Re: What would a traditional Packard "Senior" have looked like in 1951?

Posted by Packard5687 On 2017/8/1 11:38:55

<i>"I have never received a good answer as to why Packard procrastinated in bringing out something the public clearly wanted."</i>

Packard engineers wanted to develop a V-8, but Christopher wouldn't hear of it. Why did he authorize the development of the Ultramatic and not a V-8? I have long had a theory about that - a theory that remains unproven - that because Christopher wanted to make Packard the next Buick, what Buick did, Packard did. Buick stuck with their straight eight - so Packard would stick with its straight eight.Buick developed Dynaflow - so Christopher had the engineers develop Ultramatic. I absolutely agree with you that Packard should have had the V-8 by '51 - or, as the late Robert Neal wrote, absolutely no later than '53.

Your comments about the Packard ads are spot-on about the setting. As far as what the agency did to the presentation of the car itself, Mahoning is correct that the agency did what Packard should have done to the production car.

I've long thought that if Nance had come to Packard in 1949 when he was first approached, the story would have had a very different ending.