Packard Forum Index » Studebaker Built Packards (1957 - 58)

I know Nat Dawes (and Boo). I can ask him.

I am sure all of them believed what they wrote to be true. But it would be interesting to know their sources.

So, satisfy your curiousity (and ours) and pick up the phone and give them a call.

Owen,
A good idea. Mr. Pushbutton, if you know them and are comfortable talking with them about the designer(s) of the 57 model, sounds like a good idea. Not knowing any of the three individuals involved I am more comfortable sending them a letter rather than calling them up out of the blue. Plus I think I would be able to more clearly express the situation in more tactful terms without sounding like I was accusing anyone of making a mistake. As far as I know, any one of them (or all of them) could be right. By all being right, I mean that perhaps Dick Teague, Duncan McRae, and William Schmidt ALL had a hand in the design. Will send letters to all three writers and will let you know what happens. Give me a little time. I do work two jobs.
Ken

Ken, I email back and forth with Dwight all the time, as a matter of fact I am rebuilding a pushbutton unit for his Carribbean project at the moment, I'll send him an email.
I knew Dick Teague, he was a great guy. Unfortunately he died some years ago (about 18 years ago). I never discussed the '57 Packabakers with him, really only the 55 and 56 Packards.

I have a Turning Wheels (bulletin of Studebaker drivers club) dated Jan 1988 with a article by George L Hamlin according to article Mr Hamlin is or was senior editor of Packard Cormorant.
The article states that the decision to make the Packardbaker was made in August 1956 and that the car would be introduced last ten days of January 1957. The time line was three months to get the Studebaker to look like a relative of the Packards.Teague did the job. If you take into consideration the styling and engineering and acquiring of tooling to do the job to get it done from August and get cars in dealers hands by Jan 57 was quite a accomplishment.
All information I have read states that Teague left for Chrysler in 1957.
Appears that Teague pulled of another fast wonder. He was use to working with limited resources and doing a great job of it. All companies who had him working for them if nothing else had human resources departments that could find talent

I would have thought it would have been easier to do a mild restyle on the '56 Packards and sell them as '57s, but wasn't the narrow assembly line of Studebaker the reasoning behind going to a Studebaker body? If so, then that explains that. Still, they could have at least continued the Packard V8 and Ultramatic the last two years so at least the "Packardbakers" would have actual Packard power. Nothing against the Stude V8, mind you!

When the company started to fail,they signed a management contract with Curtis Wright.Curtis took control of the Utica Engine plant thus Packard lost production capability of both the new V-8 and Twin-Ultramatic.I have always wondered about one thing. When Packard bought Studebaker, they were using Borg-Warner automatics.Why didn't Packard adopt the more efficient trans and dump Ultramatic?

Quote: I would have thought pride had a lot to do with it. After all, Packard was the only independent to have managed to do their own and something I'm sure was in the back of the mind. Also, were the original Borgs that efficient or could they handle the weight of a Packard? I seem to recall there were some issues in the early 50's Studes and I believe some early Ford products that had Borg designed units. Of course, by the mid 50's and later designs, they were a very successful unit used on several makes.

EDIT: Reading Randys post, I should also have mentioned that in 54 when the purchase was made the Ultra was a very reliable transmission equal to any of the time. Also agree with his opinion of the twin Ultra.

The several bugs in the 55 Twin Ultra were mostly solved in the 56 version and given a little more time the T/U would have proved to be a very dependable unit. Thus they didn't need to consider the Borg unit. I've only been driving mine for seventeen years.

Firstly, the assembly lines in South Bend were in fact way too narrow for a leviathan like a Packard to be built on.

Secondly, S-P was hemorrhaging money nearly as fast as the Federal Reserve is printing nowadays...they literally couldn't afford to keep the Detroit/Utica AND South Bend operations going, it HAD to be one or the other. Once again the bean counters screwed us all by only considering sales (or production capacity) rather than profitability nor potential future viability.

Studebaker had basically two different automagic transmixers, both by Borg-Warner. The early 3 band (Automatic Drive) and the later Flight-O-Matic which many people believe to be a two speed but is actually a 3 speed. Normally it had 2nd gear start unless the gas pedal is floored, but I digress...there was a heavy duty water cooled (radiator cooler) version (Power-Flight) which relied on a vacuum modulator instead of throttle valve linkage that was used in trucks and the more powerful cars like the Avanti etc. This could've been up to the task of handling the higher torque and weight of a Packard.

One other thing, the Automatic Drive units had lock up torque perverters, something not widely known.