Re: Clippers at the Motor Muster.
Posted by Mahoning63 On 2015/6/27 10:22:42
Good assessment Steve, and just as I was coming around to your idea for Packardized Lincoln for '57! Under the Wixom Packard scenario just proffered was trying to think of a bridge to get Packard from '56 to '58 and your '57 Lincoln-Packard could have done the trick. Or maybe the marque could have been left without a Patrician for one year, the Studebaker-based Clipper keeping the dealers afloat until the Ford cavalry arrived.
There were many moving parts to the Ford saga in those years including lots of investment. Nance would have needed to sniff this out and play it for all it was worth. He actually did do a fairly good job by approaching Ford and getting as far as he did. Had the Deuce woken up on a different side of the bed one of those key decision-making days, he may well have decided that Packard was an asset worth acquiring. This would have been all it took, the rest playing out almost automatically given the top Ford manager personalities and brand health of the day. One could see a scenario in which Nance was brought in not to run Lincoln but to keep Packard and Packard-Clipper running, the idea being that JJN knew best what made the Packard customer tick, given the years of study his team had invested, and would have been able to hit the ground running.
By 1959 the Studebaker Clipper would have been gone but the '59 Edsel might have been available had Ford pulled the plug on Edsel earlier, which may well have been the case given that its newly acquired Packard showrooms desperately needed a Clipper replacement. The '59 Edsel grill would have fit in nicely with the Patrician, no question there. The Edsel roof could have been modified to look more like Patrician too; see image. As it was, the '59 Edsel's taillights actually came from the '58 Continental, so had the Patrician taken on the body of the Continental as just suggested, there actually would have been parts sharing between it and the new '59 Packard Clipper.
There's another wrinkle to consider in this fabric of auto history. Correct me if wrong but the '60 Comet was actually an Edsel in the studio as late as 1959. I get the impression it became a Mercury (was originally just called Comet) in '60 due to the demise of Edsel. Had Studebaker continued to supply Packard with a Clipper in 1959, now in compact Lark form, the 1960 Comet would have been its logical replacement.
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There were many moving parts to the Ford saga in those years including lots of investment. Nance would have needed to sniff this out and play it for all it was worth. He actually did do a fairly good job by approaching Ford and getting as far as he did. Had the Deuce woken up on a different side of the bed one of those key decision-making days, he may well have decided that Packard was an asset worth acquiring. This would have been all it took, the rest playing out almost automatically given the top Ford manager personalities and brand health of the day. One could see a scenario in which Nance was brought in not to run Lincoln but to keep Packard and Packard-Clipper running, the idea being that JJN knew best what made the Packard customer tick, given the years of study his team had invested, and would have been able to hit the ground running.
By 1959 the Studebaker Clipper would have been gone but the '59 Edsel might have been available had Ford pulled the plug on Edsel earlier, which may well have been the case given that its newly acquired Packard showrooms desperately needed a Clipper replacement. The '59 Edsel grill would have fit in nicely with the Patrician, no question there. The Edsel roof could have been modified to look more like Patrician too; see image. As it was, the '59 Edsel's taillights actually came from the '58 Continental, so had the Patrician taken on the body of the Continental as just suggested, there actually would have been parts sharing between it and the new '59 Packard Clipper.
There's another wrinkle to consider in this fabric of auto history. Correct me if wrong but the '60 Comet was actually an Edsel in the studio as late as 1959. I get the impression it became a Mercury (was originally just called Comet) in '60 due to the demise of Edsel. Had Studebaker continued to supply Packard with a Clipper in 1959, now in compact Lark form, the 1960 Comet would have been its logical replacement.
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