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Hi Gentlemen

Interesting concept renderings. The overall design and features are consistent with European trends. The similarity to the Mercedes-Benz 300D 'Adeneur' sedan, Jaguar Saloons as well as coach built Rolls-Royces and Bentleys by James Young is most striking.

As to their marketability here: only for '48-'50 as follow up to the 21st Series Clipper and then only as Senior models. It would be folly to buck the GM styling trendsetting by shear saturation taking place at the time. This is not to say they should have dismissed the classic radiator design for the senior line, just integrated it onto contemporary body architecture.

The Predictor-styled 1957's: my view is these cars would have been held on par with the Chrysler Forward Look lines. Finally, cars completely competitive with the Big Three offerings. Long, low, clean, rectilinear, and contemporary: at last, separating Packard from Clipper allowing each to compete in its specific market. Fact was an introduction before the '58 model year was nearly impossible. Just wish they had built this last series before their demise.

That Cadillac styling model labeled "1946 Cadillac Interceptor" was developed into a running prototype called the Cadillac C.O. (Commissioned Officer). Regarding this design, the following is quoted from the book: A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design by Michael Lamm and Dave Holls. Page 110

"...., though, while Hershey was interim head of the Cadillac studio, he'd designed what came to be called the "Cadillac C.O." The C.O. was very much an expression of what GM had envisioned a postwar car to be: rounded, high, fat beltline, pontoon fenders, wraparound windshield, coved headlights. In 1946, Cadillac made a running metal prototype of the C.O. and tested it at the GM Proving grounds near Milford, Michigan. While the C.O. performed well, Harley Earl and the Cadillac people weren't at all taken with the styling. What Earl didn't like was the high beltline. It made the body look over-weight and bulky. According to Bill Mitchell as interviewed by C. Edson Armi, Earl came in one day and said "To hell with that big, blown-up thing [meaning the C.O.]", and he started in a totally different direction. "If he [Earl] saw something wasn't going" Mitchell told Armi, "he wasn't a diehard."

At the cost of raising the ire of 22nd & 23rd series enthusiasts, I wish Ed Macauley had done the same thing before approving that design for production!

Steve

Interesting observations about Earl...although imo the '57 Packards as proposed would not have been truly competitive design-wise with Virgil Exner's exquisite Forward Look cars, much as we'd have liked them to be... they look heavy in the side view, not elegantly light and flowing like the Chryslers, and the weird "basket handle" on the fins does them no credit, whereas the fins on the Chryslers and DeSotos were a true work of art. The Packard tailights and bumper were but a caricature of the Chrysler design. The Edsel-like grille, which was resoundingly rejected by the buying public at the time, no matter how much it was trying to recapture lost Packard glory, doesn't quite work... A credible attempt, but no cigar in comparison with Exner's Magnum Opus, which was a design for the ages.

There's really no comparing the forword-look for the Chrysler and the proposed '57 Packards/Clippers. Not that one is better than the other, but each appeals to a completely different tastes.

Yet, we're getting further off-topic and I see a new thread devoted to '57 styling:

Your Opinion Whether the New '57 Packard Vertical Grille Would Have Been a Marketing Hit?

The 1942 Brook Stevens design is interesting and might have worked for senior Packards 1946-49, but I cannot see it being successful past that. The original Clipper drawings on the other hand, with the exception of number 1, look much less attractive, too Mercedes/European looking to have been accepted here, especially after 1950. The first one doesn't look all that different than the bathtub 48-50. Except it looks like it was based on a Hudson or Jaguar instead of a Clipper.

Guscha: Here are two of the actual Packard prototype they called Black Bess.

John F. Shireman

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Gerd -

I believe the image you provided is of the proposed '57 Packard Four Hundred, but executed as a 3/8 scale model. It matches a factory photo that I have, which was described as such in a club publication some years ago.

The pic that I attached earlier in this thread (and previously submitted to the "Show and Concept Cars folder of our Photo Archive) shows a full-size clay model of the same styling, sitting on a turntable in a styling/design area of what I believe is in the East Grand Blvd. facility. (I have since gone back and edited the correspondng post a bit for clarity.)

The pics that John Shireman provided show the one-and-only "Black Bess". It was a last-ditch effort to get financing by showing lenders they had more than jst rednerings and models.

On further inspection, IMHO, "Black Bess" looks like it was cobbled from a 1956 shell - a bit rounder than the crisp lines of the proposed '57 Four Hundred.

In comparison, some of the body lines of those clays are remind me of the '58-60 Lincolns. Even the Predictor has a few lines that remind me of the '58-'60 T-birds. Then, some of the lines of the front-end of the Predictor seem to have found their way onto the '63 Corvette.