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

Posted by Packard5687 On 2020/4/19 0:10:44

Packard really should have had a V-8 no later than 1953. Had Nance arrived at Packard in 1949 when Packard first approached him, this might have happened. I've long had a theory - and I've never found anything to either prove it or disprove it - that Christopher, because he had worked at Buick and was trying to shape Packard as Buick's chief rival rather than Cadillac's chief rival, that Christopher stuck with the straight eight because Buick was sticking with the straight eight. In the same vein because Buick was developing Dynaflow, Christopher had Packard develop Ultramatic. Thus no V-8 was in the pipeline for Packard. This was one of the major nails Christopher hammered into what would become Packard's coffin.

1955 was really a watershed year for the industry. With major restyles/new bodies at GM and Chrysler and the handsome '55 Mercurys, Packard HAD to have the refresh that it got for '55. Had they gone into '55 with warmed-over '54s, they wouldn't have had the volume they had, Conner quality issues aside.

I think the ideas you post here for '55 would better fit '54, even though I understand your rationale of preparing for the all-new '56s by saving tooling costs in '55.

The wrap-around windshield was a have-to-have feature in the mid'50s. I think Teague's solution for '55 on the '51 body shell was the correct one. A step toward that for '54 could have been a Studebaker-like tilt to the front door vent wing while leaving the windshield alone:

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