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Re: Clippers at the Motor Muster.
#51
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58L8134
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Hi Paul

The overall concept of integrating Packard onto a BoF Mercury-Lincoln-Packard platform, as you've shown here, had a good chance of being the avenue for Packard to continue. It has the proportions and carries off the Predictor styling very affectively. Quite a handsome work-up, if well executed, would have been a good post-S-P continuance.

Someone posited that to experience the still-born '57 Packards to a degree, one need only drive a '59-'60 Mercury Park Lane. Nance's brief time at the head of the M-E-L Division may have had more effect on those cars, then in development, than is generally known.

"Sharing with Olds and Buick was an important element of Cadillac's financial success."

Although GM kept those numbers close, the overall benefit to Cadillac from platform sharing shouldn't be underestimated. That concept seemed to have been largely lost on both Ford and Chrysler management when developing Lincolns and Imperials in those years.

Steve

Posted on: 2015/7/6 6:50
.....epigram time.....
Proud 1953 Clipper Deluxe owner. Thinking about my next Packard, want a Clipper Deluxe Eight, manual shift with overdrive.
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Re: Clippers at the Motor Muster.
#52
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"...the overall benefit to Cadillac from platform sharing shouldn't be underestimated."

Absolutely, Steve. GM at that time operated with both its heart and its head and Cadillac owed its success as much to Olds and Buick as to its own hard work. The more I look at it the more I realize the opportunity that Ford had. Just copy GM strategy.

Here's another round of images that give the Packard a little kick-up in beltline which helps enable another opporuntity: a 4-door Continental, not to be confused with the would-be Lincoln Park Lane that would have led at the low end of Ford's luxury car line-up. Amazing what a differently trimmed C-pillar and new front fenders, hood and front/rear 6 inches could produce.

The reverse could have also worked for the Thunderbird-based Conti coupe. Why not a sassy Packard with all the Predictor goodies including hidden headlights?


EDIT: made some changes to front & rear of 4-drs to give more differentiation. Both would share rear fenders and decklid. A hint of Engel's Continental squared off look would have begun in '59 because of the work Packard's design team had done in '55.

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Posted on: 2015/7/10 17:39
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Re: Clippers at the Motor Muster.
#53
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Mahoning63
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Here's a walk from '58 Park Lane to '58 Packard, the money Ford spent on '58 Edsel Corsair/Citation and extended deck/wheelbase '58 Park Lane easily paying for purchase of Packard and new body for 1958. Utica engine could have been continued too.

The imagery in the ad, reminiscent of Pierce-Arrow, seems more appropriate for the modern Packard than the glitzy, tarted up Mercury.

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Posted on: 2015/7/22 18:42
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Re: Clippers at the Motor Muster.
#54
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Picking up on Mahoning63's thought about continuing engine production at Utica:

I have long puzzled why this seems not to have been considered as the house was collapsing in 1956. The Packard V8 was designed for expansion - the unbuilt '57s would have displaced 440 cu in. The Packard engine would have been competitive for many years. On the other hand, everyone knew that Studebaker's otherwise excellent V8 was at the end of its development cycle size-wise at 289 cu in. (The handful of Avanti R3 engines that displaced 304.5 cu in were bored out, not re-cored - and the cylinder walls were paper thin.)

So here's another scenario - management figures out that South Bend in unsustainable and that the possible volume out of Conner is more realistically profitable. So South Bend is shuttered and the Clipper becomes the Studebaker. There's one more re-style in the Reinhardt-Teague Senior body such as this envisioned by "Andy-HarborIndiana":

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Posted on: 2015/7/22 22:22
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Re: Clippers at the Motor Muster.
#55
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Quote:

Packard5687 wrote:
Picking up on Mahoning63's thought about continuing engine production at Utica:

I have long puzzled why this seems not to have been considered as the house was collapsing in 1956. The Packard V8 was designed for expansion - the unbuilt '57s would have displaced 440 cu in. The Packard engine would have been competitive for many years. On the other hand, everyone knew that Studebaker's otherwise excellent V8 was at the end of its development cycle size-wise at 289 cu in. (The handful of Avanti R3 engines that displaced 304.5 cu in were bored out, not re-cored - and the cylinder walls were paper thin.)

So here's another scenario - management figures out that South Bend in unsustainable and that the possible volume out of Conner is more realistically profitable. So South Bend is shuttered and the Clipper becomes the Studebaker. There's one more re-style in the Reinhardt-Teague Senior body such as this envisioned by "Andy-HarborIndiana":


A couple problems with that scenario

-The S-P bailout involved Curtiss-Wright taking over S-P defense contracts, and a bagful of additional defense contracts that the government promised, and the Utica and Chippewa Ave plants to make the defense goods. In exchange, C-W handed S-P a lump sum advance payment for the lease of the two plants. That lump sum kept the lights on in South Bend. Utica needed to be cleared for C-W, so the new engine line was pulled up and trucked down to E Grand for storage until it was sold, for a tiny fraction of what the equipment cost.

