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Or perhaps simply Pacific. Whatever the name, a 122 wheelbase 4-door pillared hardtop might have helped soften a tough year for Packard.

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  1954 Packard Patrician Sportster 122 4D Pillared Hardtop.jpg (55.84 KB)

The Pacific was a 2 door hardtop and while it was designated a senior it was on the shorter body. Chrome trim on the side is different having short strips instead of the single piece chrome spanning the distance between the long pieces. To use senior horizontal tail lights on the formerly vertical taillight junior body, the lenses were housed in a chrome pod which wrapped around the side to duplicate the wider contour. The regular convertible followed the same styling theme while the Caribbean convertible kept the grafted on tail section making the body longer while still using the horizontal tail lights.

Nice looking “possible” Packard! Maybe better on the longer chassis.

As for Pacific not being a senior, that is news to me. The Executive was declared a senior by the Packard Club many years ago - I know because I was on the board and at the board meeting where it happened - and the Pacific has all the same earmarks as a senior Packard. It was a Packard Pacific, not a Clipper Pacific after all!

The 54 Pacific is classified a Packard which would make it a senior. In 54, they had no two door bodies on the 127 chassis to make a true senior sized convertible or hardtop. Realizing competition was leaving them behind they threw everything senior they could bolt on to the shorter chassis and body to make those two cars look and be more like the seniors. From the largest engine to almost every styling difference the Patrician had they tried to duplicate for the senior look and feel. IMO, they were very successful because the Pacific is one of my favorite models.

For 55 they finally did make a longer body. By virtue of some kind of new fabrication method detailed in some of the Packard books they were able to stretch the bodies 5 inches behind the front seat. However the method works, it did not require the long lead time of making new and horribly expensive stamping dies which apparently they could not afford, didn't have the time, or didn't want to spend the money on. Once they had longer bodies it was just a simple matter to bolt them on the longer chassis to make true senior cars for the 55-6 Packard line.

Don, glad you like the car. The 127 version would have needed a new roof and wide B-pillars so that the rear windows could drop straight down. The car I have floated has rear windows that would have rotated down like the 2-door hardtop, and clearance within the door's inner envelope would have been very tight, might not have worked at all.

I think Howard was describing how the Pacific and Convertible physically came together rather than suggesting that they weren't Seniors. Packard advertised them as Seniors and their pricing was similar to Patrician. They had Cavalier rather than Patrician side trim because they still had the old Clipper's rounded fender bulge. And they didn't sell well.

An alternative Pacific strategy would have made the 2-door hardtop and convertible Clipper Panamas only, with sore thumb fenders, and instead launched a 4-door Pacific pillared hardtop that looked like a sporty version of Patrician and gone after a younger up-and-coming market with intent of getting conquest sales.

Paul

The brochure caption for Pacific would have described this car nicely.

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  1954 Packard Pacific 122 4D Pillared HT brochure copy.jpg (59.56 KB)

I don’t think the large rear windows would be able tilt on any wheelbase of 4-door so as nice as this concept is, some other way to seal the seam would be needed. Maybe not an issue if it’s a pillared sedan but if a true hardtop, then some way would be needed such as sliding back slightly before going down.

My 1965 Cadillac Fleetwood is a pillared sedan and the rear windows don’t need to tilt or do anything fancy in order to seal and, as I recall, on my 1965 Imperial LeBaron which is a true hardtop, the rear windows slide down and slightly back at the same time.

If they really wanted to get the younger crowd I would think they would use the Caribbean rear end, e.g. ditch the fender skirts, especially the 1953 version with the full wheel cutouts, which all in all looks a lot better than the 1954. Basically a 4-door Caribbean hard-top.

With the high beltline it would seem they could engineer a rear door window that would roll down all the way without the vent-wings, which I think is the point in question.

But I don't know what they really could have done in 1954 to attract more customers without a V8.

Here's the glass sweep and package for Mayfair articulation and side action. Very tight. Second approach is perhaps similar to '55 Olds/Buick 4-door hardtops. Packard would have needed to find its way to the same sealing/weatherstrip design that GM did.

Skirts/no skirts is like whitewalls/blackwalls... always a hot topic! The '53 Caribbean, because its fenders were designed for skirts, had a lot of lateral overhang, which a wider rear track would have reduced.

I've always felt that '54 was when Packard as a stand-alone player needed to make its stand. The cars needed to sell well, make money and stay viable through '55 with only the V8 added, and 1956 needed to be all-new. Despite talk of going after Cadillac, a lot of the '54 appearance investment went to Clipper's rear fenders and taillights and rather less went to the Seniors. Had Packard focused on the Seniors and used the '54 Caribbean's two-tone paint and a few other tricks to freshen Clipper, who knows...

Other levers for '54 were Nash's low-cost underhood A/C and Torsion-Level. Allison had been working with Packard on T-L since 1951 and had running prototypes in 1953. More prototype refinement came during 1954 but perhaps the feature could have been pulled forward a year if Ferry and then Nance had gone after it.

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  Glass sweep and package.jpg (10.80 KB)

From a purely design point of view, the window drop looks fine but from a technical point of view it would never work as there is no room for any lift or tilt mechanism. The bottom edge of the window is against the front inside of the door (not accounting for the door’s own structure) so no lower holder is possible. Also, such a mechanism, even if it would have fit, would be costly and is totally unnecessary!

Even with windows that go straight down, something like this is needed which is ‘60 vintage and probably a bit more complicated using ‘50s technology.

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