
have to throw a couple S-P engineers in on the deal -- I wonder if and
how that would have changed the design?), but that's about it. More
dealers wouldn't have helped much, if any. Selling M-Bs night have went
along with the deal, but I'm not sure that deal would have been brokered
had S-P sales not been so dismal. The Packard name still had some value,
but I'm not sure AMC could have really done anything more than drop the
Ambassador name and make the big car a Packard. 

I think a Rambler Ambassador (or "Ambassador by Rambler") would have cut
to much into a Packard version sales, so maybe replace it with a Packard
version and no hgih line Rambler? Maybe a face lift and some mechanical
changes to the 57 Nash and continue it as a Packard? The Pinin Farina 58
Nash proposal would have made a nice niche market luxury car. The way to
work it would have been to make an exclusive body and basically hand
make a couple thousand a year at a high price, using major AMC
components like drivetrain and suspension, and little else. Maybe just
keep the Avanti as the Packard with a new four door fiberglass body on
basically the same frame, stretched just a bit to make it more
comfortable. That would have worked for a low production model. 

Ahh -- hindsight and what ifs!! What fun!!

Frank Swygert