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The Packard dealer, home of the three-pointed star? When Mercedes-Benz Was Sold American
Filed under: Miscellaneous, Mercedes-Benz
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If you had sufficient money in the bank in 1958, let’s say, and you decided that you just had to have a shining example of German engineering gracing your driveway. No, not the one from Bavaria, or the cute “people’s car” from Wolfsburg. You want Stuttgart’s finest, with its iconic three-pointed star staring at you from the end of the hood.
You might think that you would go down to your nearest Mercedes-Benz dealer, as you would do today. However, there was no such thing in the United States in 1958. Instead, you would find the nearest Packard-Studebaker dealer, and they would be the ones with the captivating 190 SL you’ve been eyeing for so long. (There are some sample advertisements of the period posted here.) The year 1958 proved to be a turning point in the history of some of the automotive brands in the U.S.; Packard succumbed to red ink that year, and a small little outfit from Japan started selling “Toyopets” in the U.S. (guess what they now sell?). A few years later, in 1966, the last Studebaker would make its appearance. Mercedes-Benz must either have seen the handwriting on the wall vis-à-vis Studebaker, or else sales must have picked up enough by 1963 for the German automaker to open up its own North American sales arm. From then on, Mercedes-Benz U.S.A. set up its own dealer network. Car dealers in the late 1950s often sold other brands besides their primary one; Buick sold G.M.’s German brand, Opel, while Pontiac—not to be outdone—sold G.M.’s British brand, Vauxhall (suitably reworked for left-hand drive, one assumes). This was at a time when Open and Vauxhall had completely separate model lines (today, their cars are the same, distinguished only by a little badge engineering).
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