Re: More on the Facel-Packard . . .

Posted by su8overdrive On 2013/6/9 12:17:31

Good point contrasting the "Packard" Facel Vega with the Crown Imperial Ghia and Eldorado Pininfarina, even tho' i care nothing for anything domestic after the war (my '47's just a warmed over '42) other than a couple '50s Chrysler New Yorkers and a Packard Mayfair coupe w/ stick and OD.

Your "French Connection" makes perfect sense, given the last Packard w/ elan was inspired by tho' we can quibble over how much design by, Dutch Darrin, who made his name in Paris.

Packard was the first American car to have "that French thing," as it was derisively called, a steering wheel.

Gasoline, carburetor, chassis are French words, the French more than anyone else refining the initial German forays.

A late friend had a number of Delahayes, which were good cars, better real world machines than his Bugatti, which i also drove, despite Delahaye retaining mechanical brakes through the end in '54, using a rugged pushrod ohv inline 6 akin to a Gallic GMC.

The only hitch is that if the soul of any automobile is its engine, your Packard "Parisian" --- as novel a barouche as anyone might desire in the '50s --- would really be a Chrysler.

What "Packard" Packard do you have, or do you want? You'll certainly find it here, PackardInfo being best of all automotive websites, tho' for sheer spirit, the Railton Club is also nice.

Never cared for suicide doors, thinking them well named.
What good are they, other than serving as emergency air brakes?

The junior Packards 1935-47 were wonderful cars, none better on either side of the Atlantic. My '40 120 was road car incarnate. At the same time my mechanic was rebuilding its transmission he was doing a '40 Buick Roadmaster gearbox. The junior Packard transmission mainshaft was half again thicker and had nearly twice the bearings than the more powerful senior Buick. A Packard 160/180 mainshaft thicker still. The number of needle and roller bearings throughout a junior Packard's chassis, insistence on fine threaded nuts and bolts, trivialize any upper echelon GMobile or anything else on the road, make them easily as fine as the Rolls-Royce/Bentley Silver Dawn/R-Type junior cars.

Packard's o n l y blunder was in not marketing them upscale, as R-R did, as Cadillac did from '36-on when ALL their cars were essentially rationalized juniors;

as Mercedes and BMW, Toyota/Lexus, Audi manage today.

More sophisticated marketing would've helped Packard, but again, ALL independents were doomed by the '50s regardless. Those limping into the '50s were increasingly badge engineered, Packard not even making their own bodies since 1941.