Packard Forum Index » Modification Discussion

As I teenager I owned a 1954 Fleetwood Sixty Special and it was a nice riding and driving car with good aesthetics which were virtually identical to 1955. However, no matter how good the aesthetics, if Packard were to copy them it would not be a good thing. In other words, just because Cadillac chose to produce trimless cars doesn’t mean that Packard needed to do so and to me the 1956 senior Packards and even the Clipper were the epitome of ‘50s styling that rivaled none. They were both flashy and luxurious at the same time. A better exercise would probably be what Packard might have done for 1957 rather than what they did for existing models.

That said, all of these latest exercises have a lot going for them although the last one is probably too close to 1954 Patrician to be viable, especially as the body had already been in use since 1951. No sense calling attention to the fact that it was a left over which is what the 1955 side trim hides! Also, I think you would pretty much have to stick with the two existing wheelbases rather than have to re-engineer the TorsionLevel Ride for something longer.

I think of all these this is one of my favorites but might look better if the trim stopped short of the back of the front door. Putting the rocker trim back in might help too.

Oddly I was unable to post the image using the new image upload icon so doing it the old way.

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  IMG_0525.png (1,611.46 KB)

I asked Paul (Mahoning63) whether he would like to develop his vehicle study into a limo. In consultation with him, I park a Soviet ZIL in this thread as a source of inspiration.

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Don, I've worked up your last suggestion and have also incuded a version with standard Patrician trim on the body sides. Both have the Formal roof. And I understand where you are coming from wrt styling. It's hard to parse out what, besides quality issues and the orphan cloud, held Packard back from selling lots more cars, particularl for '56. Certainly one objective measure was overall length and 4-door hardtop styling, both of which the '56 Sedan DeVille had as it swept up the luxury market. Packard never did offer such a car.

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  1955 Packard 127 Patrician Formal with Some Production Trim bw 36.png (1,626.03 KB)


  1955 Packard 127 Patrician Formal with Producition Trim bw 36.png (1,649.46 KB)

I like both of these! Perhaps on the first one the brightwork around the windows is a bit much for an otherwise relatively plainly trimmed car, making it look somewhat top-heavy but still, it’s quite a clean look. The second is nice too, adding what I think is a bit of elegance and, while the half-length trim band never particularly appealed to me, it looks good here. I like the V roof emblems too but I can’t say as much for the 1952 hood ornament which looks fine on a 1952 but not on a 1955 or 1956.

A 4-door hardtop likely would have improved sales but would have probably really hurt the bottom line to make it after having purchased the in-the-red Studebaker in 1954 and not expecting Nash to renege on their deal which left Packard stuck and strapped for cash. If not for these things, it might have been Packard and Studebaker as an AMC rather than Hudson and Nash!

In any event, my tastes are not everyone’s tastes so I’m surprised that others haven’t commented on this fun exercise!

Gerd, let me first offer a few images of what a '55 Packard 149 wb car would have looked like had the car followed the exact approach taken for the '53/54, which included marrying a sedan from the front door forward, with a Junior Club Sedan from the B-post rearward, and changing the rear fenders to Senior and adding a mid-door of roughly 34.5-inches in width.

Am showing these images in the original color of car (with much appreciation to the owner and photographer) recognizing that they might serve as a useful reference for posterity. I did remove the optional chrome door edge and fuel door trim to bring the car back to standard production trim.

The first image has the rear wheel in its original position, which seems too low relative to the body (am guessing this is due to something Torsion-Level related). The second image moves the wheel up (and is the position that I show for all the black & white cars). The third image covers what I consider to be the absolute wrong backlight for this car given its new wrapped backlight for '55 (I think it was passable for the '53/54 149 cars but it should have been a Formal design with small backlight from the start). And the forth image adds my proposed greenhouse brightwork.

Note that the Four Hundred's rear fenders have been shortened by 5-inches.

Recommend we digest all of this before proceeding.

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  1955 Packard 149 Patrician 8-Passenger Sedan Clipper BL Original Rear Wheel Position.png (2,924.12 KB)


  1955 Packard 149 Patrician 8-Passenger Sedan Clipper BL.png (2,918.43 KB)


  1955 Packard 149 Patrician 8-Passenger Sedan.png (2,900.29 KB)


  1955 Packard 149 Patrician 8-Passenger Sedan with Chrome.png (2,891.13 KB)

Ok I need one of those 8 pass 👀

Don, here's a special one-off just for you, courtesy East Grand Boulevard. It's a late '55 build that has the first batch of pre-produciton '56 trim pieces. Not a perfect fit but hard to tell from 5 feet and just fine from 50.

The reason it has no fuel fill door is because it's... atomic powered! Ah, the future.

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  1955 Packard 127 Patrician Formal with 56 Style Trim bw 36.png (1,654.92 KB)

all the rendering look good I prefer the ones with more chrome trim the full length stainless looks best to me. On most the top of rear fender appears to be lower to me it should be a little higher probably because of the higher rear height on modified roof. Deep red color looks better than black to me just always have found certain cars look better in certain colors to me.

Gerd, the Zil you showed what looks like it has a '55/56 Chrysler windshield. I wonder if the doors were also Chrysler-based. Wheelbase per Wiki is 148 inches, versus 149.5 for '55/56 Imperial and 149 for '53/54 Packard. Do you like the exterior trim on the Zil?