Year of production: 1900- 1958

Brand features: once very competitive American luxury cars

Reasons for disappearance: strategic mistakes of the company/poor competitiveness of mid-level cars.

Packard is one of the most important luxury car brands in the last century. The brand was born in Ohio, USA. It was founded in 1900 * * by james ward packard, William Dodd packard and partner george louis Weiss. After the establishment of the company, many classic cars were produced, but later they gradually declined and faded out of people's sight due to a series of decision-making mistakes.

1898, James, one of packard's founders, bought a Winton car (the first car brand sold in America, 1962 closed). At that time, he was not satisfied with the design of this model, so James wrote a letter to Alexander Winton, the founder of Winton manufacturer, complaining and making some suggestions. However, alexander winton's attitude surprised James. He rejected James' views one by one and asked James in a provocative tone if he could build a better car.

It is against this background that James joined hands with two investors in anger and launched his first car on June 6th 1899, 165438. Then, in September, 1900 formally established Ohio Automobile Company. Because James's products were excellent at that time, he quickly won a huge market. Because of his reputation, at that time, many manufacturers launched trademark names with the words Ohio. James changed the name to Packard Automobile Company in 1902 to distinguish it from these trademarks.

From the beginning, packard's design introduced many technologies, including modern steering wheel and the first batch of 12 cylinder engines. At that time, the price of Packard was $2,600, which was definitely a luxury at that time. You know, at that time, the price of the same class of cars was only a few hundred dollars, and the most was 1000 yuan, but even so, Packard did not lack customers.

At that time, packard produced trucks and luxury cars. 19 12, a packard truck loaded with three tons of goods traveled continuously from new york to San Francisco for 46 days. In the same year, packard established a maintenance workshop in the city of 104. By the 1930s, Packard had been known for its expensive and competitive American cars. At that time, Packard had been sold to 6 1 countries, and the income of 1.928 reached 2 1.889 million dollars.

After entering the 1930s, the global economy entered a period of depression, and Packard began to produce some low-priced models. 1935, it launched the first model with a price lower than 1000 USD-Packard120, which tripled the sales of packard in 1935.

By the second world war, packard, like many automobile manufacturers, turned to producing military materials, mainly producing fighters and marine engines. After World War II, Packard continued to produce cars. The first model recovered at that time was Clipper. At that time, this model was positioned in the mid-level car market, but the advanced Packard model did not resume production in time.

Because the price difference between mid-level cars was getting smaller and smaller at that time, and packard didn't resume the production of luxury models in time, the noble temperament of packard's previous high-priced models completely different from that of low-priced models disappeared a little, which made the previous luxury car consumers very sad. However, packard's management did not realize this, and they established the dominant position of mid-size cars in the company's production in policy. What is even more puzzling is that they have also decided to enter the taxi and fleet transportation market, which has a great momentum of drawing a line with their previous self.

As a result, it is conceivable that Packard suffered a fiasco in both the mid-range market and the high-end market. The original loyal high-end customers abandoned it without hesitation, while the low-end market is not a considerable market and cannot make up for the losses in the luxury car market. At that time, the mid-level car market in American auto market was mainly occupied by Ford, Cadillac and Chrysler.

It's not that Packard doesn't want to return to the luxury car market. In the 1950s, they introduced the Caribbean convertible and the Noble 400 sedan, but their sales gradually shrank. Throughout the 1950s, Pacard struggled, getting closer and closer to bankruptcy every day, and finally had to stop production on 1959.

It is worth mentioning that in 1995, two Americans named Roy and Barbara also bought the right to use the name packard and launched a brand-new V 12 luxury car, hoping to attract investors' attention. They posted information about the new car on the internet, but the response was very small, and then it went away.