American Motors Corporation
In January 1954, Nash-Kelvinator Corporation began acquisition of the Hudson Motor Car Company (in what was called a merger). The new corporation would be called American Motors Corporation. (An earlier corporation with the same name, co-founded by Louis Chevrolet, had existed in New Jersey from 1916 through 1922 before merging into the Bessemer–American Motors Corporation.)
George W. Mason
The smaller automakers responded to their shrinking market shares by conducting formal and informal merger talks. Willys and Kaiser merged in 1953. Mason brought together Nash and the Hudson Motor Car Company to cut costs and strengthen their sales organizations to meet the intense competition from the Big Three. This merger occurred on May 1, 1954 to form American Motors Corporation (AMC). At the same time, he tried to bring Studebaker and Packard into AMC. He had informal discussions with James J. Nance of Packard to outline his strategic vision for competing with the Big Three. An agreement was reached for parts-sharing arrangements between AMC and Packard and the new Packard V8 engine and Packard's Ultramatic automatic transmission would be used in the 1955 Nash Ambassador and Hudson Hornet models. In July 1954, Packard acquired Studebaker.