Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Forgive me if this has been debated here before.

On one of the Facebook Packard groups, someone pointed out that there are styling similarities between the two.

And I know James Nance et al were considering Lincoln body shells for the '57 Packards.

But are any similarities coincidental? Or did Dick Teague's monumental '55-'56 updates make someone think at Lincoln? Or did Teague pick up hints in stylist 'shop talk' discussions?

Maybe no one knows now.

Yes, probably, as stylists moved between companies all the time, sometimes just hired away to learn what the competition was doing.

No, the by the time the '55 Packards hit the showrooms, the '56 Lincoln styling had pretty much been locked in and all the trim parts ordered.

Maybe, we should just accept the '55-'56 Packards weren't really groundbreaking and not much really much there worth stealing. He did the best one could expect with a facelift on a four-year-old-design.

I had occasion to attend a show at a car museum in upstate NY where they had one of every 1956 US car. The tall, stodgy, but gaudily bejeweled and three-tone Packard was placed beside the low, sleek Cadillac and the old bones were very obvious. Had the two been displayed side-by-side in showrooms, Packard might have gotten even fewer sales.

jack vines

While I find the 56 Lincoln attractive, it and the 55 Packard share common styling themes of the mid 50s, particularly the hooded headlights, curved windshield, exhaust pipes in the rear bumper and tail fins. Everything else on the Packard was 1951.

The really suspicious resemblence is between 57-58 Mopars and 58 Studebakers. The bolt on tailfins on the Studebaker are clones of what Dodge had. The Studie front end screams New Yorker and the 1 year only Studie hardtop roof looks like it came off a Mopar too.

Of course, while Exner Sr was going his forward look thing at Chrysler, Exner Jr, having just graduated from Notre Dame, was at Studebaker.

There is, in fact, a reason that there are some similarities between the '55-'56 Packards and the '56 Lincoln. Although, as was pointed out, the '56 Lincoln design had been "locked in," Nance had hired William Schmidt away from Ford for Packard Styling and Schmidt arrived in time to have some influence on the update of Teague's masterful '55 design for '56. (Bringing Schmidt on board must have rattled Teague, though I've never seen any account of it having done so, nor have I ever seen any account of any rivalry between Schmidt and Teague. Apparently they got on well together. ) Schmidt had done the Lincoln Futura show car - the one that George Barris later turned into the original Batmobile. Schmidt was very involved in the development of the Predictor design and in the design of the unbuilt '57 Packards.

Hi

Certain design themes were "in-the-air" at the time, so to speak: broad, heavy grilles, wrap-around windshields, hooded headlights, 'dagmar' bumpers, exhaust-ported rear bumpers, prominent taillights, pushed by GM Styling dominance. Industrial espionage with styling its focus was at an all-time high.

Lead times for the '56 Lincoln had its designed locked-in for tooling when the '55 Packards appeared. Frankly, if Lincoln were to emulate any other luxury car, it would have been Cadillac as they dominated sales. Packard, whether we like to admit it or not, was viewed as an also-ran. Teague himself applied a good many Cadillac design themes to the '55 Packard.

Teague was chief designer for two and half years before Bill Schmidt took over May 1,1955 as head. Schmidt worked in Lincoln styling from 1947-55, most of what we see in those cars after the last of Gregorie's 1949-51 models are his efforts. Schmidt's primary contributions are the never-built 1957 Packards and Clippers we know only from design concepts.

Steve