Concluded from Part 1. This article first appeared in Collectible Automobile, December 2021.

The product mix that had done fairly well in 1953 continued. Senior Packards had a flashy new dash, optional four-way power seats and air conditioning, and a special nylon matelassé interior for the Patrician. Henney continued to build long-wheelbase models, along with funeral coaches and flower cars on the commercial chassis. While no Derham formal sedan was catalogued, some Patricians were so converted at the Derham shops. Edging toward the status of a separate make, Clippers were distinguished by more distinctive styling and referred to mainly by the Clipper name.

The Patrician’s new 359 nine-main bearing, 212 hp eight also found its way to the Caribbean, convertible and hardtop (now the Pacific). That made them luxury cars by every measure except wheelbase. They were priced accordingly: around $4000 for the Pacific and convertible, $6100 for the Caribbean. The latter lost its rear wheel cutouts while gaining a curious two-toning strip along the rear fenders. (Cadillac’s Eldorado, more “prodified” in 1954 and reduced by $2000, outsold it five to one.) Late in ’54, new Gear-Start Ultramatic offered the choice of the traditional leisurely torque converter acceleration or starting in low and automatically shifting to high.

Ford’s blitz, Studebaker’s curse

Unfortunately, just as the ‘54s were announced, car sales fell badly. On top of that came the infamous Ford-GM sales war, when Henry Ford II vowed to outproduce GM or sink trying. GM replied in kind. That meant shipping cars to dealers in greater quantity than they ordered. What it did was seriously to cripple Chrysler and the independents. Their dealers could not compete with giveaway prices offered by Ford and GM dealers crowded with inventory. Packard’s 1953 sales rally stopped cold as production fell to under 28,000 for the year.

The lack of a V-8 was part of this, and nervous dealers were complaining. Only Pontiac and Packard still offered in-line eights in 1954. An urgent V-8 program was underway. “We have no choice,” Nance groused. “Making one is the only road to a modern car. Everything follows the product.” He meant that every one followed the product. And a V-8 was the essential product for high-priced cars now.

On 1 October 1954, Packard purchased Studebaker in South Bend, Indiana. One week later, in an irony Jim Nance would ponder in later years, George Mason died. His successor, George Romney, had his own vision for American Motors. It did not include partners. So here was Nance, pursuing Mason’s dream of merging the independents, which had died with him. Buying Studebaker was decision at last, taken at the worst possible time. Packard’s chief financial officer, Walter Grant, studied Studebaker’s accounts and returned to Detroit “ashen-faced.” Instead of the 165,000-unit breakeven point quoted in sale negotiations, Studebaker needed 282,000 cars a year to be profitable. The closest it had come was 268,000 in 1950. “It was a kick in the gut,” Nance said later. “Their labor costs were substantially out of line.”

1955: One last try

The 1955 senior Packards, a deep facelift of the aging Reinhart body, were nicely improved. Onto that old shell, stylist Dick Teague grafted “cathedral” tail lights, peaked front fenders, an ornate grille and wraparound windshield. Henney had expired and long-wheelbase models were gone. So were the Derham formals, though Nance had tried to develop one. The underwhelming, middle-priced Cavalier was gone, and not missed. What remained, however, were a dramatic Caribbean and Patrician, and the new Four Hundred—at last a senior hardtop on the 127-inch wheelbase.

Attractive in the over-decorated mid-Fifties sense, they were blessed with power. Packard’s long-awaited V-8, a short-stroker of 352 cubic inches, delivered up to 275 hp in the Caribbean. For faster starts, Twin Ultramatic, an evolution of Gear-Start, offered the traditional torque convertor start or starting in low, shifting to 1:1 and then to direct drive. Special torque convertor vanes enhanced performance on Caribbeans and Four Hundreds. It was good transmission, though not up to the torque of the new V-8. Poorly serviced, or abused in stop-light grands prix, it often proved troublesome.

“Different from any other car”

The real marvel for 1955 was “Torsion-Level” suspension, designed by a brilliant engineer named Bill Allison. Long torsion bars longitudinally connected the front and rear wheels. A complex electrical leveling system adjusted for load. (We kids liked to pile into a Packard, riding up and down as the suspension compensated). Effectively interlinking all four wheels, Torsion-Level offered extraordinary ride and handling, standard on the seniors and upper-priced Clippers. Road testers loved it. Floyd Clymer proclaimed the Patrician “different from any other car…You can drive into a corner at high speed with this car and the body remains almost level.”

