Re: Packard designers: the Coming and Going of

Posted by 58L8134 On 2014/10/15 14:02:08

Hi DaveB845

Exerpting from the William M. Schmidt biography in the book, Ford Design Department Concepts & Showcars, 1932-1961 by Jim & Cheryl Farrell, page 140:

"Bill Schmidt graduated from the Henry Ford Trade School in 1940 and took a job as a tool designer"

After a stint with the aircraft group at Willow Run working on bomber projects.

"Although he never designed cars before, in 1944, Schmidt transferred to Bob Gregorie's Design Department, where he helped complete the design for the Light Ford that later became the French (Ford) Vedette. In 1947, John Oswald named Schmidt head of the Lincoln studio, where he redesigned the 1950 and '51 Lincolns"

The original all-new 1949 lines were a ambitious and complicated program, had two size levels for each make but shared some common body tooling. There were far more models within each make than ever before. The 1949 Mercury, Lincoln and Lincoln Cosmopolitans are generally created to E.T. Gregorie and staff; certainly Bill Schmidt had a hand in some parts of the designs. Tooling for what became the 1949 Mercury was well along in July 1946 when Ernie Breech came from Bendix to essentially run Ford Motor Company while Henry II learned the ropes. He immediately recognized the intended 1949 Ford was too large and heavy to be sold profitably as a Ford. With tooling well along, he kicked it up to be the 1949 Mercury. Breech then initiated the crash programs to come up with a 1949 Ford design based on a smaller package. Competing with the in-house stylist was George Walker, the design consultant. All prior designwork was shuffled: the Custom Mercury became the Lincoln that shares the Mercury body. The Lincoln Cosmopolitan was to include 125" and 132" wheelbase models, the latter as Continentals which were nixed.

In order to understand how it all came about, I recommend the above cited text plus the book, Edsel Ford and E.T. Gregorie: The Remarkable Design Team and Their Classic Fords of the 1930's and 1940's by Henry Dominguez.

Further, quoting from Farrell "He also lead the team that designed the 1952-56 Lincolns, the XL-500 (Phantom), the Futura and the 1953 Lincoln Golden Anniversary and 1954 Lincoln trim and color show cars."

"In early 1955, Schmidt was recruited by Jim Nance of Studebaker-Packard and, for a substantial increase in salary, left Ford to become vice president and head of Studebaker-Packard's design department. While at Studebaker-Packard, Schmidt, Dick Teague and Stan Thorwaldsen designed the Packard Predictor concept car which shared many design features with the concept cars Schmidt designed at Ford"

Although the financial situation was becoming acute, Schmidt was lured by the money and status as well as the prospect of producing fresh, original designs that might have lifted S-P out of their doldrums. Lincoln was scheduled for a new body for 1955 but, as Richard Stout wrote, internal politics and intrigues undid that plan until 1956.

Most of the styling changes between 1955 and 1956 Packards and Clippers were merely an effort to keep the styling up to date in hopes of greater customer response. Although they were costly to make, the tooling bill was still significantly lower than would have been required for an all-new body. Every automaker in that period was expected to make noticeable changes annually, S-P could hardly afford to do otherwise. It was also a reaction to their lack of major styling changes from 1951 through 1954. They couldn't get away with it then, not in the face of the GM styling juggernaut steam-rolling along.

Of Dick Teague: His experience at Packard had to imbued him with the idea to make do with very little but have the maximum affect. Cutting his teeth doing more with less served him well once he took over at AMC. There, it had to be a way of life, since they never had the finances to do the kinds of programs the Big Three could afford. Eventually, even that caught up with AMC in the 1970's when they no longer could afford a major re-designs, were condemned to re-hash the same old bodies in hopes of looking new enough.

Steve