Threadless Thursday

I was originally going to write about the latest chapter in the dysfunctional Aaron Rodgers story. Other than to say he has made it impossible to root for his success, I will refrain.

The Henry Ruggs story makes me speak. Ruggs was a player for the Las Vegas Raiders who was drafted in the first round in 2020. Very early on Tuesday morning, with a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit, Ruggs crashed his C8 Corvette into the rear of a Toyota RAV4 causing that vehicle to burst into flames that killed its driver. Right before the crash Ruggs’ car was traveling at 156 MPH. Oh, he illegally had a loaded gun in the car. The Raiders released Ruggs on Wednesday.

I have always been disgusted by the fact that it is legal to drive with any alcohol in one’s system. Many, if not most, countries have a “legal” limit below the .08% that is the standard in most, if not all, US states. According to NHTSA estimates, more than 10,000 people died in the US in 2018 in vehicle crashes where at least one driver was under the influence of alcohol.

We have mandatory back-up cameras because 100 people are killed every year when a vehicle backs up into them; WHY don’t we have mandatory interlock systems that keep a driver from starting a car when under the influence?! Our de facto tolerance of drunk drivers is appalling.

As for professional athletes…I worked in major league baseball for 20+ years. When I met someone and told them what I did for a living the response would often be, “Wow, it must be so cool to talk to [fill in player name].” Sometimes, but not often, my response was that except for their ability to play baseball–which almost always included a hyper-competitive nature that most non-athletes cannot comprehend–most baseball players are entirely unremarkable people.

Like the rest of the population, professional athletes can be depressed, can be *ssholes (and often are due to how they’ve been coddled for most of their lives) and can have substance abuse issues. They are usually very far from being “supermen.”

Sadly, stories like Henry Ruggs’ will happen many, many times every year in this country–almost always without any “celebrity” connection–and nothing will be done.

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According to 365 Days Of Motoring, it was on this day in 1939 that Packard showed the first air-conditioned car at the fortieth Automobile Show in Chicago. Once again, I could not corroborate that specific date/event anywhere else, but it is true that Packard made the first air-conditioned automobile, although that apparatus bore little resemblance to the modern system pioneered by Nash in 1954, which is still the basis for current HVAC systems in vehicles–at least I think so.

The Packard unit had no thermostat and no way to shut the system off except to go into the trunk, where the unit took up half the available space, and to disconnect the drive belt. At $275–the frequently published option price of $1,000 is simply wrong–the system was not outrageously priced, but only about 2,000 Packards were so equipped through the 1942 model year. After the war, Packard dropped the option and didn’t offer air conditioning again until 1953. Below is a picture of a 1941 Packard 120 sedan, which could have been equipped with air conditioning:

See the source image

In terms of passenger comfort in an automobile, Nash and Packard were two pioneers. It’s not necessary–that won’t stop me, though–to point this out, but neither company exists today.

#ThreadlessThursday

#F*ckDrunkDrivers

#PackardAirConditioning

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Ask The Man Who Owns One

At the recently completed Mecum auction in Monterey, California, auctioneer extraordinaire Jimmy Landis said, “Ask The Man Who Owns One” while making the call when a Packard was on the auction block. Seemingly, very few people understood the reference.

“Ask The Man Who Owns One” was Packard’s ad slogan for decades. On this day in 1956, Studebaker-Packard President Harold Churchill announced that the Packard make would continue for 1957, but as a badge-engineered Studebaker (he didn’t use that phrase) built on the Studebaker President Classic chassis. Of course, that announcement was very late as at that time new model year cars were often first available for sale by September of the previous calendar year. From the Studebaker Drivers Club site, a picture of a 1957 Packard Town Sedan:

See the source image

Packard made history in the 1957 model year as the first (and only?) make to supply all of its cars with supercharged engines. All 4,809 Packards produced in 1957 were equipped with a supercharged Studebaker 289 cubic-inch V-8 rated at 275 HP/333 LB-FT of torque.

In recent months I have not written about Packard and other defunct American makes as much as I had previously. They don’t tug on my heartstrings quite as much as they used to, but I would still like to own a car made by such a make.