Such praise seemed to vindicate James Nance’s efforts to revive Packard’s luxury tradition. But in one respect, as the ’55s started production, he’d made a cardinal error. Since 1940 Packard bodies had been built by Briggs. In 1954 Briggs was bought by Chrysler, forcing Packard to build its own bodies. Badly advised, Nance settled for a cramped body plant on Conner Avenue, Detroit. Resultant production slowdowns and quality-control problems bedeviled the ’55s and enraged dealers. Chief complainant was Nance himself: “One Patrician was so bad I couldn’t begin to itemize…. It was literally necessary to use a crowbar to get one of the rear doors open.”

A “conditioning line” was set up to correct defects, but the shortage of flawless cars found dealers receiving too many dull green or blue jobs, instead of what they really wanted: fire opal, tourmaline or rose quartz. Glitzy styling, V-8 power and Torsion-Level could not compensate for such lapses. Packard and Clipper did produce 55,000 ’55 models, 30% of them luxury senior models. But anything would have been better than ’54. Nance had hoped for double that, and worse news was ahead.

1956: End of the luxury Packards

Conner’s problems were eventually surmounted and ironically the ’56s were much better built, with a sharp facelift, vivid paint jobs and a new Caribbean hardtop. Their bored-out 374 V-8 packed an industry-high 310 bhp in the Caribbean, which featured unique seat covers that could be removed and reversed from fabric to leather. Still, between Studebaker’s well-known struggles and Packard’s past quality problems, customers were deserting in droves. Scarcely 10,000 seniors were built for 1956—last of the “true” Packards.

Nance made strenuous efforts to finance a line of all-new cars with luxury Packards truly distinctive from the rest, but lenders had grown cautious. The Detroit plant closed, and Packard ended life as a glorified Studebaker, built in South Bend in 1957-58. Nance hung around long enough to place his top colleagues, which was greatly to his credit. Of course he was blamed for the debacle; the man at the top always is.

Why Packard failed

In reality, Packard’s crucial mistakes occurred years before. After the war, when a company could sell anything on wheels, Packard could have reverted to type, rebuilding its reputation as a luxury automaker. Instead it pursued the lower-priced markets that had saved it in the Depression. One can understand the reasoning—but there was no Depression now, and fierce competition soon engulfed those markets. In retrospect, if middle-priced cars were essential, there had been a better way: an entirely separate make not bearing the Packard name. But no one in 1945 could visualize that in the face of an American market clamoring for cars.

Stemming from this marketing mistake was a series of product decisions that flew in the face of Packard’s proud heritage. Instead of building on the timeless styling of the 1942 Clipper, still fresh after the war, management decreed a facelift that looked fine in 1948 but didn’t age well. Advertising was schizophrenic. Packard frequently changed agencies, some extolling luxury but most devoted to 200s or Clippers.

“Love me, love my dog”

Product mistakes came thick and fast. While Cadillac was creating the iconic Coupe de Ville, Packard built a station wagon—a very fine one, but a wagon? Packard needed a luxury hardtop in 1948, not 1955. While Cadillac was corralling the limousine market with its Fleetwood 75, Packard was edging away from it. Soon after the war, Cadillac adopted a modern V-8 and hallmark styling. “Cad fins” were so popular they became accessories for other makes. Packard stayed too long with fast-aging designs and inline engines. It was really a case of “love me, love my dog.” The public, or at least some of it, had always loved Packard. But they didn’t love the dog.

Nance and his colleagues didn’t know it, but even before they bought Studebaker, the song had ended. The melody lingered on in 1956, with impressive power, snazzy styling. Torsion-Level was innovative, typical of the engineering that had built Packard’s reputation since the 1900s. But the end finally came for the cars Tom McCahill knew as a boy, and we would never see their like again. 

Further reading

“The Packard—Ne Plus Ultra of Automotive House Organs” (in two parts), 2021

“Packard Tales and Memories of Bud Juneau,” 2021

“Why Studebaker Failed: In the End, It is Always Management,” 2020

“Dutch Darrin, Part 2: The Packard Adventures,” 2017

Spellbinder: The Life of James Nance, by Stuart Blond

The most comprehensive account of Nance’s tenure at Packard is in Stuart Blond’s new two-volume biography, which is strongly recommended for car enthusiasts old and new. Stuart, my successor as editor of The Packard Cormorant, has constructed a fastidious account of a Horatio Alger story, and how Nance ended up at Packard with the toughest challenge of his career.

Part 1, 1900-1954

Part 2, 1955-1985

“Patrician and Its Relatives” first appeared in Collectible Automobile, December 2021.

