Ultimately, Packard went Tango Uniform due to a series of egregious leadership mistakes, beginning with the failure to anticipate the tastes of the postwar market, which squandered their leadership of the luxury market. Packard was late to V-8, late to a fully automatic transmission, and late to modern envelope styling. While they overcame the challenges - and went the big 3 one better in both transmission and the innovative four-corner torsion bar suspension, the damage was done.

So, in spite of surviving WW2 with no debt, and nearly $30 million in cash and a lot of fat defense contracts (for an independent) Packard couldn't survive the peace. We could break the server debating the decisions of the mergers or lack thereof... but this is it in a nutshell:

Per Wikipedia: "It was hoped that Packard would benefit from Studebaker's larger dealer network. Studebaker hoped to gain through the additional strength that Packard's cash position could provide. Once both companies stabilized their balance sheets and strengthened their product line, the original plan devised by Packard president James J. Nance and Nash-Kelvinator Corporation president George W. Mason was that the combined Studebaker-Packard company would join a combined Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company in an all-new four-marque American Motors Corporation.

Had the complicated set of combinations gone through as planned, the new company would have immediately surpassed the Chrysler Corporation to become the third of America's "Big Three" automobile manufacturers. However, the sudden death of Mason in 1954 (succeeded by George W. Romney) and disputes over parts-sharing arrangements between the companies doomed any chance of completing the proposed merger. This failure to combine the companies effectively sealed the fates of all four."

And that's how the sweater got knit.