-Most of Studebaker's volume was the low priced Champion and low trim Commanders. A retrimmed Clipper would be way out of the price range of Studebaker's clientel.

-While the Studebaker V8 didn't have any room to grow, Studebaker didn't need a bigger engine as it didn't have money to develop a larger car. Even by 56, Studebakers were noticeably narrower and lighter than the big three's offerings. Additionally, as the Studebaker V8 was designed to take a compression ratio of something like 14:1, it could take a supercharger better than any other V8 then in production, which is what S-P did for the 57 Clipper and Hawk.

-The merger between Packard and Studebaker was structured according to book value, rather than market cap. While Packard's market cap was larger than Studebaker's, Studebaker's book value was greater, so the Studebaker stockholders had control of the merged company. The two factions on the Board of Directors could not even agree to close one proving ground and consolidate operations at the other to save costs, so both proving grounds were kept open, and incurring costs, as the company bled. There would never be a consensus on the BoD to abandon South Bend.

Bottom line: Utica plant not available, big engine not needed, volume was in cheap cars and intrenched interests would not abandon South Bend.

Posted on: 2015/7/23 22:59
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Re: Clippers at the Motor Muster.
#56
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Mahoning63
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The Packard work-ups are interesting, have seen this gentleman's impressive work before. The proportions suggest major changes to the body that S-P might not have been able to afford. Anyone's guess at what the volumes would have been. Better than '56? Maybe, maybe not.

I didn't realize the details behind Utica engine and the defense contracts, thanks for providing. Absent a big fish like Ford throwing money at S-P in 1956, Packard as Master Engine Builder was done. Nance himself scribbled the handwriting on the wall when he said "ours will be just another V8." American engines had become a commodity. And the '58 FoMoCo Marauder engine had 430 CID and up to 400 HP, so unless the Packard V8 could have given similar power and better reliability (Ford did leave the door open here), what would have been the point of continuing it?

Macro industry forces were too strong in these years. Consolidation and investment efficiency on one hand, more unique products on the other. Packard found itself caught in a situation larger than itself. The market was not yet rich or global enough as it was pre-Depression to support a stand alone luxury model, this arguably didn't happen until the 1973 S-Class. But this does not mean that Packard needed to go away in 1956. "Unique product" justified its continued existence. The big change was that the people who would need to control Packard needed to come from a bigger slice of the industry pie.

In 1958 there were 5 low-priced and 3 luxury brands but a whopping 9 mid and mid-upper brands including Ambassador, and within some of these brands there was incredible size and content differentiation and price bandwidth. GM didn't care, its mid-priced brands captured most of the volume although Buick went too far with the Limited, a one-year only sales flop. Chrysler had more brands than volume to support and DeSoto would soon be gone. And there probably wasn't any industry room for Clipper as Nance had conceived it.

This left Ford, a company that needed capable executives to help Henry Ford II reconcile the opposing macro forces and make headway in all segments above entry level. McNamara was excellent at "efficiency and consolidation" and so-so with "unique product" in that he nailed the '57 Fords (except for reliability), successfully grew T-Bird, went after Rambler with the Falcon and eventually redefined Lincoln, but ruined Mercury and didn't really win in either the mid-priced or luxury market. The other VPs stunk at everything:

'57 Turnpike Cruiser - failure
'58 Park Lane - failure
'58 Edsel Ranger/Pacer - failure
'58 Edsel Corsair/Citation, which shared almost no parts with Ranger/Pacer - failure
'58 Lincoln - failure

Better had they built Packard back up working from its existing dealers, customer base and proposed design theme and folded it and Lincoln into Mercury's body program.

EDIT: Yes, the '58 recession helped cause the failure but it was not the only reason. The execs got the 4 P's of Marketing wrong... product, price, position, place.

Posted on: 2015/7/25 8:11
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Re: Clippers at the Motor Muster.
#57
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What if the '58 Edsel styling had instead become the '57-58 Mercury styling?

Posted on: 2015/7/25 9:06
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Re: Clippers at the Motor Muster.
#58
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58L8134
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Hi Paul

"Macro industry forces were too strong in these years. Consolidation and investment efficiency on one hand, more unique products on the other. Packard found itself caught in a situation larger than itself."

Much of the motivation for the realignments came from within the Big Three themselves. For decades, medium-priced cars were defined in terms of everything to be had in the basic transportation plus much more: larger size and engines, more horsepower, better trim and flashier designs. Ultimately, not everything to be had in a luxury car but further on the scale toward that ideal.