“Packard is back and cooking,” wrote Tom McCahill, irrepressible road tester wrote for Mechanix Illustrated. “These are good automobiles, big, fast and capable…they also have a touch of that old glamour that the big, open Eights had in the Twenties, when I was in college owning a fifty-dollar crate and dreaming that someday I’d have a Packard.”

It was a nice accolade, typical of “Uncle Tom’s” loquacious boosterism. He wasn’t alone in hoping Packard’s first all-new postwar redesign heralded a revival. Only two decades before, Packard had reigned as the car of choice for those who had “made it”—a very visible declaration of what their owners thought of themselves, and wanted the rest of us to think of them also. Why not again?

Yet even McCahill admitted only to “a touch” of the old allure, and a touch was not wholly satisfying. In reality, though no one knew it, the 1951 Packards began the long wake for America’s once-dominant luxury brand. Sporadically through 1956, Packard would lurch back toward past glory. But the damage was already done, and its efforts would prove too little, too late.

Early errors

In Packard: A History of the Motorcar and the Company, George Hamlin and Dwight Heinmuller defined the problem. By the late Thirties, they wrote, technology had revolutionized the industry: “The day when you could buy a Packard and be guaranteed to go farther, faster, quieter than anyone in a car costing half or even a third as much had simply vanished. This was of course true for Lincoln and Cadillac too. But the difference, insofar as the success of the product was concerned, would be measured in each company’s salesmanship.”

Blurring the distinctions between luxury models and what Packard called “juniors” was not good salesmanship, Hamlin and Heinmuller added. By 1937, the gap between top and bottom “did not approximate the traditional company pricing norm, and the gap had been closed principally by the higher-priced cars moving downward rather than the lower-priced ones moving up.” In 1946, for example, that gap had closed to $3000 ($32,000 in today’s money). In 1951 it was barely $1000.

1951: Thinning out “that goddam senior stuff”

There was nothing particularly wrong with chief designer Johnnie Reinhart’s “Contour Styled” ’51s, though he regretted their high beltline and had wanted more glass. Yet Reinhart brought the fenders up even with the hood and deck before most of the industry. Mechanically, Packard’s nine-main-bearing 327 straight eight was soundly engineered, and Ultramatic, its homegrown automatic, one of Detroit’s finest. The problem, for those who yearned for the Packards of their youth, was—well—everything else: It was no longer clear how the company viewed itself, or how the public viewed the company.

“Nothing happens until somebody sells something,” proclaimed Jim Nance, destined to be Packard’s president from mid-1952. But since the 1930s Depression, when Packard had moved sharply down-market with the One Twenty and Six, selling something had proven tricky. The 1935 One Twenty—a cheap Packard, but hardly a cheap car—had saved the firm from bankruptcy. The rather cheaper 1937 Six, priced to garner even more sales, was arguably a step too far from tradition. Since then, Packard had not built much of what one manager called “that goddam senior stuff,” and by 1951 that stuff had almost disappeared.

Incredibly for 1951, Packard offered only one true luxury car: the 127-inch wheelbase Patrician 400 (“400” was dropped later) at $3600. With a nine-main-bearing 327 cubic inch straight eight, it was trimmed with Wilton carpets, color-coordinated broadcloth and footrests for rear seat passengers. Smooth and solid on the road, if no jackrabbit with standard Ultramatic, it was available only as a four-door sedan, at once the most popular and least exciting of body styles.

Patrician versus Cadillac

And the Patrician was cheapened: the preceding Custom Eight’s velvety “Mosstred” carpets, Marshall coil springs, profuse woodgraining and glittery dash were all gone. So too in mid-year were cloisonné wheel cover medallions. Gone too was the legendary 356 straight eight, although there were sound reasons for this: the 327 had higher compression, comparable smoothness and a better power-to-weight ratio. Nevertheless, like the collapsing price gap between Packard models, there were now only 39 cubic inches between a plebeian 200 and the top of the line.

Against the Patrician, rival Cadillac arrayed its hot-selling Sixty-two sedan, convertible and two hardtops including the swank Coupe de Ville. Packard sold 9001 Patricians, Cadillac over 80,000 Sixty-twos, a third of which were hardtops or convertibles. Cadillac also built 16,000 long-wheelbase Sixty Special sedans. Packard had nothing comparable.

Another so-called senior Packard was the 300, an austere four-door with the five-main 327, supposed successor to the famous Super Eight. Its drab interior hardly proclaimed luxury. While Cadillac was abandoning its lowest-priced Sixty-one, the 300 soldiered on, by no stretch a luxury Packard. There were also a few 1951 commercial chassis, but only to 300 spec, with no long-wheelbase variants. Cadillac had that small but lucrative market almost to itself, building over 5000 long sedans and extra-long commercial chassis.

