Packard Forum Index » General

I thought some members might enjoy this- A simple sketch I made for a friend, Showing what a modern Packard might look like.




I attempted to take cues from the 1951-1954 Packard, as well as slight fins mirroring the proposed 1957 models. Feel free to offer suggestions - I'm interested to see what others think a proper Packard should be like.

Sorry if revival cars are not your cup of tea!

Sweet!

You may be interested in:

packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb ... ct&order=DESC&topic_id=5352&forum=4

hooniverse.com/2011/08/04/hooniverse-wha ... -1992-packard-bayliff-custom-sedan/

madle.org/ebayliff.htm

flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/4168448436/

flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/4167691557/

forums.aaca.org/f134/hot-rods-make-packard-folks-cry-304705-2.html

myloveofoldhollywood.blogspot.com/2012_07_01_archive.html

pencil in skirts,,think it will look better. Like the 55-56 rear..

I'm hardly qualified to comment on this particular creation, I like the enthusiasm behind it's creation.

But the links to other, real "Packard recreations" is curious in that they're all caricatures of past great ones, they lack any sense of modernity or creativity or evolution of those design concepts. I'm reminded of the very ugly current RR 'Phantom'..or any new Bentley..which seem like a mish mash of past styling cues from widely divergent eras, giving both cars either a vulgar...or just plain silly....appearance. Sure, there are cues from the past that should be incorporated, but they should always be sympathetic to contemporary norms.

Great job!! Particularly like the grill and reverse opening rear doors. Grill may need to extend down to bumper fascia with no protrusion under it. Not a fan of Bentley's new single headlight design but might work better here.

V12 sounds alluring although in today's market perhaps a V6 GTDI... gas turbo direct injection, that's where the industry is headed. RWD, electric motors inboard of front wheels for mild eAWD and some regen.

The question of vehicle height is back on the table. Super low like so-called 4-door coupes? Normal height? Taller like new BMW GT? My vote is the tallest and shortest but no more middle height.

How about puting a Packard grille on a Ford Taurus?

It worked for Jaguar.

I'll bet some nut over at Ford is wondering right now how to get a promotion. The only problem is Ford wasted billions on Jaguar but this idea would only cost a few million. That is not enough of a loss to merit a promotion and a bonus.

Maybe buy out Chrysler and put Packard grilles on Chryslers and Jeeps.

Dr. Cole's right as always. Stick a Packard grille on anything. Some codger'll buy it.

Packard was an also ran from the time Alvan Macauley left the Company in 1948. The bathtubs didn't hold a candle to the crisper, hipper, racier looking '48 Cadillac, despite Packard's thorough engineering and build quality.

The 288 and 327 were good, dependable engines. A Mayfair coupe with stick and overdrive one of the best road cars of the early '50s, if not as good a car as a Chrysler New Yorker.

Ultramatic got Consumer Reports' "Best Buy" rating among slushboxes, if automatic transmissions turn you on.

The only worthwhile thing Packard did in the '50s was Torsion Level, and Bill Allison had to sell the hell out of it to Packard's Elmer Fudd management. And it still had Mickey Mouse bugs that'd never, ever have gotten into production when Packard was Packard.

Packard built some fine automobiles before Macauley left.
Let's focus on those.

Dr. Cole's right. You have to have a Packard behind the grille. Refined engineering, quality, chassis stability, above and slightly apart from the fray. Otherwise, what are you purveying?

And the Packards built from the time Alvan Macauley left weren't really Packards, and became less so each year. Several auto journalists then and since commenting that '50s Packards looked like "....bigger, gaudier Fords."

Doesn't mean they were bad cars. But they weren't as good as a Chrysler New Yorker from the '50s, as others here have pointed out. The Caribbean was no more than a Packard version of Buick Skylark, Cadillac Eldorado, Olds Fiesta. All of these overstyled, overweight, vs. regular production cars. Were Packard still Packard then, they'd have produced something rivaling the Bentley R-Type Continental,
a real sporting luxury barouche.

When Packard was Packard they weren't an also-ran. So which Packard are we heralding with the faux grilles, designey cues?

W.O. Bentley had nothing but open respect for Packard. Enzo Ferrari was inspired by Packard. Ettore Bugatti drove a Packard, not Bugatti, on his long, fast European business trips.

No one was or is inspired by bathtubs on, not that the Company hadn't already blundered royally with their clumsy marketing of the otherwise fine junior cars contrasted with R-R/Bentley's adroit selling of Derby-built large/small HP fare, postwar Crewe-assembled Wraith/Silver Dawn/R-Type Bentley on the same 127- and 120-inch wheelbases as concurrent Packards.

We might learn from the Railton Owners Club and other organizations. They're having too much fun with their survivors to worry about bringing out of context design cues into a 21st Century that's loooong moved on.

Listen to Dr. Cole. Perhaps there are too many worn out bombs around. Rather than get them fixed right, as Drs. Cole & Dyneto do, some people want to play with their computers, stick Packard grilles on other also rans.

There was more to Packard than a grille and design cues.
That's why the grille and design cues meant something.

We'd be better served by putting our energies into reproducing quality items that keep our Packards running the way Packard intended, something few people other than Monsignors Santana, Cole, Dyneto really know and appreciate.

Definitely Packard is more about quality engineering than style. I think if we put ourselves into the context of the Pre-War era, we would see most Packard's as being verysedate in terms of styling. What allowed Packard to rise to greatness was engineering excellence in an era in which cars broke down frequently and roads were often underdeveloped.

That being said, style identity is important too. How the car feels and looks is as much an issue of design as it is engineering. The Packard buyers of the 1920's and 1930's in particular had acess to outstanding coachbuilders. That was part of what made a luxury car back then - the bodywork was so important some owners might change them on a whim. The Packard look is as important as what is behind it.

SU8 - take a look at the image I just posted on the Continuing Packard thread. It's one take on the Bentley Continental that you feel Packard should have made. I agree that the stuff that Bayliff et al has done is crap. Low grade dog food. But I do think it is of value - for those of us who like to pursue such efforts - to digitally stick a vertical grill on a 50s Packard and see what it would look like. Why? Because some of us work in the auto industry and are trying to solve today's problems. And the reason we've seen the Big 3 in or near bankruptcy is because the leadership had, amongst other things, absolutely no clue of automotive history and the lessons that could be learned. It is of value today for an auto person to know what Packard could have done back in Fifties or Forties or Thirties. Fixing Packard is good practice for fixing today's problems. It teaches one to peek around the corner into the future.

I don't buy the bull that most auto historians have recorded as "fact" about Packard's or any other car company's history and the "inevitable" causal factors that did them in. These same people will probably soon write about how it was inevitable that the Big 3 almost lost it in 2009 because of labor or China or the big bad Government or you name it. I sat in the planning mtgs of one of them and with a few others implored the leadership to innovate. They refused. They were incapable. They were the problem. Were it my company the first think i would ask a planner wanna-be is give me, on the spot, a 10 minute dissertation on why Packard went belly up. If they couldn't say something intelligent, something knowledgeable, perhaps something new, I would tell them to go back to their cubicle, bone up on history and in the mean time try not to harm the company too much.

Macauley was no saint and Christopher was no devil. Torsion was a great advance that could have helped differentiate Packard from Cadillac had the fight continued into 1957, Teague was a genius in some areas and awful in others, Packard's wheels started coming off not in the 50s or 40s but 30s because they became tone deaf on styling and pizzaz, which rich people did turn out to want.