Friday, June 10, 2016
Coulda hada V
Pointless speculation.
Packard had a chance to make the right move in 1945. Given the information available THEN, they should have switched from automobiles to aircraft. Packard had established itself as the BEST builder of giant piston aircraft engines, and was already moving into jets. Packard had a major jet contract with the Air Force in the Korean era.
Packard's car business was already doomed at that point, and everyone could see it. Cadillac owned the luxury market and there simply wasn't room for anyone else. There was even less room in the Buick caste where Packard had briefly made good money in the late '30s.
Rolls was in the same position in 1945 and made the correct decision. After WW2, Rolls was ... and STILL IS ... a major builder of jet engines. Cars were a hobby, jets were the day job.
If Packard had focused on aircraft it could have pioneered the corporate jet market before Lear and Gulfstream, with the cachet of its still-memorable cars and perhaps the skills of its old coachbuilders working on the interior of the plane.
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Later note: In fact Packard's aircraft skills did survive, but not under the Packard name or Packard purposes. When Curtiss Wright Aviation LBO's the merged company in '56, they were ostensibly trying to rescue the company but really stealing Packard's aircraft tooling and engineering.
Labels: Alternate universe
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