In 1953, Packard brought back the Clipper name to stake out a place in the mid-priced field competing against Buick, Oldsmobile, and Chrysler.
James J. Nance (1900-1984) came to the Packard Motor Car Company in May of 1952 not as an engineer or an automobile man, but as a marketing specialist who’d transformed the Hotpoint brand at General Electric into a major player in home appliances. In his new role as president, he had a clear mandate to perform the same magic at Packard, which was then rapidly losing ground against the major manufacturers of the Motor City.
As Nance saw it, while the lower-priced junior models were Packard’s biggest sellers, they were bleeding away image and prestige from the premium products that had made the company’s reputation. His solution was to split the automaker into two separate brands: Packard for the top luxury market and Clipper in the mid-priced range. When dealers balked at the plan—it was the small-ticket models that kept their doors open and the lights on—Nance compromised. The new product line would be called Packard Clipper, with plans to completely separate the two brands at some point down the road.
Introduced in November of 1952, the new mid-priced line was essentially the former 200/250 series of 1951-52 rebadged as the Clipper, a familiar Packard name from 1941-47. “Big car value at medium car cost” was the slogan, and it was a fair description of the product’s mission as well: Take the prestigious Packard name into the mid-range market to face off against Buick, Chrysler, and the rest. Prices ranged from $2,544 to $2,745, in contrast to the senior Packards where pricing began well above $3,000, and directly on top of the Buick Special.
Two trim levels, Clipper Special and Deluxe Clipper, shared a pair of body shells, a four-door Touring Sedan and a two-door post Club Sedan, both on a 122-in wheelbase chassis. Powering the base Special was a 288 cubic-inch L-head straight eight with 150 hp, while the Deluxe received a 327 CID straight eight with 160 hp. The senior Packards that year also featured a 327 CID eight, confusingly, but this was a different engine with nine main bearings rather the Clipper’s less costly five main-bearing unit.
The Clipper series sold nearly 64,000 cars in 1953, a solid improvement over the old 200/250 series and more than 70 percent of Packard’s volume that year. However, it was far less than required to support Vance’s plan to carry the company on lower-priced, high-volume products. In 1954 Packard sales tanked, Clipper included, and also that year came the unfortunate buyout of Studebaker. In 1956 Nance finally got his wish to spin off Clipper as a stand-alone brand, but by then Packard was nearly finished in Detroit. The 1957 Packards, rebadged Studebakers assembled in South Bend, Indiana, all wore Clipper emblems, and there the Packard Clipper story ends.
Such a shame that the Clipper brand wasn’t continued after the war and used as the lower range line instead of waiting until 1953. The Packard image was seriously diluted after 1951 with the 200 base series (even a business coupe!), and the Clipper would have provided a greater separation between the lower-priced and higher-priced models
Postwar, Packard executives decided that the highest priority was developing an in-house automatic transmission to rival GM’s Hydra-Matic. The Packard Ultramatic transmission introduced 1949, cost millions of dollars to develope, then millions more in warranty costs, completely draining engineering funds that otherwise should have gone into tooling their V8 engine.
By the time that magnificent, over-engineered Packard OHV V8 finally debuted for the 1955 model year, every competitor- including low-priced brands like Chevrolet and Plymouth- offered a modern V8. Packard’s multi-year Ultramatic delay/disaster turned a world-class engine and ultimately Packard itself into a footnote, as the company lacked the prestige and finances to survive…
The Utica engine plant disaster was the final, devastating blow to Packard’s physical production line. While executives were busy playing financial chess with the Studebaker merger, the physical manufacturing line at Utica, Michigan, dissolved into absolute chaos. The facility was originally a state-of-the-art military defense plant built by Packard to manufacture J-47 jet engines during the Korean War. When the Eisenhower administration abruptly canceled Packard’s military contracts and handed them to General Motors, Packard panicked. Rushing to meet the 1955 launch date, quality control for the new V8 engine was non-existent. Because Packard’s cash reserves were completely evaporated by the Ultramatic warranty claims, they couldn’t afford to idle the line. Packard chose to keep building and shipping defective engines, telling dealerships to “fix them in the field”.
In 1953, President Eisenhower appointed Charles E. “Engine Charlie” Wilson as his Secretary of Defense. Wilson’s immediate previous job? CEO of General Motors.
During the Korean War, Packard had heavily invested in the massive Utica, Michigan plant to build J-47 jet engines for the military. These defense contracts were keeping Packard’s bleeding automotive finances afloat.
The moment the war wound down, Wilson explicitly slashed Packard’s highly lucrative jet-engine contracts and re-routed that defense revenue directly into GM. This single move vaporized the cash cushion Packard desperately needed.
“Engine Charlie” famously testified during his Senate confirmation hearing that “for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.” The moment he took control of the Pentagon, he proved it…
The political hit/industrial assination orchestrated by “Engine Charlie” Wilson did not just destroy Packard, it simultaneously decapitated Studebaker’s highly profitable military truck operations, forcing both crippled companies into their fatal 1954 desperation merger.
Just like the Utica jet-engine contract cut, the Pentagon under Wilson abruptly canceled Studebaker’s multi-million dollar contracts for the M35 “Deuce and a Half” 2.5-ton cargo trucks. The Pentagon then re-awarded those exact heavy truck procurement contracts to GMC (General Motors Truck and Coach Division).
Articles like these are why I always visit Mac’s.