AHC: make a surviving Packard corporation the peer of or superior to Mercedes

Can't help imagining a sports car with a slightly detuned Merlin...
Jay Leno has a not very detuned Blastolene Special with a Continental AV1790 V-12
With twin turbos and fuel injection, has around 1600HP
jay-lenos-tank-car.jpg
 
Look around and along with luxury automobiles you'll see Mercedes vans, trucks, and buses. Going back to the 1920s, Packard also made trucks and if I recall correctly, at least furnished the chassis for a number of one-off buses. So: how do we go about (1) having Packard survive to today, and (2) produce the same spectrum of vehicles that Mercedes does IOTL, effectively making the two peers at a minimum?
Studebaker went into receivership in early 1933 after overpaying for the White Motor Company, thanks to some major changes though by the end of the year they were back in profit with roughly five-and-a-half million dollars in working capital and over two hundred new dealerships. Aid from Lehman Brothers meant that they were fully refinanced and reorganised in only two years by early 1935. So what if Packard spying what they think is a deal make a successful offer for Studebaker in 1933? It means that Packard gain Studebaker and their subsidiaries White Motors, which brings with it truck and bus manufacturing, and Pierce-Arrow which was a luxury car manufacturer with a reputation of a similar level or even superior to Packard.

Studebaker allows Packard to sell across a wider price spectrum as shown by the short-lived Light Eight, the major challenge is to abort the introduction of the One-Twenty, or at least with it wearing a Packard badge. By all means use the new production methods associated with the One-Twenty across all your marques and models to help cut costs but don't move Packard downmarket as once that happens it's almost impossible to move back up. Instead Pierce-Arrow will be sacrificed by introducing a One-Twenty type, at the same time top of the range models can be donated to the government for use as a presidential limousine - use an advertising tag line along the lines of "If it's good enough for the White House it's good enough for my house" or similar, gifted to selected socially exclusive types, and a small fleet established in Hollywood to loan to the studios for filming in the right kind of films to help maintain the reputation as long as possible.

According to the Genocide during WWII Packard, Studebaker, and White were ranked 18th, 28th, and 54th respectively in the value of wartime production contracts for US companies, now that doesn't look at how much they actually made on the contracts but it's likely more than enough profits to comfortably set themselves up for the post-war. Pierce-Arrow by that point will have likely lost its position as a luxury vehicle brand so I'd say shut it down and sell off the facilities, Packard concentrates on being a smaller production prestige marque which means quality and technological advancement, Studebaker handled the middle to upper-middle of the market, and White continues with trucks and buses. Later on it can be rebadged as Packard if you directly want to mirror Mercedes. Just like TheMann I think the best course of action later on would be for Packard to join AMC when it forms in 1954, in order to retain its reputation whilst Studebaker and White are merged into the new company it remains a distinct subsidiary like Lincoln with Ford.
 
I'm surprised Packard is still making the Twelve at this point-12-cylinder engines aren't exactly known for good gas mileage, and I'd imagine that the oil crunches of the 70s would cause Packard to drop the V12.

Unless of course, the name doesn't refer to the number of cylinders.:coldsweat:

The Packard V12 of this world is considerably smaller in displacement than competing Ford and GM V8s because it doesn't need to be huge. Packard V12s shrink from 7 litres to about 6 litres by the 1980s, staying there into the future. ITTL's 2017 Packard Twelve's and Phantom's V12 is a 6.4-liter V12, five valves per cylinder driven by four overhead cams, making 520 horsepower in the Twelve and 565 horsepower in the Phantom.
 
The Packard V12 of this world is considerably smaller in displacement than competing Ford and GM V8s because it doesn't need to be huge. Packard V12s shrink from 7 litres to about 6 litres by the 1980s, staying there into the future. ITTL's 2017 Packard Twelve's and Phantom's V12 is a 6.4-liter V12, five valves per cylinder driven by four overhead cams, making 520 horsepower in the Twelve and 565 horsepower in the Phantom.

As I brought up in the Slant-4 thread, a V-12 would be just the thing to meet NOx emission limits in the '70s, as the smaller bores than a V-8 of the same displacement have better flame propagation, and won't need to the nasty camshaft timing trick to meet emission targets. So a big 427 CI V-12 wouldn't lose as much power as say, an Olds 455
 
I wonder if the surviving and thriving of AMC will caused the death of Rootes Group in UK and delay the entering of Mitsubishi to the US market for a bit.

The reason was Chrysler did not saw the gap for their captive import to enter, being swamped by Hornet, successful Vega and it will not throw money away like Ford did to Pinto either.

Without cash injection from Chrysler takeover, Rootes died, taking Hillman, Humber and Sunbeam with it. The fate of Simca in France is uncertain ITTL.

And without the head start as Dodge Colt import, Mitsubishi will need to find a way to enter the US without Chrysler's umbrella.
 
With the price wars that destroyed Studebaker and forced the creation of American Motors - which is where I'd start, with all of the independents - Nash, Hudson, Kaiser-Willys, Studebaker and Packard - all becoming part of American Motors at the company's formation in 1954.
I'd wonder if Stude wasn't in such awful financial shape their being part of the deal wouldn't be as big a mistake as it was for Packardbaker. Or was that a product of "price warring" with the Big 3?

I wonder if you can boost Packard's fortunes by going back further (tho that may end up only pushing the date for joining *AMC into the '60s, when all you get is dead weight...). Namely, introduce the *110 as a LaSalle fighter, or aimed at the entry-level Cad, instead of at the Buick price point, as OTL: so, priced more like $2400 than $1000. You'd have to accept sales less than half OTL's (which were pretty sensational), but greater profitability per unit (much greater than OTL)--& none of the undermining of the marque OTL's 110 inflicted. If this *110 succeeded, perhaps the "senior" Packards could be given the same treatment. (Yes, that pushes ASB, given management's attitude; it might take a few years of success with the *110 to persuade them.)

Follow this success with WW2's profits, Merlins & trucks (which OTL Packard built few of, AFAIK). Then, around 1950, introduce the *Clipper (much the same as the *110) & *Panther (beating Ford to the T-bird & Chevy to the 'vette, also engineered for production, as the *110). Hire Larry Shinoda? Iacocca? Jerry Hirshberg? You'd also need to have Packard drop the flathead straight 8s much sooner than OTL.

If you want a true peer of DBAG, you really need a Packard Grand Prix & Le Mans program...which AFAIK nobody at Packard contemplated.
 
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