Re: More on the Facel-Packard . . .

Posted by Mahoning63 On 2013/6/17 20:29:30

A great recollection Fyreline, thanks for sharing. Can just feel the excitement that the car would have created thanks to your detailed account. A couple 2-bit thoughts... first, the body flex in the Excellence could have probably been solved with a fixed B-pillar similar to the '61 Continental. Would have caused foot clearance issues getting in/out of rear but such would have been the tradeoffs. Second, why not S-P just sell it as a Facel Vega? (and sell the smaller Facel coupe too) The styling was good but falling behind with its mid-50s windshield, the sort of oddity that a European name might have gotten away with but not an American name. As for a return of Packard, seems that had Studebaker's board really had interest in making cars they would have made a serious effort to fix Studebaker's showroom by the early 60s, which would have perhaps generated enough money to at least strike a deal with say, Chrysler, to modify their large platform to make an uber Packard of some sort. This is what the '66 Duesy was to be. A Studebaker based on the Valiant would have also been a great deal for South Bend. What would the carrot have been for Chrysler? Not sure, maybe volume but it would have come with a headache.