Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Quote:

Agreed, my suggested approach fails to take into account the entire picture of what Packard was facing at the time. It has been said that many were expecting an economic downturn in the years immediately following the war; this soon turned out to be exactly the opposite and there was a brief period when there turned out to be a great demand for anything on wheels. With hindsight being 20/20 it seems it would've made sense for Packard to concentrate on strictly high-end cars with the highest profit margin - but then I have the benefit of knowing how things turned out vs having to guess. Designing an entirely new body for '48 that only took some design elements from the Clippers but shared no common sheet metal would have most certainly been a gamble but it's nice to think what it would be like if it paid off.

Quote:

Yeah, I can easily picture a squat Packard-style grille on that Chrysler. For the longest time I believed the Ghia Chryslers to be a 50/50 design collaboration but turns out they were simply "European style" designs that were all Exner only executed by Ghia because that turned out to be the least costly manner for Chrysler to get them built. Some of those Ghia Chryslers may have a couple elements I don't care for but there really aren't any I can say I dislike entirely. Hell, Ghia liked the D'Elegance enough that it acquired the design rights to it so it could sell it to VW.

Attach file:

---

  D'Elegance.png (971.09 KB)

That Chrysler C-200 convertible and a '34 Packard Model 1106 LeBaron sport coupe were my dream cars in college, cue harp strums. The closest i came were a '40 One-Twenty sedan and a couple years later, a '70 Dodge Polara convertible.

When Exner and a couple Chrysler execs visited Ghia in 1951, they saw teenaged boys hammering sheet steel over tree stumps in the courtyard.

Right. In coupe form, the Chrysler C-200 became the Karmann Ghia.

Off subject, mayhaps, but despite little interest in domestic cars after the war, would rather a Chrysler than a Packard, Cad, anything else. Chrysler's Oriflow shocks and patented two-leading-shoe front brakes, faster steering; 16.2:1 steering gear over Cad's clumsy 25.5:1, controlled a road car balanced front and rear when heavy engines usually resulted in nose-heavy boats. The only facets of the '51 200 also owned in my 20s were good ergonomics and a hood design apparently cribbed from the postwar Cisitalia. Body quality below Hudson Hornet or Oldsmobile, cabin as heartbreakingly drab as an ordnance vehicle; Bob Lutz not around to explain to the penny pinchers at East Grand the folly of not putting your best interior trim in all your lines. The debut '41 Clipper and even my '47 Super so suffered.

The New Yorker's E.B. White likened the new domestic cars for 1940 to "badly formed eggs."