Re: Your Opinion Whether the New '57 Packard Vertical Grille Would Have Been a Marketing Hit?

Posted by Mr.Pushbutton  On 2009/12/29 22:14:46

Rusty-you touched on something that really rings true, the crucial '57-'60 time period was a very difficult time to be in the business, not unlike today, but hey, at least GM still controlled GMAC at the time. The market went soft in the middle and top, and barely held its own at the bottom, the public did one of those "I'm good with what I have now" things (REALLY going on now) and Detroit could not predict this, nor react to it fast enough.
You have to remember that everything we look at today and laugh, gasp or cluck our tongue at was at one point in history, the right idea, you and I weren't there (as decision-making adults) to understand it in its then-current context. My late friend Dave Holls designed the '59 Cadillac fin in 1954 as almost a joke, a "hey what if we took the fin thing to this level"? The really cool thing back then was, you could dream something really far out, your boss would look at it and consider it, it stood half of a chance of being rendered in clay and some kind of chance of going into production. Packard would have been severly screwed during this phase, again (not to sound like a broken record, but............) their lack of a deep pocketed, multi-bracket sugar Daddy would have been a serious problem had they managed to get that far.