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The above isn't a Facel Vega, but a one-off 1948 Vignale body over a bone stock '39 Packard 120 chassis, straight three-speed column shift, no OD.

Yes, that's correct . . . the red car pictured is a Vignale-bodied Packard, no relation at all to Facel-Vega. I can see where one might think so, though.

A great recollection Fyreline, thanks for sharing. Can just feel the excitement that the car would have created thanks to your detailed account. A couple 2-bit thoughts... first, the body flex in the Excellence could have probably been solved with a fixed B-pillar similar to the '61 Continental. Would have caused foot clearance issues getting in/out of rear but such would have been the tradeoffs. Second, why not S-P just sell it as a Facel Vega? (and sell the smaller Facel coupe too) The styling was good but falling behind with its mid-50s windshield, the sort of oddity that a European name might have gotten away with but not an American name. As for a return of Packard, seems that had Studebaker's board really had interest in making cars they would have made a serious effort to fix Studebaker's showroom by the early 60s, which would have perhaps generated enough money to at least strike a deal with say, Chrysler, to modify their large platform to make an uber Packard of some sort. This is what the '66 Duesy was to be. A Studebaker based on the Valiant would have also been a great deal for South Bend. What would the carrot have been for Chrysler? Not sure, maybe volume but it would have come with a headache.

Yes, I completely agree on the door flex issues - it would seem that some sort of fix could have been engineered. As for the 50's-style wraparound windshield, Facel Vega actually fixed that themselves in the later versions of the car (which Facel enthusiasts call "EX2" cars). The very small number of the EX2 cars built had modern-style windshields and were shorn of their tail fins. Gave the car quite a different look.

I suppose S-P could have just sold the car as a Facel Vega, but I have to think that Mercedes-Benz would not have been happy about that - and after all, they did have a marketing agreement in place with Studebaker-Packard . . . Which, let's face it, was actually just Studebaker at that point.

Packard was gone, and it wasn't coming back.