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Posted By:
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David Holcombe
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Posted On:
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Thursday June 14, 2012 at 12:32 AM
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Message:
Very little seems to be going on here at the Forum, so how about some comments on a good book.
 I just returned from a couple of weeks on the NC coast (no computer!) and while relaxing read an older book that I recently purchased- James A. Ward's THE FALL OF THE PACKARD MOTOR CAR COMPANY (Stanford University Press, 1995). In some 300 pages, including some photos, Dr. Ward traced the history of Packard from its beginnings, always searching for the beginnings of the end. Carefully he evaluated the means by which President Alvan Macauley brought Packard through the Great Depression by building "Episcopalian cars for Methodists." The gamble of an all new model, the Clipper, showed that Packard by 1941 was emphasizing only this middle segment of the market, and then, before the Clipper could have much of an impact, came World War II.The post-war years make up the bulk of Dr. Ward's work. His emphasis is upon upper level management, financing, government contracts, and market penetration. He clearly follows the reasons for the failure to merge with Nash, closely studied by Packard management in 1949, and then he traces the failure of the merger with Studebaker. He includes the abortive involvement with Mercedes.This work avoids the "history in hindsight" technique of showing how Packard could have survived, a method which presupposes management by prophets instead of businessmen. Dr. Ward finds no single individual as being responsible for the fall of Packard. Instead he shows the progression of events both inside the company and throughout the American, even the world, economy that brought about the end.While labor relations is mentioned here and there, this work contains little about the men on the line. Yet one of the most potent passages in the book describes the dealer dissatisfaction with the last gasp 1955 models that were so poorly assembled that only long-time Packard adherents would purchase them. The much better assembled but only lightly face lifted 1956 Packards and Clippers found few buyers. Obviously, the production lines were troubled.The very few thousand 1957 and 1958 "Packardbakers" were only a clumsy attempt to keep alive a name that no longer had meaning for the car-buying public. James Ward's research and good writing shows why. I strongly recommend this book to those interested in Packard, the American automobile, and the American industrial system.
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 | Very little seems to be going on here at the Forum, so how about some comments on a good book. by David Holcombe #14160
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