Re: Hood Bracing

Posted by Rusty O\'Toole On 2009/6/20 10:25:14

Kirksite dies big enough to make a hood were being used before the first Packard Caribbean was made. Why they chose to do all the hand work I don't know but it is fun to speculate.

This is pure guess work but it could be that

1) They had the ability to hand modify the hoods, possibly they were done by Henney which did a lot of hand work and lead work on hearses and ambulances?

2) They thought of the Caribbean as a specialty product and did not think it would sell as many units as it did.

3) They did not expect to keep producing the model for more than a year.

By 1955 they saw they had a model that was popular enough to justify the tooling.

I gather that the Caribbean was something of a throwback to the custom bodies of the 30s. The initial plan was to have a body that was sectioned for a lower silhouette but the cost was prohibitive.

In any case the initial thinking involved a more or less hand made car. It may have been a while before they thought of tooling the parts instead of making them by hand.