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Speaking of Monterey automobile auctions…this Hemmings piece summarizes the results of all of the auctions held during the 2021 Monterey Car Week. The piece begins:

“In simple terms, the 2021 Monterey Car Week auctions were pretty big. The take from the five auctions held on the peninsula during Monterey Car Week totaled $321 million with a sell-through rate of 87 percent. At the “catalog” auctions – RM Sotheby’s, Gooding & Company, and Bonham’s – the overall sell-through rate was 90 percent. The sum total is a big increase from the $245.5M in 2019 (there were no auctions in 2020), but below the 2018 tally of $370M. Perhaps most interesting, though, is the average sale price of $310,295, including a good number of motorcycles and memorabilia at Mecum.”

Speaking of Mecum, the company proclaimed the Monterey auction to be the “most successful daytime auction to date.” It reported a sell-through rate of 80% (Hemmings reported 77%) and total sales exceeding $57 million. The highest price for a car that sold was for this one:

This 2014 Ferrari LaFerrari sold for $3.41 million all in. I don’t like dealing in hypotheticals, but if I could truly afford to buy a car like this, I would probably be tempted to do so. What about you?

Have a great weekend…

#AskTheManWhoOwnsOne

#JimmyLandis

#MontereyAuctions

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Monday Musings 73

“Ask The Man Who Owns One”

That was Packard’s famous advertising slogan, which was used for decades. I don’t know why this Hagerty article from December showed up in my email last week, but it’s titled, “If you want to buy Packard, ask the man who owns it.” The piece is about Roy Gullickson, who purchased the rights to the Packard name in 1992 and then spent many years trying to revive the brand, but only succeeded in building one prototype. Here is a picture of said prototype:

It’s difficult to show a flattering perspective of this car, in my opinion. From the Hagerty article,

“…[A]s impressive as the Packard Twelve prototype is from an engineering standpoint (certainly up to historic Packard standards) it could not be considered widely attractive. Trying to evoke the 1940s Clipper makes it look a bit dumpy awkward. To be frank, Dick Teague did a much better job evoking the traditional Packard grille in the Predictor than Gullickson’s team did with the Twelve.”

I don’t know if a sale has happened since December, but Gullickson put the “assets” of the company on sale asking $1.5 million. As much as I have lamented the demise of many American automobile makes in this blog, especially the independent ones, I don’t think any of them could be successfully revived. Very few people under the age of 40 have heard of Packard or Studebaker or probably even Oldsmobile, for that matter. The names simply do not resonate, anymore.

What do you think?

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Kerbeck Corvette near Atlantic City, New Jersey has been the largest Corvette dealer in the country for years. (No, the picture wasn’t taken at Kerbeck.) Therefore, it came as quite a shock to read that Kerbeck has agreed to sell three of its dealerships, including its Corvette store, to Ciocca Dealerships.

My wonderful wife bought her first Corvette from Kerbeck in 2015. The salesman could not have been more pleasant, nor less pushy. Supposedly, virtually the entire staff of Kerbeck Corvette will stay under the new ownership. I probably will always think of that dealer as Kerbeck Corvette, not that we are ever going to buy a car from them again.

Perhaps in a sign of the times, the last three Corvettes we have purchased were not from dealers in the state in which we were living. I never saw my Z06 in person before I bought it. Welcome to the 21st century, I guess.

#MondayMusings

#AskTheManWhoOwnsOne

#Packard

#KerbeckSale

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Earworm Saturday

As I have written before (how many times have I written that phrase?!), one of the worst manifestations of my OCD is earworms. An earworm is a song that gets stuck in your head. For most people, that might last a few minutes or maybe an hour or two. For me, it can last for days. For the last 3-4 days I have heard the song “The Watusi” by the Vibrations in my head.

Of course, I heard the song listening to the Sixties on Six channel on Sirius/XM. I can’t speak about their other channels–I don’t listen to other channels and really only listen to that one when driving with my wonderful wife–but the catalog for Sixties on Six is quite limited, in my opinion. “The Watusi” was not a big hit, peaking at #25 on the Billboard chart and only making the Top 40 for four weeks. Oh well, this particular earworm will go away, eventually.

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On this day in 1928, James Ward Packard died. Of course, Packard (and his brother, William Doud) founded the automobile company that bore his name. It is mainly forgotten today, but Packard was the leading US luxury make before World War II. Makes like Duesenberg simply did not have the production numbers to earn that distinction, in my opinion.

The first Packard was built in Ohio, birthplace of the Packard brothers, in 1899. The story, apocryphal or not, is that James Packard was dissatisfied with the Winton automobile he owned and complained to Alexander Winton about his car. Packard was a mechanical engineer and decided to build his own cars.

