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makes you wonder what would have been for these much classier V8 Packards over the Bel-Airs had Packard still been around today.
There you have it...class. Post-war America's taste in luxury was quickly changing from an aesthetic of class, style and grace to one of flash and excess. Packard, founded on and remaining committed to excellence in motor coach building could no longer compete with the likes of Cadillac and Lincoln who had abandoned a "high-brow" notion of luxury and began peddling glitz and glamour to the newly wealthy.
That of course trickled down to lesser models which were more within the reach of the average consumer. Couldn't afford a flashy new Cadillac? Then buy a flashy new Chevy. That aesthetic of excess remains today in both the new car market (Cadillac Escalade, anyone...yuck!) and in the collector car market, hence the popularity of the '57 Chevy.
The Packard V8's were wonderful cars for those with more traditional and discriminating tastes. Too bad they struggled to find an audience in the fifties and faces an even harder time finding classy people today. (Of course, I, too, have a difficult time find classy people nowadays!)
As an aside, Ford outsold Chevrolet in 1957 with a car I've always felt was executed in much better taste than the Chevy. It's just too bad more of them didn't hang together to compete with the shoebox Chevrolets for the admiration of today's enthusiasts.
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