Re: We haven't had a good "What If?" for a while, so.....

Posted by 58L8134 On 2012/4/9 11:57:51

Hi

Thanks gentlemen, hope this was thought-provoking, generated consideration of how events might have turned out differently.

Patgreen: The following is the definition of 3-box styling from the Glossary of A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design by Michael Lamm and Dave Holls, page 298:

"Box, one-, two-, three-: Body morphology is often described in terms of one-box, two-box and three-box. A one-box body usually refers to a van, whose body looks like one big box. A station wagon or something like the VW Rabbit qualities as a two-box body, the hood being one box and the cabin the second. And a three-box body is usually a conventional sedan or coupe: hood, cabin, trunk. Also called "one-, two-, and three shape.""

Personally, I think of the three boxes defined by box one as everything ahead of the windshield, box two as
everything behind the windshield and below the window beltline including the integrated trunk, and box three as everything behind the windshield and above the window beltline. The accepted definition probably works just as well for most. In the case of the touring sedan, with an appended trunk, it could be considered a three box by the accepted definition, though strikes me more as a two and a half box design. The 60 Special's integrated trunk with the passenger cabin body mass seems more the second box, crowned by a separate three box. Choose whichever definition that works for you. The five passenger victoria or club coupe is a three box configuration. Bill Mitchell's genius was lengthening the passenger compartment of a club coupe, adding two more doors but keeping the roof 'box' separate. Or maybe it was taking the close-coupled club sedan and integrating a coupe trunk.....either way, he jelled the sedan body configuration we still have today. Pretty smart for a 25 year old guy! Small wonder he became Harley Earl's successor and gave us some marvelous styled '60's cars such as the '63 Corvette Sting Ray, '63 Buick Riviera, '66 Oldsmobile Toronado and '67 Cadillac Eldorado. The entire 1965 GM line-up is the first model year he had completely overseen restyling every car line, very nice job by my estimation.

Ross: Packard buried themselves in tooling cost for years, frequently for minimal volume. With regard to 1937, the Senior models were still composite body construction, wood frame, metal panels. Variety was less costly in terms of large, expensive dies. For 1938, the new all-steel Junior bodies, shortly to be shared with Seniors, included stamped, one-piece roof shells which were considerably more costly to tool. The all-steel 'turret' top was the industry norm, a feature they couldn't fail to offer.

Main of the reason for the Clipper's limited body style selection had to do with the panicked nature of it's development and late introduction. Time was too scant for them to develop and tool the their usual wide selection of bodies. The Clipper roof shell stamping, the largest in the industry at the time, was one of the motivations for them to turn their body construction work over to Briggs. Briggs perhaps gave them a unit price less than they could so in-house but it set up a precarious situation being dependent upon just one source for a major component. By 1941, there were also the demands of war materiel production which was tying up die-shop resources throughout the industry. There was also something of a voluntary curtailing of civilian work in preference to war material needs even before Pearl Harbor.

After the war, with every carmaker scrambling to get die work done for their newly restyled postwar, Briggs really had Packard over a barrel when it came to updating the Clipper for the 22nd Series. Packard had collaborated closely with Brigg's in-house styling department to develop the new styling during the war. To re-equip and tool up for body construction at East Grand was by then prohibitably costly: For them to suddenly seek bids from Murray or Budd would have been going way out on a limb, especially since both were up to their arms in tooling work. In the book mentioned above (recommended reading for a greater understanding of not only Packard but the industry and the era in general), the following section confirms the massive cost, from page 227:

"George Christopher was ecstatic, because an all-new body would have been much more expensive. And yet the 1948 Packard, even though it kept all the Clipper's underbody, inner sheet metal, roof and decklid, was anything but a retooling bargain. According to Packard Historian William S. Snyder, who researched company record, Packard spent nearly twice as much tooling its 1948 models as Hudson did that same year on a truly new body. "Maybe Packard had become too accustomed to government work," said Snyder."

Other factors that drove up the cost of everything after the war were the shortages of workers and basic materials, steel was at a premium for years. War materiel production had been done with cost-plus government contracts including wages which were much more by the end of the fighting. No one was going to reset wages to pre-war levels. Consider the escalation of the base price of the basic Chevrolet four door sedan: 1941 at $795, by 1946 at $1,123, by 1948 at $1,371. So, though I don't have specific industry figures to offer, Packard wasn't alone in grappling with increasing tooling and production costs in the postwar period.

Jim L. in OR: By the mid-'50's GM's design staff came to perceive that Harley Earl was losing his 'touch' and "groping" for a styling direction for the late '50's. As you note, many of the resulting cars were heavy-handed and less-appealing unless over-decorated is one's taste. Earl was due to retire November 30, 1958 at 65 years old. After thirty years of starting, then developing GM Styling into the major industry force that it became, who could blame the fellow for wearing out. As far as the overwrought styling that characterized that era, Earl himself was the main driver behind that idiom, so maybe it became too much even for him. But Earl had mentored Mitchell, who had already demonstrated his ability for clean, tailored design, into the prefect successor, so his legacy was assured. Mitchell drove that trend toward cleaner styling that came throughout in the '60's.

Steve