Wonderful images from a gentleman with an incredible talent. Scroll forward and back to see Packard and other marques.

https://www.auto-visuals.com/cars-that-never-were-gallery/h13q1qdwzb531v11tjw5y4vdtxmnii

Here's a front view of '65 Ambassador and Packard mod that has Request grill and Predictor hidden lights. It's always fun to show lamps on at night.

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Here an ad of a '66 Ambassador modified only to swap Ambassador with Packard and add the famous tagline. OK the upholstery isn't quite Packard but the message is the type a mid-sized luxury Packard could have used.

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Such a car could have resulted had Roy Abernethy, president of AMC, bought the rights to Packard in early 1962 when Studebaker dropped the name from Studebaker-Packard. The Curbside Classic article explains what was going on at the time with the mid-sized market and mentions the rise of Mercedes-Benz as a new kind of luxury car. Here is a sampling of ads for its 1965 models. Very interesting messaging.

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"What do you think of adapting the center vertical grille to the front of a 68 Chrysler 300, where the proportions are a bit better balanced?"

Well, so far all these pics are of actual cars with no mods on my part. Where I was going was the idea of adding a vertical grill to the Ambassador.

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That Ambassador sold well and there's a really good article on Curbside Classics about why mid-sized cars became so popular in the Sixties.

https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-who-killed-the-big-american-car/

Dick Teague, who joined AMC in 1959, seemed to be guided by Packard design throughout the Sixites. This Ambassador concept had the familiar Request grill, modified to be more brand generic.

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It always struck me how similar the rear and sides of the '65 Rambler Ambassador were to the '56 Packard and planned '57 models. You can see it in the slender cathedral taillights, rear trim and body side indent, which on the Cross Country wagon even have the familiar side trim. You can also see the V from the former Circle-V motif near the decklid key hole.

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Re: your request for Request, request you consider this Request. Has hardtop styling and fixed B-pillar, 5 inch longer rear overhang, '56 headlight domes and high pockets. Was also a possibility for '56, might have saved Packard's rear had they productionized it and offered a coupe and convertible too.

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That gets into Packard's ability to invest in those years, because the 1-1/2 inch body insert between front and rear doors didn't permit a 4-door hardtop. One solution was to reverse-hinge the rear doors and add length to them to cover the insert, that's the mock-up Creative did, which also included removal of beltline/putting handles on the body sides. The roof was from the Four Hundred, which meant 5 inches less rear legroom than Patrician. From what I've been able to deduce, the '56 Sedan DeVille had a unique roof that was longer the CdV but shorter than 62, so rear legroom probably fell in between too.

I think Packard had to wait for all-new body to do a hardtop sedan. In meantime they could have added 5 inches length to the Four Hundred roof, created new window frames and offered a car with hardtop-like style but with a fixed B-pillar.

Since they would have been doing new window frames anyway, for a few dollars more they could have removed the beltline and put the handles on the doors. Almost every clay model leading up to the '51s had handles on doors, it was only near end of design phase that Engineering forced the high pockets. And to really spice things up they could have used Four Hundred's end panel between decklid and backlight, which would have added 5 inches of rear overhang. That would have made for a car that could fairly well run against SdV and Lincoln.

Really what they needed was an all-new body for '56, which means the '55s should have been warmed over '54s except for the V8 and Twin-Ultramatic. A 127 wb hardtop sedan with fixed B-pillar could have been readied by Spring '53 just when Packard needed the sales injection, had Nance seen the opportunity. That model would have been very helpful for 54 and 55.

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