Henry Bourne Joy, a member of one of Detroit’s oldest and wealthiest families, bought a Packard. Impressed by its reliability, he visited the Packards and soon enlisted a group of investors—including Truman Handy Newberry and Russell A. Alger Jr. On October 2, 1902, this group refinanced and renamed the New York and Ohio Automobile Company as the Packard Motor Car Company, with James Packard as president. Alger later served as vice president. Packard moved operations to Detroit soon after, and Joy became general manager (and later chairman of the board). [This paragraph is from the Wikipedia article, linked above, about Packard.]

While I am a fan of defunct American makes and have written a lot about Packard, the only cars from that make that really appeal to me are the majestic cars of the 1930s and the 1955-56 models. Yes, this is the time for pictures:

See the source image

From a Pinterest page a picture of a 1934 Packard Twelve Dietrich Convertible Victoria. Packard only made 960 Twelves in 1934 despite offering more than twenty models equipped with a V-12 engine. This particular model sold for $6,080. As a comparison, Cadillac’s 12-cylinder convertible coupe sold for $4,945 and convertible sedan for $5,195. Of course, the Cadillac V-16 models were far more expensive.

See the source image

From Mecum Auctions a picture of a 1956 Packard 400 offered at their Indianapolis auction in 2016. The last “real” Packards, built in Detroit, were from that model year. The 1957-58 Packards were badge-engineered Studebakers built in South Bend, Indiana.

Packard sales collapsed for model year 1956. The nature of record keeping during that time makes it more difficult than one might think to get exact figures, but according to The American Auto by the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide®, Packard produced just 10,353 cars for the 1956 model year compared to 55,247 in 1955, which itself was hardly a great number considering the company produced 100,713 cars in 1951.

Big fan of the make or not, I think all fans of American cars should acknowledge James Ward Packard.

#EarwormSaturday

#JamesWardPackard

#1934PackardTwelveConvertible

#1956Packard400

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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5,000 Z06 Miles

I took delivery of my Z06 23 months ago today. On Thursday I passed 5,000 miles of my own doing. Of course, that’s not a lot of driving, about 2,600 miles a year on average.

Some would say no one should drive a car like mine. Others would say I haven’t driven it enough. I think in this polarized world it’s very easy, too easy, to appeal to one side and make the other side angry. I think the truth often lies in making both sides angry.

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It’s too bad that 56PackardMan has seemingly vanished. I wonder if he knows about this development as chronicled in this Classic Cars piece, “Packard plans a comeback, starting with a watch.”

Apparently, James Ward Packard liked watches, collected them and even designed them. Also, plans are afoot to bring back a Packard car, but the watch is first.

For you Packard fans out there, which year/model would you like to see brought back? New federal regulations, finally created and implemented to make the Limited Vehicle Production Act (or whatever it is called) a reality, make such a comeback possible albeit at no more than 325 cars a year.

Of course, I am partial to the 1956 Packard line: the Caribbean, the Four Hundred, the Executive. I suspect, however, that the magnificent cars of the 1930s may be the ones to be “resurrected.” From RM Sotheby’s a picture of a 1956 Packard Caribbean convertible:

See the source image

Such a car was included in my Ultimate Garage 2.0. You will be surprised to read it is not a lock for 3.0.

You might want to read this review of The Packard Story by Robert Turnquist. The number of books about Packard is amazing to me, but then again, I seek them out.

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This opinion piece by George Will is titled, “Progressives want a new New Deal. The old one failed at its main task.” In it, Will quotes FDR’s Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, from his testimony for the House Ways & Means Committee in May of 1939,

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong . . . somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. . . . I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!”

Here is more from Will:

“Morgenthau was mistaken about one thing: When Roosevelt took office in March 1933, the unemployment rate was 25.4 percent. But about the spending Morgenthau was correct: By 1936, for the first time in peacetime history, the federal government’s spending was larger than the combined spending of all states and localities. And credit Morgenthau’s candor: The New Deal failed at its principal task of putting the nation back to work. The 1939 unemployment rate was worse than the 16.3 percent of 1931 [my note: 1939 unemployment was 17.2%], and worse than the 11.7 percent peak unemployment during the severe but short recession of 1920-1921. In 1939, the Depression had lasted longer than any prior U.S. contraction. In 1940, with the pre-war surge of military spending underway, the unemployment rate was 14.6 percent, more than eight points higher than today’s.” [my correction: this piece was written when US unemployment was about 10 percent during the tighter grip of the damn virus, Will wrote “four points higher”]

“Historical data seems powerless to dent progressive nostalgia for the New Deal’s fictitious triumph of economic revival through job creation.”

