Automotive History Question

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>>1845198
In the early 50s, Nash was rising. Same with Studebaker. Hudson was up there, but it was in decline as the Step-Downs were brilliant when first introduced in 1948 but their unibody construction was impossible to update with the yearly trends that were overtaking the American auto industry at the time. Packard was in steep decline; they had fucked their brand identity with stupid decisions after WW2 and were about to lose their market share to Cadillac.

As for your second question, if Mason had survived there wouldn't have been a direct "competition" between AMC and Detroit makes head to head. George Romney followed Mason's plans as much as he could, so you'd have seen about the same things happen. Packard would have obviously been the "luxury" brand, Studebaker might have wound up the performance/midrange one, and Rambler would have taken the lower share instead of Rambler taking the latter two on its own.

AMC thrived until Romney left to run for Governor of Michigan because they didn't actually try to compete with the Big Three. They made compacts and they made them well, so they got to undercut all of Detroit with a product none of them were offering. AMC only started floundering when the new chairman decided he wanted to compete with Detroit head-to-head, which ended horribly. It had also already ruined AMC's pedigree for compacts by the time the oil embargo rolled around, which cost them a lot of business. If Mason lived, he would have probably ensured that particular switch never happened.

>t. someone who appreciates AMC and grieves for what could have been

>>1845254
Also, it was incredible how lucky AMC was with their decision to end big car production in 1957.

>decide to cut the flagship models and go all-in on midsize and compacts in the summer
>people say AMC went insane
>before the year ends the country enters a recession
>the Big Three's 1958 offerings of gaudy chrome-laden barges get put on ice
>AMC's economical smaller cars suddenly get in high demand

Frankly, it was criminal how they managed to squander their reputation for economical cars so damn quickly. Other manufacturers would have killed to have "Our Brand=Saves You Money" implanted in the American consciousness as well as Rambler managed to do with the 1958 model year.

>>1845254
So they still would have killed Nash and Hudson?

>>1845288
It really is a sad story.

>>1845320
Probably. Their brand names didn't convey the kind of car they wanted to sell, and by the end the big cars were the only different offerings the two had: Nash Ramblers and Hudson Ramblers were identical. Why have two makes with two different dealer networks competing for the exact same business?

Hope this helped you, OP. I need to head to bed.

>>1845346
Thanks, Anon. This helped a lot.