Packard Forum Index » Studebaker Built Packards (1957 - 58)

Was there any convertibles made after the Caribbean? in 1958 ?

No. In 57 Packard's offering was the Studebaker based sedan and station wagon only. In 58 the sedan, wagon, hardtop and the Hawk. Stude had stopped making convertibles in the early 50's -- 52 I think -- so no convertible bodies wee available in 57 or 58. S-P didn't start making convertibles again until the 59 or 60 Studebaker Lark. Packard was gone by then.

Not entirely true. No production convertibles but there was one made in 1958 - ostensibly for a senior engineer at S-P. It's in the museum in Dayton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1958_Packard_Hawk_Convertible.jpg

I stand corrected although I was thinking production.

Sure hope that car looks better in real time than it does in the picture. Wonder how much strengthening and weight they had to add to the frame to make it work on a convertible. IIRC, the coupe frames were known to crack at the front crossmember and was never significantly changed.

Hi,

I hadn't heard that. I don't think I've ever heard it mentioned in any of the threads I've read about chassis over on the Studebaker Driver's Club forum. Could be true though, I've only been back to the automotive world for the past couple of years after a 38 year hiatus.

My P.H. was literally used as a pickup truck by the original owner for more than 50 years. The guy had a tractor repair shop. When I bought it, the interior and exterior of the car looked like the outside and interior of most pickup trucks looked. There were actually dried out dead pigeons under the front seat! Inner control arm bushings had worn out ions ago and the holes those were turned into were egg shaped from decades of driving around without any grease. I expected to find the frame all tweaked and cracked. When I got the body off, got the frame home and tore it all the way down I found no cracks and, according to my lazer level, it's straight as an arrow despite all that abuse.

Maybe mine is the exception to the rule.

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Mike,

It would be nice to hear more about the car as you work on it. Is the pic a recent one? It doesn't look bad enough to be in the original shape you described. Let us know if you start a blog on the Project Blogs forum.

I just noticed how the Hawk sort of preserved some of the original outline of the famous Packard grill. As I've mentioned elsewhere, if you look at the '55 and '56 models, the grill itself follow the lines of the old grille with the hump in the middle and the flat sections at each end. Check out how the Hawk uses the hood scallops and drops them down under the headlights, so instead of a grill outline holding the old styling cue, the body itself does. Like I said though, just a little bit!

I have always said that if Stude or S/P had made convertibles out of the Loewy designed cars we might still be buying Packards today. If any car begged a convertible those were it. I'm glad to see at least one engineer agreed with me.

ALK

In 1955 I was in the graduating class of Haverford College in Pennsylvania. The graduation speaker was Paul Hoffman, Board Chairman of Studebaker-Packard and recently Chief of the Marshall Plan. In a small meeting with Mr. Hoffman I asked him , "Why didn't Studebaker build a convertible on the Loewy coupe chassis?" He replied that they had make a big mistake in that they underestimated the coupe's popularity, He added that when the board realized its error the engineers claimed that the first Loewy convertible could not be built until the 1955 model. The board felt that was too late. Hoffman then said, "That was their second mistake!"