Re: 1953/4 Caribbean 4-door hardtop sedan exploration

Posted by Mahoning63 On 2020/3/31 15:05:10

Will argue the counter view on Patrician. Cars were getting bigger and bigger by then and some folks, particularly women, didn't want to drive a big car and didn't need one. So we get to the question of whether they wanted a loaded one. For Packard the '56 Executive went a long way towards answering that. There would have also been manufacturing efficiency reasons, cars in same series that were almost identical except for wheelbase getting just about the same interior, exterior trim and equipment.

For lower volumes such as Caribbean and fast-becoming Patrician, another cost save to grouping several models into a common series, beside making them easy for the customer to understand, was advertising efficiency. When they showcased one car in the series they would always include a little blip about the other cars, so that every ad helped every body style rather than having to run a separate ad for every car. On the '55/56 300, I like the car but don't like the fact that it was a low volume play that robbed the much higher selling Imperial of its unique grill. Packard would have wanted folks who wanted a 122 loaded, fast coupe to buy the Caribbean hardtop, because that is exactly the audience it would have been designed for and the goal would have been to extract as much money from wallet as possible.

Just an alternative view...