Blind adherence to ideology and excessive allergy to the facts are never a good thing, but they are more alive and well than at any other time, in my opinion. Quoting Huxley once again, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Oh, George Will wrote a cover blurb for the book I co-authored about the greatest baseball teams of all time. In my presence, he would tell his companions–friends and family–that I knew more about baseball than anyone else he knew. I guess the baseball industry decided that my age and “lack” of coding skills were far more important than my aptitude and knowledge.

#5000Z06Miles

#PackardWatch

#1956PackardCaribbeanConvertible

#TheMythOfTheNewDeal

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Tuesday Twirl

Thanks to Bill James I received this notification:

Yesterday, Bill graciously tweeted the link to A Tough Day For Cars. That post is now easily the most read so far this year. Of course, we are not too deep into 2021 although today is already day number 51. Thanks, Bill!

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The issues with composing posts in the WordPress Classic Editor and Firefox continue. I may really have to use another browser, at least for writing posts. Part of me, the very cynical part, thinks these issues are a deliberate attempt by WordPress to “force” me to use their newer editor.

While I believe in “Never Say Never” it is extremely unlikely I would continue to post if I had to use the newer editor, which to me is user-hostile and counter-intuitive. Also, I am not the dullest knife in the drawer so if I have issues with it, I’m sure many others do, as well.

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This CNBC article chronicles the decline in the rating for the Super Bowl broadcast among the demographic advertisers prize most highly, those aged 18-49. Here is a chart from the article:

I am not in that demographic, but I did not watch the most recent Super Bowl. Lest one think this has been the trend for all network football telecasts, look at this chart from the same article:

I think in this weird year of the damn virus, many people decided that watching football was simply not something that warranted their time. I also think that casual fans have less and less interest in the Super Bowl as other forms of “entertainment” multiply.

******************

An earthworm can be taught to avoid a path that will give it an electric shock. Human beings, allegedly the most intelligent of animal species, often cannot avoid behavior that they know, a priori, is detrimental.

******************

I still hope, one day, to own a car manufactured by a defunct American make. How the logistics of that would work, I have no idea. (“He’s a good teacher; he really seems to care…About what, I got no idea!)

From Hemmings a picture of an intriguing car, even with the broken Torsion-Level ride system:

This is a 1956 Packard 400. I believe the model name is an homage to the prestigious list that used to be published of the top 400 most influential people in America.

The car has about 57,000 miles (supposedly) and is listed for $18,000. I suspect getting the suspension fixed would be expensive assuming one could find a shop/mechanic that could do the work.

I would estimate the probability of my ever owning a car like this at no more than 10%. Still and once again, what is life without dreams?

#TuesdayTwirl

#BillJames

#SuperBowl

#Earthworm>Human?

#NeverSayNever

#1956Packard400

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Cadillac vs Packard

First…I must acknowledge the 126th anniversary of the birth of Babe Ruth. Although I am not a baseball fan or follower in any way, shape or form, any more, growing up as a baseball fanatic in the city of his birth I was a huge fan of his achievements. From, of all places, The Hollywood Reporter, a picture of The Babe:

See the source image

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In On The Wing Wednesday I stumbled onto a comparison of Cadillac and Packard sales. (I readily admit that Cadillac vs Packard is a less “sexy” title than Ford vs Ferrari.) Ever since then, I have wanted to make a table showing the sales/production of both makes from after World War II to Packard’s last year as a real car company, 1956. Here it is:

	CALENDAR YEAR PRODUCTION

YEAR	CADILLAC	PACKARD
1946	28,144	42,102
1947	59,436	55,477
1948	66,209	98,897
1949	81,545	104,593
1950	110,535	72,138
1951	103,266	76,476
1952	96,850	62,988
1953	103,538	81,341
1954	123,746	27,583
1955	153,334	69,667
1956	140,873	13,432

As the title of the table reads, this is calendar year production and not model year. I used calendar year to put Packard’s decline into sharper focus. Using calendar year also shows a sharp break from when Packard was competitive with Cadillac to when they became less so. Instead of using a compendium book, these figures came from Cadillac at 100: Legacy Of Leadership and Packard: A History Of The Motor Car And The Company.

