The May 17, 1952 issue of "Business Week" devoted a full-page to Nance joining Packard. The headline read: "Nance's Idea: Merge Packard." The newsweekly reported that: "Nance intends to make Packard the nucleus of a big new auto company - big enough to join the Big Three, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford - in a new Big Four. Nance's idea is to merge Packard with one or more of the other independent auto producers, most likely Nash-Kelvinator. It was on the understanding that he could tackle something like this that Nance took the Packard job."

"Putting Packard together would be one way to cure some of the problems," Business Week concluded, "as well as add to the number of dealer outlets and widen the line. Such a union might sound attractive, too, to an outfit like Nash. If not, there are other possibilities. The Detroit Athletic Club bar has cooked up many a merger that never came off. But no one should be surprised to learn any day that Hudson, Studebaker, Nash, Packard or Willys really was involved in a merger made up of some combination of those named."

So -- while Langworth did not know about the four-way plan until his interview with Nance in the 1970s, it WAS being discussed around Detroit in the early 1950s.

An interesting article, but that last part about the Neon sign is malarkey. Read Leon Dixon's article in the Cormorant #153 (4th Quarter 2013) for the details.

I'm sure that the files with the dealer invoices were tossed many years ago, but most of the scrapbooks (with newspaper clippings) were saved. They are now in the possession of Packards International in Santa Ana, Calif. Perhaps your car was featured an in article being delivered...?

All four Panthers. even the last two updated with the 1955 rear ends, still have their original straight-eights.

The first 1955 Caribbean #5588-1001 was found by its current owner on a used car lot in New York in the 1960s. It still shows up at various shows in the Empire State.

Yes - GC promised 200,000 in 1946-47. On October 4, 1954, at the press conference announcing the S-P "merger," Nance said "Our schedules call for doubling our percentage of the automobile market in 1955." At that moment, S-P held about 2.4 percent of the market. Nance forecast total auto sales for 1955 at 5.4 million. So, that would make it around 260,000 sales for Studebaker and Packard. The headline in the New York "Herald Tribune" the next day read: "'55 Studebaker-Packard Aim: Build and Sell 300,000 Autos."

On pages 205 and 209 of Automobile Quarterly's "Buick - A Complete History" by Dunham and Gustin (published 1980) are three photographs showing a 1938 and a 1939 Buick being tested at the PPG. Buick even rented the Packard "Towing Dynamometer". Copyright issues prevent me from posting the photos.

On the passenger-side of the engine, if the oil pump has six-bolts, then it's a 356-cid. (The 282, 288, 327 has four-bolts).

To see a photo of the 1954 Packard bodies, sitting on shipping trailers outside of the Conner Avenue plant, ready to be trucked over to East Grand, read John Lauter's article "Conner, Briggs, and Chrysler" in the Spring 2007 issue of The Packard Cormorant (#126). The photo is copyrighted by DaimlerChrysler (at the time), and so cannot be scanned and posted.

There was a fellow in the east coast who had a collection of five (5)! 1955 Caribbeans at the same time. (This was about 20 ears ago.) None were running and several were nothing more than parts cars. They were scattered to the winds after he died in 1999. This may have been one of them.