Then, by the mid-'50's to take advantage of the rising postwar affluence, the Big Three did to the low-priced three what would have been unthinkable prewar: they added significantly upmarket series to their base lines. Simple comparisons of the 1950 versus 1958 low-priced three offering opens the question: who needed to buy a medium-priced car anymore when everything that used to be their province was now available elsewhere for less. Fairlane 500's negated Montereys, Impalas eclipsed Chieftains, Furys obsoleted Coronets. The upscale version of the low-priced cars became just as accepted and 'prestigious' as would be the entry-level of the medium-priced make. Cannibalizing from within. Even those carmakers in the upper end of the medium-priced spectrum weren't immune. The trend stabilized in the '60's after the shakeout.

At the opening of decade, of the four independent, three derived all their income from the medium-priced segment. Packard supplemented theirs with a minimal luxury sales. Studebaker gather a third to half through Commander sales, only their Champion competitive with the low-priced three. By decade's end, three makes were gone, the remnants of the merged companies mainly competing in a segment that was only nascent in 1950. True, AMC had a minor presence with the lower-medium-priced Ambassador; Studebaker too only if the Hawk still counted, but none in the volume sedan segment. As noted, Edsel and upmarket Mercurys failed and redundant DeSoto was wound down.

"But this does not mean that Packard needed to go away in 1956. "Unique product" justified its continued existence. The big change was that the people who would need to control Packard needed to come from a bigger slice of the industry pie."

Under Ford control, Packard and Clipper would have had at least a better chance of survival and development into the future. It would have taken vision and commitment on the part of Ford top management to bring that about, which many will argue was in short supply at the time. "Unique products" would have not only had elegant, tailor styling with high build quality but also technical innovations such as pioneering introductions of fuel injection, disk brakes, independent rear suspension, rack-and-pinion steering, perfected torsion bars with reliable leveling, electronic ignition, perhaps even computer engine management. Leadership in quality craftsmanship and technical innovation was Packard's great role to play, as it had been in prior decades.

Steve

Posted on: 2015/7/27 11:50
.....epigram time.....
Proud 1953 Clipper Deluxe owner. Thinking about my next Packard, want a Clipper Deluxe Eight, manual shift with overdrive.
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Re: Clippers at the Motor Muster.
#59
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Mahoning63
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Hi Steve,

Thanks as usual for the education... and the motivation to dig deeper into this what-if.

You're right, Packard needed to spearhead advanced innovations, and some of what you mentioned could have been hurried for the 1958 transformation.

Read the new caption in the ad below to see what else Santa could have brought. And see if you can find a few styling tweaks, one of which would have allowed a wider track, which the Ford-suspended Mercury sorely needed and Torsion-Level would have allowed.

Consider this: Mercury and Lincoln execs have a meeting with Nance in mid to late-1956. They ask what he had planned for '57 and are shown the fiberglass full scale models. They also learn that Packard engineers had been seriously investigating a V12 based on the new V8 and had envisioned an independent rear suspension, even mentioned it in a Predictor fact sheet. Then the execs discover that the V8 tooling will be sent to Conner and sold for pennies on the dollar.

"Click" goes the light bulb in each of their heads!

They advise The Deuce to definately buy Packard and inform him that Ford will not only get the V8 tooling on the cheap but that for a few million more, the Packard engineers could finish the V12. No they admit, such an engine would not be needed in a late-50's car. Yes they boast, such an engine would help Ford finally one-up Sixty Special, with Lincoln taking on Sedan DeVille. And they finish the pitch by explaining to him that because the new Packard's body structure and front doors will come for free courtesy Mercury, and that Conner, with suitable expansion to build the V12, will be relatively inexpensive to operate, the business case will show a profit on as little as 5,000 units per year.

"Do it guys" is the only reply, and off to the races they go. First step: they cancel the '58 Park Lane... there is now bigger fish to fry. Second, they halt the Wixom Lincoln, convincing MacPherson that a T-Bird based Mark III will give him the same volume and can be paid for with the money allocated for '58 Park Lane. Third, they focus on the new Packard for 1958, paying for it with the money that had been allocated for the Wixom Lincoln. And finally, they scheme how to pay for the all-new Mercury-based '59 Lincoln, the '58 Lincoln now going back to the originally planned carryover '57. Ultimately they combine the money that would have created the '59 Park Lane with the money allocated for the aborted '59 Mercury-based Edsel.

Confusing? Perhaps a wee bit.

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Posted on: 2015/7/27 19:14
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Re: Clippers at the Motor Muster.
#60
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Mahoning63
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Here's the car in the flesh, with much help from Steve in getting the proportions and wheel size right. Needed a full 8 inch front axle stetch, giving the car a 133 inch wheelbase. Underhood let's make the V12 an even 500 CID to put it in a class by itself.

Mercury would have become the de facto Clipper and scooped up as many existing Clipper owners as possible. Packard dealers would have been brought into the Mercury fold to increase coverage for both cars in the new Mercury-Packard division. And Turnpike Cruiser could have played up its visual connection to Packard, perhaps also toning down its styling for 1958 along with the rest of the Mercury line, the restrained Packard stylng rubbing off.

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Posted on: 2015/7/29 20:10
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