Re: New "What Ifs?"

Posted by Steve203 On 2014/6/27 17:17:12

Spotted the August issue in the magazine rack at the store, so took a quick looksee.

At first, thought I was in an alternate universe because all I saw was Mercurys. Then found the 1 page article.

-he suggests keeping the Clipper on the 51 styling for another year? Just make sales worse as the body will look even more obsolete

-he suggests restricting the V8 to the senior Packards and keeping the straight 8 for the Clipper for a year? Keep an obsolete engine in the most popular line? Just cost sales. Additionally, senior Packards sales what they were, the V8 line might not have had enough work to run even 1 shift on a 5 day week.

Nance could not have moved any schedule up from the 55 model year. Apparently Hugh Ferry started the V8 program before Nance started, but, judging by the oil pump issues, they still did not give it adequate development time. Ditto the Twin Ultramatic. The 55my styling refresh came two years after Nance started. That is about as fast as US automakers could make that happen at that time.