The ’51 line did offer a hardtop, the Mayfair, and a convertible, at $3200-3400. By Packard’s definition they were junior cars, riding a 122-inch wheelbase, albeit powered by a five-main 327. Their competitors were Oldsmobile and DeSoto. Cadillac’s sporty two-door models sold for $500 more, carried modern overhead valve V-8s and outsold the Packards five to one. The lack of an up-market hardtop would continue to hurt.

1952: Big Jim and the quest for relevance

James J. Nance had not been Packard’s first choice in its search for new, dynamic leadership. Still, Nance’s reputation augured well. He had turned General Electric’s Hotpoint into a best-selling appliance brand. His whose tenure at Packard was highly anticipated. GE bought 25,000 shares of Packard stock—“the kind of compliment that counts,” Fortune wrote.

Packard got Nance as part of a larger, behind-the-scenes deal. As he told George Hamlin and this writer in 1976: “I wouldn’t have gone into it just to take over Packard.” Nash’s George Mason, a visionary among his peers, was planning to merge Nash, Hudson, Packard and Studebaker. His role, Nance said, was “to bring in Studebaker,” while Mason acquired Hudson, “then fold all four into what George was already calling American Motors.” This explains how Nance saw Packard: a luxury division competing with Cadillac, leaving the goddam junior stuff to other makes.

Nance’s explanation has been challenged by subordinate AMC figures, but they weren’t present in plenary discussions. Hamlin and I had no reason to believe that Nance fabricated the story. It fits George Mason’s mindset.

Nance had his work cut out. The 1952 Packard line was no more luxurious than 1951, with the same array of mostly middle-priced models, the Patrician, 300, and a few commercial chassis. Sales were down by 14,000 units. Job one was sales, and that was Nance’s specialty.

Nance specialized in stem-winding speeches reminiscent of a country parson. Buyers over 40, he thundered, “still think of Packard as a quality car…. But to the younger person of say 35, Packard doesn’t stand for anything…. Ask what Cadillac stands for, and every kid on the curbstone can tell you. ‘That’s the best, mister.’” Packard was “getting a miserable 3.5%” of the luxury car business, Nance fumed: “I’ll be damned if I’m going to be in a horse race and get left at the quarter pole.”

1953: pursuit of luxury

The opulent Packards once mocked by 1930s management now seemed poised for a comeback. For 1953 Nance moved quickly to separate luxury from middle-priced models in the public mind. Gone was the 200-300-400 nomenclature. Juniors were now Packard Clippers, reviving a model name from 1947. The Mayfair and convertible, still neither fish nor fowl, at least benefitted from reflected glory in the new Packard Caribbean, a $5300 convertible inspired by the Pan American showcar.

Stylist Dick Teague developed the Caribbean’s special features: fully radiused rear wheel cutouts, senior taillights, a hood scoop, wire spoke wheels, a “continental” spare tire and minimal brightwork. Specifications were no different from the standard convertible, but as a prestige line-leader, it was a good job, built up from convertibles by Mitchell-Bentley in Ionia, Michigan. Sales were 750, double those of Cadillac’s $7700 prestige-leading Eldorado. Given Nance’s resources, it was a worthy assault on his rival. But it still rode the 122-inch wheelbase, and even Ultramatic was optional.

Deploring Packard’s loss of the high-price business, Nance decreed a comeback with three new luxury ’53s. They comprised a Derham-bodied formal sedan, and a brace of long-wheelbase models built by Henney. The eight-passenger “Corporation limousine” and “Executive sedan” sold for $2000 more than Cadillac’s 75 counterparts. The Derham, with its padded top and oval backlight, was Packard’s first custom body since 1942. The limo and Executive were the first long-wheelbase bodies catalogued since 1949.

“America’s New Choice in Fine Cars”

The slogan for 1953 was proclaimed with suitable fanfare and Nance-driven improvements. Four barrel carburetion boosted horsepower. Power steering (Packard’s own) joined 1952’s power brakes. Air conditioning, which Packard had pioneered before the war, was back on the option list. Nance himself came up with the “three-way radio” (manual, pushbutton and selector bar tuning). Fascinated by the idea, he’d contacted GM Delco, finding they had one ready to go. He made a supply deal, and had it in Packards five months before Cadillac: a nice jump on the opposition.

