Re: '58 Lincoln-based Packard idea

Posted by Mahoning63 On 2011/8/2 10:43:51

Thanks for the clarification on the unit cost, makes sense.

On the unibody was suggesting Packard go all in... i.e., no more frame. Packards would roll down the same line as Lincolns and be mostly the same car except for what the customer could see and feel. This would really be cutting Packard down to the bare bones but it might have been the only way the money people might have forked over the millions needed to carry the company through 56 and 57 to 58 and pay for the new 58 Packard body panel stampings. Packard's breakeven volume absolutely had to come down. I mentioned that Packard might keep Conner open to stamp outer body panels. Chuck that. Stamp them at the same facility Lincoln used. I think we have to leave open the possibility that although the money people refused to fund Nance's grand plan proposal, they weren't averse to investing in Packard in an absolute sense. They wanted to see a reasonable opportunity for a good return.

If the Lincoln unibody was weak, so be it. The price paid for steering the company to the brink. The key thing by the late 50s would have been that Packard kept control of the elements that made a Packard truly special - styling and ride. By then everything else had reached parody in the industry. Nance said as much when Utica was being built... "ours will be just another V8."

On the torsion bars, Chrysler packaged them up front on their 1960 unibodies, proving it was possible. Packard would have needed to design a new front torsion system to fit the Lincoln unibody. The rear suspension is where the challenge would have been - and I think the big opportunity. Lincoln's low slung unibody might have left no room to package the rear bars underneath the car (am not sure on this) but if Packard could have went with an independent rear suspension they would have freed up about 7 inches above the now fixed rear diff. That's where the rear torsion bars might have fit. Load leveling might have been out though. One of the reasons the second generation Expedition/Navigator went with an independent rear was to drop the floor 7 inches to improve 3rd row seating comfort.