Re: Packard Monte Carlo

Posted by BH On 2008/11/2 11:00:48

All -

Wow! I'm glad my one little reference generated so much additional interest.

I guess I never ran across that site before, since my interests are more in postwar cars. As such, the term "coachbuilt" pretty much bounces right off of me. Really, I was just Googling for Panther info. I must admit that I didn't study the text on that page all that carefully, but I just happened across pix of several other familiar concepts and thought I'd report that for those who might want a look.

Of course, it's obvious that the Request was based on a hardtop and not a sedan. Yet, I run across a lot of people who refer to the 1955 and 1956 Senior hardtops as a "Patrician 400". Perhaps this was due, initially, to the persistence of memory from 1954 when there was a "Patrician 400" - in sedan form only. However, I've also seen more than one Four Hundred hardtop turn up at a Packard show that had a Patrician front clip installed (perhaps due to collision repair), but they left the "Patrician" script plates on the fenders, while the trunk lid had "400" or "Four Hundred" script plates on the rear.

If anyone finds errors in the text on that page, by all means, contact the webmaster and ask for correction. As we all know, anyone can make a mistake, but what counts is how they handle correcting it. Thankfully, it's a lot easier to edit in cyberspace.

Meanwhile, that page seems to indicate that the Request also had fiberglass front fenders. Is this true?

Packard probably installed the heaviest torsion bars available at the time, but I bet those massive cast bronze bumpers were too much for even those. The sag probably occurred over the period of many years, as the car was driven on the road - something it was never really meant for. Just about every "posed" pic I've seen of the car sicne it resurfaced back in the 1970s will show some sort of stand propping the front end up if you look closely.

With today's technology, they might have been able to fab lighter bumper ends from steel, but bronze was the norm for limited production and prototyping work back then. Heck, I've found some early trim pieces for the 55th Series cars on swap meet tables that were done in bronze. Even the upswept antenna moldings on the V8 Caribbeans were cast in bronze for regular production.

All things considered, I give the late Mr. Dopps a lot of credit for bringing this car back from the brink. Thanks to people like him, another piece of the history of Packard survives in tangible form.

Now, I wonder whatever happened to the Request clone that I saw advertised for sale in Cars & Parts maagazine back in the late 1970s.