Note that in the first four post-war years in total, Packard outsold Cadillac by 27.9% AND outsold Cadillac for awhile even after the tail fins were introduced on the latter. The next four years Cadillac outsold Packard by 41.4%. Of course, in those last three years there is no comparison.

Less than a decade before its demise, Packard was competitive, at least based on these sales figures. Whether the seeds for its eventual destruction had already been sown is a matter for Packard “experts” to debate. Despite all I have read and written about Packard, I don’t think I am qualified to give an authoritative opinion on why Packard failed.

Regular readers know I am a fan of both makes. This picture of a 1948 Cadillac was the spark that got me blogging about cars almost every day.

I have written about Cadillac concept cars like the Elmiraj, the 1967 Cadillac Eldorado was part of Ultimate Garage 2.0, and my wonderful wife and I just purchased a 2015 Cadillac ATS.

Sadly, we can’t buy a relatively new Packard. The 1956 Caribbean convertible was also part of Ultimate Garage 2.0 and I have often written about Packard and other defunct American makes, although not so much in recent months.

See the source image

Cadillac vs Packard, too bad that’s not a current battle in the automotive marketplace.

#BabeRuth

#CadillacvsPackard

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Tropical Storm Tuesday

As I write this (at about 5:45 AM), the area where I live is under a Tropical Storm Warning. It is currently raining here although the winds have not yet increased. We are supposed to have seven or eight hours of winds with at least tropical storm force (>39 MPH) gusts.

As I have written before, we live in a neighborhood with many tall trees, including such trees on our lot, that make weather like this most nerve-wracking. I am imagining a worst-case scenario in which we suffer damage that forces us to put the attempt to sell our house on hold. Hey, I am a child of Holocaust survivors and I expect the worst to happen.

“Mother Nature” seems most cruel at present. “The virus” seems unstoppable and although most people who become infected survive, as age increases so does the mortality rate from it. I am not a young person. I believe that until safe and effective vaccines are widely available, we are all going to have to stay in “virus mode.” People who want to go back to normal now are simply clueless.

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Today is Roger Clemens’ birthday. If you don’t know–or even if you do–he is one of the most accomplished players in major league baseball history. Clemens won the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in his league seven times, more than any other pitcher in history.

He was credited with 354 wins in his career; any number 300 or higher is rare and significant. He is the only pitcher in history with 350+ wins and 4,500+ strikeouts. What is also significant is that Clemens is the only pitcher with 300+ career wins who is not a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Clemens has been dogged by accusations that he used steroids during his career. He was also indicted on charges, including perjury and contempt of Congress, stemming from testimony he gave to Congress about his use of such substances. His first trial ended in a mistrial and he was acquitted on all charges in his second trial.

The principle that people are innocent until proven guilty does not apply in the court of public opinion. To the extent that I have an opinion, I think it’s absurd that Clemens is not in the Hall of Fame. Even if he used steroids, those substances cannot turn an ordinary player into a Hall of Fame player.

I don’t know anything about the Basketball or Hockey Halls of Fame, but I think both the Baseball and Football Halls are tainted, primarily by the inclusion of players who don’t belong. However, I think the Baseball Hall of Fame is also tainted by the sanctimonious behavior of many of its voters.

From a Pinterest page, a picture of Roger Clemens:

See the source image

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I am currently re-reading Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company edited by the late, great Beverly Rae Kimes. She was known as the “First Lady of Automotive History.” The book was awarded the prestigious Cugnot prize for automotive writing.

The book is quite thorough and for someone like me with ADD tendencies it is virtually impossible for me to completely read it word for word. (The book is 828 pages long.) I am also overwhelmed by the desire to re-write history, for Packard to have merged with Nash (or maybe with Nash and Hudson) instead of with Studebaker and at least surviving until Chrysler’s purchase of American Motors in 1987.

I think it is human nature to form an alternate history scenario that ends much more pleasantly than real life. “What If?” is a common question. From the Packard forum (Hey, site moderators. Why doesn’t the Packard forum have a secure URL beginning with https?) a picture of a 1933 Dietrich-bodied V-12 convertible:

See the source image

From Streetside Classics a picture of a 1956 Packard Executive:

See the source image

Maybe some day…

#TropicalStormTuesday

#RogerClemens

#Packard

#BeverlyRaeKimes

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Update: I’m posting from my phone at 1:10 PM Eastern Time. We lost power at 12:30. In anticipation of such an event I surrounded the milk in the fridge with ice packs. Modern refrigerators are not designed to keep food cold very long without power.

