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<i>and McPherson a unibody in new plant,</i>

It would seem crazy that one person could push that kind of expenditure through, based on a personal bias, especially when they are only a couple years from introducing the Falcon. Maybe that was SOP at Ford as Ray Powers apparently was pushing the "one story plant" thing hard when he moved from Ford to Packard.

As to the 59-60 Merc having been an aborted BoF 58 Lincoln, I found a Merc brochure page praising the car's "chair high seats", thanks to it's perimeter frame. "Chair high seats" are the sort of thing you pitch to older buyers, like Lincoln and Packard buyers. iirc, my dad's 64 Galaxie had no footwells in the front and the seats were very low, while the back seat had footwells.

And then there are the Mercs with the "breezeway" rear window that Lincoln had. There were times it was hard to tell the two apart.

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Great points and interesting observation about the Merc seating. After seeing several '61-63 Continentals lately have concluded that the car was really a low slung coupe with 4 doors. No wonder it didn't sell in higher volumes.

Have modified a '60 Park Lane on 126 WB to suggest a Lincoln on 130 WB owing to 4 inch hood stretch. Merc would find its own design voice and on a wheelbase between Ford and Lincoln. As to what Lincoln would have looked like after 1961 is an open question. In this strain of historical revisionism it wouldn't have become a box on wheels, that design reserved for successor to the Mk II. More on that car in a moment, gotta cook dinner on the grill...

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Packard evolution on Lincoln/Merc BoF is also pretty easy to guestimate, at least in terms of basic proportions. Here's a '66 Breezeway modified to look a bit more Packard-like and with 5 inches added to hood for 128 wb. The roof would have made its debut on the '57 Packard based on a quick retool of the Turnpike Cruiser. In '59 the new Merc/Lincoln windshield and body panel changes would have kept the car fresh. Two more redesigns through 68. But what would one have done with the polarizing roof? Maybe morph into what Exner did for the Packard coupe revival design?

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The Mk II was yet another botched experiment on Ford's part. It's incredible how many false starts the company had in a these years. Besides it and the Edsel there was also a 2 year only '62 Mercury Meteor that was only a slightly longer than the Comet. Sales went nowhere.

The Mark II was, imho, a big missed opportunity on Ford's part. I like the idea behind the car and think part of its sales failure was due to too few dealers. At the Motor Muster there was a 2nd gen T-Bird, the first from Wixom. Did you see it Steve203? Was medium blue with dark blue convertible top. Beautiful!!! As I admired it couldn't help but envision a '589 Continental Mk III (maybe '59... let T-Bird work the bugs out of Wixom the first year) with extended hood, restrained body panels and top tier materials inside. Price would have dropped from $10K to $7K and sales jumped to at 5,000 units per year, maybe double. Only 2-door coupe and convertible would be offered, whereas with Packard maybe only a 4 door. Maybe both would be sold together.

Here's what a '61 Mark IV might have looked like. Try to imagine it as narrower T-Bird rather than wider Continental. I show it with an actual '61 Lincoln Continental for comparison. Also threw in a Packardized Conti on 131 wb in attempt to see what a follow-up Wixom-based Packard might have looked like. I prefer the BoF car in earlier post. But I definitely like the Wixom effort for 2 door personal coupes in Ford and Conti configurations. McPherson had the right idea and one of the right cars. He and the rest of them shouldn't have let the Mk II personal coupe disappear.

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Your 61 Packard works for me. It has the scale to compare with Cadillac. While the 61-63 Lincoln was an excellent design, it was too small to really compete at the top of the market.

Yes, I saw the blue Thunderbird convert. I think it was a 60. I have a pic of it on my other computer.

Hi

Looking at the '57 Plymouth and Ford, Continental Mark II and '60 Mercury chassis frames, it become clear that if the designers hoped to get the lowness yet maintain a reasonably comfortable seating position and adequate floorwells, they'd better have the full cooperation of the chassis engineers! Exner got the lowness but the seating position and footwells are compromised by a frame that doesn't quite comply with the overall design objective. Forming technology either wasn't up to the task or recalcitrant engineers refused to go that extra mile by sticking with the old configuration.

Stepping back to the unhappy spring of 1956, by the time Nance shopped the Packard-Clipper Division to Ford, Packard's prestige and quality reputation was probably even more depleted than Lincoln by several degrees if sales numbers and resale values are an indication. Still, at least a thread of prestige reputation persisted and small cadre of loyal (diehard) owners. Breech, McNamera and the Duece correctly deduced they would pick up some of those folks whether they had Packard and Clipper in their fold or not.

