Re: '66 Packard Model Car

Posted by Mahoning63 On 2012/9/13 17:17:43

Absolutely keep them coming, nice job! Really like the side and rear changes in particular. Also the opera window on the right side, can envision the Packard circle/vee motif on the outside.

No question, the '66 Imperial had one of the nicest post-war interiors. Very angular, clean and modern, almost Scandinavian in design. Also excellent exterior details as was noted.

The rest of the car, based on a platform dating back to 1957, would have faced updated competition and a market slowly moving away from bigness. The proportions were still 50s cab forward, long deck which Ex changed for the '66 Duesy by moving the front axle forward and the backlight/roofline rearward. His car had nice proportions but was monstrous in size, too big for the times? Detroit needed to do a better job keeping an eye on what was happening in Europe.

One thing I can't see is how Chrysler around 1962 would have come to pick up the Packard name and pour money into it when they already had Imperial including the high-priced Ghia limos, and was struggling to fund it and get the design right. It must be acknowledged that although the design has aged well, at the time it appealed to the not so young at heart. In 1966, Lincoln outsold Imperial 4 to 1 and Cadillac outsold it 15 to 1.

Given all these factors, seems to me that AMC had the biggest play here. They definitely needed a marquee name and they definitely had the money available (for a time). Rather than spending it on the Ambassador and Javelin/AMX they could have hired Ex and poached a few others from Detroit and across the pond to get the right people in charge, folks who would lay out clear goals and expectations for the development and design teams and the suppliers.

This is the kind of setup that Packard had needed from the Thirties on - a single company with two distinct product lines, sold under two different names, that dialed in a magic combination of sharing that enabled both to succeed.