Re: Continuing the Packard

Posted by Mahoning63 On 2012/9/2 19:09:54

Hudson in this mix?

It has been said that Hudson engineers loved their Six. Big cars like the Hornet couldn't serve up Sixes by the mid to late 50s, had to be a V8. Seems to me the only way Hudson could have gotten its wish after 1954 was to put an improved Six (OHVs or OHCs) in a sporting car of Rambler/Jet size. The Italia and Nash Palm Beach concept might have worked as a 2 door. For a 4 door, Hudson might have needed to develop a Jaguar Mk IV or Mercedes 300SE type car, maybe a Jaguar 2.4 compact sedan. One could argue that any of these is what Barit should have made the Jet into in the first place but it would have been a leap of faith in those years.

The step down was gone after 1954 but would have returned with the '57 Packard/Hudsons. Not a unibody though, not the way Packard was headed. But still, not a bad return. As a large car with a V8 this new Hudson might have lent itself to special models like the Chrysler 300, something that packed a Packard motor with all the carburetion, intake manifold and other tricks of the day to make it a high performance stock car machine. Maybe even fuel injection.

AMC could have also groomed Hudson to be the top dog in the Rambler clan had they developed a new series of Sixes with the bigger going to Hudson. Had they developed a low slung coupe, might have served as a worthy new Hornet. The Javelin ended up being a spiritual descendent.

AMC-SP merger or collaboration... maybe the Packard V8 shoehorned into said low slung Rambler-based coupe... handling would have been nose heavy but straight line would have been a rocket.