Automobiles that were at the pinnacle of their time.
MACAULEY’S GHOST KILLS PACKARD’S LAST CHANCE Barely five years after Packard invested in a new plant to manufacture bodies for the One Twenty, Macauley was outsourcing body production for the Clipper to Briggs Manufacturing Company. Although this was justified at the time as an expedient to get the car into production because Packard’s own facilities…
ALVAN MACAULEY SQUANDERS PACKARD’S CAPITAL, WITH LASTING EFFECT In his Octane magazine column, Jay Leno recently wrote that “one of the final nails in the coffin [of Packard] was bringing in James Nance – a man with absolutely no experience of automobiles who came from a background of selling appliances.” It’s a common myth, one…
JAMES NANCE: THE RIGHT MAN ARRIVES TOO LATE James Nance would become Packard’s president on May 1, 1952. By then, the image of Cadillac as the prestige American automobile was cemented in public perception. On November 5, 1953, a new Broadway production opened at the Belasco Theatre in New York City: “The Solid Gold Cadillac.” …
The One-Twenty vs. the “Senior” Model Packards Those who attribute Packard’s demise to introduction of the One-Twenty model in 1935 indulge in the fallacy that corporations fail from one factor which, had it been different, would have affected a different destiny. The real reason Packard died was not the One-Twenty. In truth, the One-Twenty saved…
One of the most beautiful of all Duesenburgs was owned by a star of stage and screen who was a legend in his time, but today is almost forgotten. This is the story of “Bojangles” and the JN Duesenburg. Of all Duesenburgs, the JN models have the most graceful and flowing lines. These were also…