One couldn’t argue with success, and most stockholders didn’t. The new luxury models sold sparingly, but that they were there at all was testimonial to Nance’s determination. Advertising assumed a decided up-market look, and the results were agreeable. Calendar ’53 saw 81,000 cars, up by a third and the best since 1950. Packard’s share of the luxury market increased, and pre-tax profits at $10 million were the highest in history. It began to look like things were turning around.

Concluded in Part 2 (1954-56)

Further reading

“The Packard—Ne Plus Ultra of Automotive House Organs” (in two parts), 2021

“Packard Tales and Memories of Bud Juneau,” 2021

“Why Studebaker Failed: In the End, It is Always Management,” 2020

“Dutch Darrin, Part 2: The Packard Adventures,” 2017

Spellbinder: The Life of James Nance, by Stuart Blond

The most comprehensive account of Nance’s tenure at Packard is in Stuart Blond’s new two-volume biography, which is strongly recommended for car enthusiasts old and new. Stuart, my successor as editor of The Packard Cormorant, has constructed a fastidious account of a Horatio Alger story, and how Nance ended up at Packard with the toughest challenge of his career.

Part 1, 1900-1954

Part 2, 1955-1985

I am looking forward to the last chapter discussing how Studebaker went wrong, especially since I also have theories. It would fun to compare notes. I often quote from your book: “For many years, Raymond Loewy Associates would be the only thing standing between Studebaker and dull mediocrity.”

Like you I owned a 1962 Gran Turismo Hawk, a surprisingly impressive car. Drove it back and forth to Hamilton when we were working on the last 1966 production Studebakers. I put a ’53 Starliner decklid on it and ’54 Starliner wheel covers; I thought each addition was an improvement. —B.M.

Studebaker remembered

Thanks for the kind words. My GT Hawk was one of the best cars I ever owned: fast yet easy on gas, stylish, fun to drive. It leaked oil and the famous “flexible frame” was a little creaky, but it was a satisfying car, if overly susceptible to the dreaded tinworm.

At the end of my book is a list of what Studebaker did wrong, beginning with chairman Paul Hoffman accepting every union demand after World War II. James Nance, the last president of Packard, which purchased Studebaker in 1954, had it right. “The trouble with Studebaker was that they wouldn’t take a strike. Everybody else took strikes after the war and reasonable compromises were reached on wages and benefits. Studebaker didn’t, and they never caught up.”

What Packard didn’t know when they bought Studebaker they learned to their horror when accountants finally got into the books. Studebaker’s break-even point by the mid-Fifties was 50,000 or more cars higher than their best-ever annual volume. A Studebaker designer told me he once priced the 1953 Starliner using General Motors costings. He found that GM could have sold the identical car for $300 less (which was a lot more then than it is now).

Packard indeed had its own problems. But Studebaker dragged Packard down with it, making it impossible for Nance to find the finances to bankroll an all-new 1957 line that might have allowed Studebaker-Packard to go on longer than it did.

The greatness of Raymond Loewy

And yes, Raymond Loewy led the teams that created the 1953 Starliner and 1963 Avanti. They were the key to the cars being as distinctive as they were. Loewy had a keen eye for talent. He hired and directed fine designers, such as Bob Bourke (Starliner) and Bob Andrews, John Epstein and Tom Kellogg (Avanti). The Avanti was impressive, but perhaps not the right product for Studebaker. Otto Klausmeyer, a longtime and outstanding engineer, told me he regarded it as “our first a duck-back, droop-snoot sport car.”

Studebaker’s sales and marketing people blunted those good designs by inept planning and promotion. In 1953, for example, they built a surfeit of sedan models, finding to their shock that people mainly wanted the beautiful Starliner hardtops and Starlight coupes. Their production mix was the exact opposite of what the public desired.

Brooks Stevens’ life support

But Studebaker’s styling was consistently good. Trying to save the rump company in the Sixties, President Sherwood Egbert hired Brooks Stevens, who deftly facelifted the Lark and Hawk, and came up with novel ideas like the sliding-roof Wagonaire station wagon—but these were all reskins of the 1950s models. Stevens and Loewy then offered  exciting ideas for all-new designs for 1966 and beyond.

But by then it was too late. Studebaker shut down its main factory in South Bend, Indiana, in December 1963, and the Hamilton Ontario plant closed after building the last 1965-66 models. But no—Studebaker didn’t have to fail. George Mason of Nash saw the future before anyone else. He tried to build a conglomerate of independents—Studebaker, Packard, Nash, Hudson—in the 1940s. Nobody else was listening. It was probably the only way to stave off death for those companies. After World War II, economies of scale worked greatly in favor of the big automakers. But hindsight is always cheap. And far too easily indulged.