Survey says: Bring Back the grille on Packards
The 1948-’50 Packard design did not go over well with longtime Packard customers, who thought the design lost some of the Packard mystique of quality and individuality.
By 1910, the Packard brand was rising in the luxury car market. It established itself in quality, performance and appearance by 1904 with its uniquely shaped radiator design that eventually became the grille outline that just about anyone —- car owners or not — could identify at a glance. It was Packard’s major trait of distinction.
This design element was fondly remembered in a special professional study done among owners and non-owners of Packards as rumors about fresh, new models were pending. Some hoped the overall appearance was distinguished in a new way for 1951. But, honestly, they had hoped much the same from 1948 through 1950 — a design era that didn’t go over well with Packard owners.
Yes, the Packard design team wanted a note of similarity in the new grille, but much broader and bolder. The public was teased as to what it could be.
Was Packard’s frontal design its most favored aspect? The summary of a professional survey pressed the point as 1950 dawned.
One former Packard owner said, “They slowly started to cheapen the cars. Even my ‘39 Packard didn’t have the quality. Cheap material is something you never saw on a Packard before... Frankly, we really miss our old Packards.” He told a survey-taker, “I was really anxious to talk to you to tell you all of this, because I have kind of crazy sentimentality for Packard.
“My job is promoting new inventions, so I know what research costs. That’s why it hurts to see (1949 Packards) come off the line after they once had such a perfect product. If Packard had the courage, they’d go out and get their trademark (radiator-grille design) back.”
Owning a Packard, even up to the early 1940s, was something special. The design seemed timeless.
“In the old days, when you drove in (for) Packard service, you thought you were driving into a yacht club. Men in clean white coats, doors opened for you, etc. … there used to be only one sign — (to be seen at a dealership) — ‘PACKARD.’
“Now the (Packard) honeymoon is over.”
A woman was interviewed. She and her husband had owned a 1948 Packard, but at the time of the interview, they took the wheel of a 1949 Buick. Her husband had recently been a Packard salesman.
“He had been with the Packard sales organization ... for 23 years … in the Packard boom years. He left the organization to join Buick when (new management) took over” at the dealership.
“I still think that Packards are wonderful cars mechanically, and so does my husband … he sold three (Buick) cars last Saturday morning — something that isn’t really out of the ordinary,” but she added that, “at Packard ... three deliveries in one whole day is almost unheard of for one man.
“... A lot of Packard’s trouble today is involved in appearance,” she asserted. To her, the recent body design “just looks like a big shell that has been dropped down on the chassis. The car has no individuality — something that has always characterized the old-time Packards … I like the lines of (the 1941 Packards) better than those of the new ones.
“In the old days, Packard show rooms were classy with plush carpet and nattily dressed salesmen, usually with carnations in their lapels, etc. … In the old days, every sale (my husband) made was elaborately handled with all the trimmings. People around here really go for that kind of treatment … you’ve got to treat every prospect like a valuable client.
“My husband ... still has a very deep feeling for the Packard automobile. You can’t spend 23 years of your life selling a product and then just turn your back on it and forget it. We both honestly hate to see Packard fading like it is ... especially when this should be one of their strongest markets.”
What hastened talk about a new design came after a three-year span of the bulbous-design Packard promoted for 1948 through 1950. A big dip in sales came in that last year, and even by 1949 the handwriting on the wall pointed to change.
Briskly in the 1930s, George Christopher had risen in the Packard organization at its Detroit headquarters. His magic flute was the Packard One-Twenty, a masterful Packard range in the upper medium-price market, similar to LaSalle’s companion status to Cadillac. Some folks followed Christopher as a piper playing sweet sounds of profits by introducing the Packard Six (later named the Model 110) as an entry level Packard. But did the tune last?
By late 1949, the once-magic tune was no longer sweet. Christopher’s grip on the company presidency slipped away. He took retirement grudgingly, then went to his farm where no one could boss him.
In 1950, Packard hoped to recover with an all-new design for 1951. Time would tell if better management could revive the once-hallowed brand, regardless of its trademark grille.
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