I hope power outages are far less common in the desert. In any event we are going to have some type of backup power system.

Real Life Intrudes

Originally I was going to write a Throwback Thursday post about one of my favorite cartoons from childhood. However, with the news that the 2020 Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance has been cancelled, which probably means all of Monterey Car Week will be cancelled, I decided to skip the cartoon post. Gooding & Company cancelled its Pebble Beach auction, as well.

I understand the decision, of course, but with the events not scheduled to occur for almost four months this chain of events is, for me, a very sad intrusion of real life. Do the organizers have some knowledge about the progression of infection that most of us don’t have? Are they acting out of an abundance, some might say over-abundance, of caution?

While I would never take place in a demonstration, probably for any reason, but certainly not one designed to force authorities to reopen all businesses, I understand the sentiment. We are under siege and for many it probably seems self-inflicted.

If I had a reasonable estimate for the return to normal I could just count the days. No one knows, however, when all of this will end and for me, like for most people I suspect, it’s the not knowing that makes the situation even more unbearable.

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On this day in 1947 Packard produced its one millionth car, a model year 1948 (or Twenty-Second Series) Super Eight convertible. A quick entry of all of Packard’s yearly production numbers into a spreadsheet (Lotus 1-2-3, yeah!) confirmed that 1948 was the model year when Packard surpassed one million in total production. From Renderosity a picture of a 1948 Packard Super Eight convertible:

See the source image

History records that these were dubbed by many as “a pregnant elephant” or “the bathtub look.” History also records that Packard had healthy sales of nearly 100,000 vehicles for 1948 and almost 117,000 for 1949. Whether those sales figures were simply the post-war sellers market or that many buyers liked the looks of the car, awful nicknames notwithstanding, is impossible to know from this distance in time and space. Based on the figures I have, Packard’s market share nearly doubled from 1947 to 1948 and stayed well above the 1946-47 share in 1949, although its share did decline.

This is well-worn territory on Disaffected Musings, but it seemed appropriate (and a nice diversion) to note the one millionth Packard. They didn’t make it to two million, unfortunately.

#PebbleBeachConcoursD’EleganceCancellation

#TheOneMillionthPackard

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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The End Of The Marque

From The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company by James A. Ward:

“The news of Packard’s demise was announced on July 13 [1958, emphasis mine], but nobody at S-P [Studebaker-Packard] took responsibility for it. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal ran retrospective pieces, emphasizing Packard’s past, and explained its death by saying that S-P’s ‘destiny is tied to smaller cars.’ The Times pointed out that with Packard’s demise, only 16 remained of the 2,700 nameplates that had appeared since 1893. Business Week headlined its story ‘Ask The Man Who Owned One’ and compared the fall of Nash, Hudson, Packard, Willys, Crosley, and Frazer to the disappearance of automobile companies in the depression.”

For many Packard purists the 1957 and 1958 models were not Packards, but merely badge-engineered Studebakers. However, the fact that they were made at all was really an attempt to keep the name alive in the hopes the make/marque could be given a new identity, if not one wholly separate from Studebaker. No offense intended to those Packard aficionados who disdain the last two model years, but from favcars.com a picture of a 1958 Packard hardtop coupe, of which only 675 were made.

See the source image

Believe it or not I am not a big fan of quoting myself, but here is something I sent in an email to Bill James:

In the overwhelming return of my passion for automobiles I have noticed something similar [to the difficulty of dislodging successful entities from their perch]. While people like me lament the demise of makes like Studebaker and Packard, the writing was on the wall long before those companies folded. Even before World War II the top selling cars in America were almost always from The Big Three automakers. Maybe the lesson is that Studebaker must have actually made some good cars to last until 1966.

As 56packardman believes, maybe the slogan that the 1956 Packards were “the greatest Packards of all” was true. Even so, that wasn’t enough to save the name from extinction. Life outcomes are a function of endogenous AND exogenous forces. I believe that people who only credit one or the other are missing the point.

#TheEndOfPackard

#1958PackardHardtopCoupe

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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If you’re here after clicking on a link from the Packard or Studebaker forums (thanks, 56packardman), welcome. Even though not every post is about those cars, most posts are about automobiles and I am very proud of this blog. Please feel free to visit as often as you like. https://disaffectedmusings.com