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Packard 1946-1958 Gold Portfolio (Brooklands Books)

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  • List Price: $32.95
  • Studio: Brooklands Books
  • Avg. Customer Rating: 5 Stars
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description: Packard's big cars were aimed at the luxury end of the market. As an independent producer there were difficulties in 1950s with intense competition from the Big Three (GM, Chrysler and Ford) in Detroit. The company announced the 1954 line as marking its re-establishment in the luxury car field, this included seven models. By 1958 Packard was struggling and merged with Studebaker, the models then being little more than rebadged Studebakers, a sad ending for a proud. This is a book of contemporary road tests, specification and technical data, new model introductions, long term tests, development. Models covered include: Clipper Eight, Station Sedan, Super de Luxe, Custom, Convertible, Sedan, 200, 300, 400, Pan American, Clipper, Cavalier, Patrician, Constellation, V8, Executive, Hawk.

Customer Reviews

 
Good Info on Post War Packards
Reviewer: James J. Varela (Sarasota, FL United States), Date of review: January 02, 2007
Avg. Customer Rating: 5 Stars
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Before WWII Packard was the American luxury car for conservitive old moneyed customers. The same can be said with Packard's look and sound alike competitor of Buffalo NY, The Pierce Arrow Automobile Co. Cadillacs like Duesenbergs were the brash glitzy cars for gangsters, movie stars, and lottery winners. When the depression hit most luxury car makers were too small to ride out the storm and failed. Packard chose to produce a Jr Series of cars called 110,120,160,180 which sold like ten cent hamburgers and allowed the company to survive the depression but at the cost of it's prestige image setting the stage for all problems the company faced after the war. This book is a good resource for anyone studying the sad last days of this American Automotive Icon. Many historians love to give DUESENBERG the title of the greatest American car ever but the title belongs to Packard. A little known piece of Packard History was in 1954 General Motors toyed with the idea of purchasing the troubled car maker and making it a premium brand above Cadillac. A shame this idea never came to be as when the market returned for premium cars in the late 1950's the market was quickly gobbled up by the Europeans. Packard's loss meant America has no real luxury car like England's Rolls Royce and Germany's Mercedes Benz or France's Bugatti.