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That would look stunning as a 4-door hardtop but the wide cCpillars take away much of the style. I have always liked reverse-opening rear doors so that is a major plus and would look good with those on either roof line.

The challenge with a '55 vehicle of this style but with the Four Hundred's wrapped rear glass is how to terminate the lower trim when there is low pockets. A '56 would be easier to do because the lower trim on the bottom of the C-pillar could feed naturally into the trim that rides above the rain channel. The 4-door hardtop that Creative made for Packard had this solution. I have a couple pics of it buried somewhere in my files, will need to try to find it. In meantime, here's a version of the working model that now has Clipper front trim and upper side trim. I've never done this combo before and was curious. Am liking it fairly well. I also put the circle-V emblem on the C-pillar.

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  55 400 127 4D Pillared HT Executive Sport Clipper front.jpg (972.46 KB)

And the same car but with Senior front.

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  55 400 127 4D Pillared HT Executive Sport Clipper top side trim.jpg (973.10 KB)

Adaptation of red car's theme. Clipper front sans ship wheel. Chrome slabside splitter.

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  55 400 127 4D Pillared HT Executive Sport Sedan 54 rear doors.jpg (961.25 KB)

Bright and cheery.

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  55 400 127 4D Pillared HT Executive Sport Sedan 54 rear doors 100 0 0 0 100 100.jpg (1,490.22 KB)

What if you erase the B pillar?

Here's an attempt to respond to the previous questions and comments, by exploring the 4-door hardtop opportunity.

Let's tee it up by having Packard NOT merge with Studebaker or move Final Assembly to Conner. They would launch their '55s, have a shorter list of still significant quality issues, deal with them quickly, watch Buick and Oldsmobile's all-new 4-door hardtops take off, and say "we need to get a 4-door hardtop out there for the Spring '55 selling season."

For starters, let's use the stock Four Hundred's roof, rain channels and rear glass to minimize build cost.

I've already dealt with the doors in previous images... don't touch the front ones below the beltline, modify the rear door inners to be reverse-opening, and move them forward approximately 1.75 inches to eliminate the visible portion of the body structure between the doors. There would still be B-structure inside but it would be narrower, and modified to accommodate the reverse rear doors. The rear doors' body jams would also need modified, and would need to be integrated into the Four Hundred's rather than Patrician's rear quarter panels (which would now be too short fore/aft).

Image 1 demonstrates the aesthetic issue with the beltline terminating at the rain channel. It just doesn’t look right. And it leaves the front door vent wings alone, which also doesn't look right.

The second image lowers the vent wings and adds a trim piece above the rain channel to make the beltline look continuous all the way to the windshield. Similar to what the '56 Seniors used.

Images 2 and 3 show the proposed side glass in up and down position, respectively. Note that because of the beltline-mounted handles and their push-button mechanism extending through the beltline, the front door glass for all Packards had to terminate forward of the push-button mechanism. This is why the sedan's front door pillars are so wide, and why the hardtop and convertible use rear glass that extends far forward when up.

For these work-ups, I made an assumption that the front door handle mechanism would be modified to operate the latch without needing to extend the mechanism all the way to the glass. Therefore, the only limiting factor for the front door glass's most rearward extension would be the door pocket envelope, and I guestimate that the rear edge of the glass would probably be able to extend rearward a half inch versus stock.

The limits of the rear door glass's forward extension would be the same situation as the front, and I used the hardtop/convertible's rotating design to articulate and position the glass. But I quickly discovered that simply rotating the rear glass 90 degrees was not going to be sufficient, because the glass would be too long to fully rotate into the door pocket; see Image 4.

A combination of the rotating mechanism and an up/down mechanism would have been needed; see Image 5. It would have been a complicated articulation, but let's assume that Packard's engineers would have figured it out, using as many existing components as possible.

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  Image 1 - 1955 Packard 127 4D Hardtop Wrapped BL Windows Up Stock Vent Wings.jpg (976.77 KB)


  Image 2 - 1955 Packard 127 4D Hardtop Wrapped BL Windows Up Roof Trim.jpg (981.24 KB)


  image 3 - 1955 Packard 127 4D Hardtop Wrapped BL Windows Down Roof Trim.jpg (979.05 KB)


  Image 4 - 1955 Packard 127 4D Hardtop Wrapped BL Windows Down Roof Trim Reveal v1.jpg (975.82 KB)


  Image 5 - 1955 Packard 127 4D Hardtop Wrapped BL Windows Down Roof Trim Reveal v2.jpg (977.56 KB)

Images 6/7 are my personal favorites because the rear glass extends further rearward for better rear seat access, and there is no beltline to deal with. Plus, the roofs shape lessens the Four Hundred's cab-forward proportions.

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  Image 6 - 1955 Packard 127 4D Hardtop Windows Down Extended C fix emblem.jpg (977.58 KB)


  Image 7 - 1955 Packard 127 4D Hardtop Windows Down Extended C.jpg (975.48 KB)

Now that is stunning! I do miss the belt molding door handles, though, as these are too Cadillac for my tastes.

Love it!