Re: Photo: My Grandfather with James Nance & the Predictor
Posted by Leeedy On 2021/4/16 21:28:01
Let's be fair to the Packard Predictor. Many people today say things about Predictor and its styling and features. These critiques of today never really take into account how ground-breaking all this was in 1956, not 2021.
Mother-of-pearl paint job. Swivel seats. Spring-loaded front bumper. Individual bucket seats with center console. Reversible upholstery. Electronic push-button aluminum transmission with lock-up converter. Electronic suspension. Quad headlights–hidden at that. Wrap-around-wrap-over panoramic windshield. Aircraft type overhead console. Dished steering wheel. ALL before cars that would follow with this kind of thing years, even decades later.
Take your index finger and place it over the upright bumper/grille) and tell me what do you see? Complete with the hood bulge, quad hidden headlights, peaked leading edge, and high pontoon fender edges? And say this knowing that the guy who is credited with the design of a famous 1963 sports car worked where in 1955-56? Packard.
Magazines right now continue to crow about the Mercury "Breezeway" rear window. All while never bothering (or knowing enough) to tell their readers that this design/feature actually came from Packard. The true origins were Packard Balboa of 1953 and where else? Packard Predictor. And where did the 1958-60 Continentals get their reverse-slant, power rear window? Predictor.
Shall I mention T-tops of the 1970s? How about 4-passenger luxury sports "personal cars" from the late 1950s through the 1980s? And those three gauges in the center top of the instrument panel on Predictor? Pontiac got a LOT of mileage with this 3-gauge design for many, many years. Magazines raved about it. But Predictor had it first. AND where did the big guy from Pontiac of the 1960s work at the time of Predictor's development?
AND the original INTENDED engineering features of Predictor's suspension and transmission also ended up where in the 1960s?
For those lamenting the driving position of Predictor today... REALLY? What about the driving positions on other 1950s dream cars? Ohhhh... that's right. Most of those dream cars weren't real cars and didn't even start, much less drive. One account critiqued Predictor's thick safety doors...but many 1950s concept cars didn't even have real doors at all! Let's give Predictor the credit it deserves.
Read about Predictor's unknown features (intended and otherwise) in an upcoming issue of The Packard Cormorant magazine.
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