But, taking the tack that the Duece et al preceived enough assets and market value to add Packard-Clipper to the portfolio, how might Packard been integrated? In mid-'56, the engineering and styling for the all-new '57 Packards and Clippers was largely complete. Clipper wasn't of much use unless it would be marketed in place of Edsel. But the BoF Predictor-styled Packards were well along and architecturally the same as the unibody-to-be '58 Lincolns- Continentals then only partly developed, the '59 Mercury program as well. Had the better sense of Harley Copp's arguments against the large unibodies won the Duece over, the Packard developments might have become the basis for a full line of BoF '59 Mercurys, Lincolns and Packards. Only the infamous McN hubris and MacPherson's power could have pushed Lincoln into participating at Wixom to fill out numbers regardless of how poorly it served the final product mix. Unibody complexity also limited the flexibility in body style selection, i.e. no 60 Specials and LWB counterparts without multiplied expense versus lower volumes.

While the four-seat Thunderbird became a bull's eye hit, the Continental Mark II was badly miss-handled. Concurrent to Nance's offer, the Ford's ultimate vanity project, the Mark II was turning into a major market failure after a strong start in the latter months of 1955. Demand was rapidly satisfied after the early adapters bought but too few others followed suit. When the order backlog evaporated, so did the exclusivity and dealer discounting began; things that hastened the Mark II's demise. The price probed the far upper limit of the prestige segment, found out there weren't enough people there to support a $10K model. The Eldorado Biarritz and Sevilles garnered about 4000 sales in good years at their $7,500 price range; the realistic upper limit if models were based on volume lines. The $7K-$8K range held enough potential to support lengthened unibody Thunderbird-based Continental Mark personal luxury models.

How Packard fit into the make prestige/price step structure would have been a sticky issue, which make stood at the top of the structure: Lincoln or Packard?. The family themselves might have balked at Packard above Lincoln, the memory of dear Edsel and his beloved Lincoln still strong after only a dozen years since his passing. Although Ford went public that year, the family still had major say over all important decisions, even products ones. Of Edsel's Lincolns, the Continental was the truest expression of his refined good taste, the car to be an enduring tribute. The Ford and Macauley families were also friends socially, so there may been some reserve of kindly outlook to keep Packard alive. Lincoln would still be preferred as their volume contender against Cadillac. Continental Marks would occupy their personal ultra-luxury choice spot. A Packard slotted above volume-luxury Lincoln, be based on its platform, become the FoMoCo opposition to the Cadillac 60 Special and Imperial LeBaron premium sedan segment. How long would Packard live in this small slice of the market? Perhaps to the middle-late 1970's when the market changed drastically again.

Your comments?
Steve

Forming technology either wasn't up to the task or recalcitrant engineers refused to go that extra mile by sticking with the old configuration.

More likely it was the beancounters that scotched the idea of a new frame. The mid 60s Studebakers looked very nice, and had a roof height consistent with the the fashion of the era, but the car still rode on the 1953 frame, which did not allow for footwells. The result was very low front seats and rear seats mounted higher due to limited legroom, resulting in severely restricted headroom.

<i>In mid-'56, the engineering and styling for the all-new '57 Packards and Clippers was largely complete.</i>

And there were styling studies for a Packard based on the 56 Lincoln. It would have been an easy, low cost, move to go with the Packard modifications and add them to existing L/M production at Wayne Assembly.

<i>Clipper wasn't of much use unless it would be marketed in place of Edsel. </i>

"Not invented here" syndrome was rampant in the big three, so an in house product will be preferred over anything created by outsiders. Besides, Clipper had no status as a stand alone brand, as Nance discovered when he tried to make it stand alone.

How Packard fit into the make prestige/price step structure would have been a sticky issue, which make stood at the top of the structure: Lincoln or Packard?.

It really would not fit. The Lincoln didn't really shrink until 61. The 56 ran on the same 126" w/b as the Patrician. The 58s ran on a 131" w/b. The 61s retrenched to a 123" w/b. There really is no place for Packard in the Ford line in 57

At the Motor Muster there was a 2nd gen T-Bird, the first from Wixom. Did you see it Steve203? Was medium blue with dark blue convertible top. Beautiful!!!

This blue Thunderbird?

And another look at the Mark II frame.

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For comparison to the Mk II frame above, here are some pix of an attempt at recreating the frame under Black Bess. I must say I am a bit surprised to see the Mk II used leaf springs in back.

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Speaking of that proposed 57 frame, has anyone any info on the progress or builder? IIRC, he was on the forum once or twice maybe 2-3 years ago with some general info and a couple of photos of the body in progress. Think he said he had leased his shop out and would be moving things to another location. Can't recall ever hearing any more after that.