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Was this to be a 2nd Black Bess recreation? If only a frame 2-3 years ago it seems that way as a complete Black Bess reproduction was at the 1999 Centennial. I'll see if I can find my photo of same.

I don't know the whole story. I believe some photos of the frame had been posted and think someone got in touch with the fellow and he come on the forum and gave a bit more info. If it was all new work or maybe photos from long ago is a good question. Don't remember if he said he was working or jut storing the completed car in the shop. I think there was something about hiway construction as the reason the shop space was in play.

Hi

"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."

The '56-'57 Lincoln platform still at least one more model year currency, with a simple, clean restyle. The heavy-handed '57 restyle should have been nixed when the '56 sales proved such a success. Further refinements for '57 and '58 were all that was necessary to carry the BoF Lincoln through those model years.

Certainly fitting Packard into the make structure presented problems though not insurmountable. On the Lincoln platform for '57 and '58 as an expedient would be to "Packard-ize" the '56 Lincoln body as the late, desperate plan Nance proposed, build them as interim models until a fully-integrated 1959 program arrived. A 130" wheelbase, Packard engine and Predictor styling would be the easy part: Torsion-Level a temporary casualty, Ultramatic replaced with TurboDrive. It would not have been the optimum approach but given the short time frame of a mid-'56 buyout by Ford, it would have given them something to keep the dealer organization and market presence alive. Smacks of the Packard-baker program but at least the '56 Lincoln would have been a more appropriate basis than was the '56 Studebaker President Classic.

Steve

See this Project Blog for more info on the proposed '57 frame.

The gentleman doing the '57 Predictor should be inducted into a symbolic Packard Hall of Fame. His is a worthwhile and incredible undertaking and history in the making.

Yes, that's the blue Thunderbird. Looks great with dark blue canvas top up too. My only gripe with the series is that the windshield and greenhouse look a bit high. Is more apparent on the two redesigns that followed. One item that would have set T-Bird and Conti even further apart from the rest would have been an independent rear suspension, if not in '58 then in '61 or '64.

Re: Packard fitting in, the whole point of Ford's both purchasing it and keeping Continental as a separate marque would have been to do to the luxury market what GM did to the medium-priced market: flood it with three brands that gave the buyer styling and image choice.

"Had the better sense of Harley Copp's arguments..."

Completing the '57 Packard Program would have certainly been an idea that Ford would have needed to consider. And study carefully, part of the calculus involving the level of sharing with the shorter, narrower Fords required to compete economically with GM, which in turn would have been informed by GM's sharing strategy. I get the impression that all GM cars of the late 50s/early 60s used the same windshield, which suggests they used the same firewall, which suggests the same front floorpan and perhaps front door inners. This definitely seems to be what the '57 Chryslers did, in fact even that company's two roofs appear common across the board except for Imperial. If all this had been the case, use of Packard's new architecture, while long, low and wide, might have put Ford at a financial disadvantage with little upside to product, the '57 Mercury and '58 Edsel Citation being wide and low enough to form the basis of a longer Packard and Lincoln, and the Mercury/Edsel investment already made and needing a 5-6 year life cycle to fully recoup. It would have been a case of bad timing for Packard.

But not necessarily translating into a bad '57 Packard. Personally, I don't much like the '56 Lincoln despite the big award it received. Nor would a Packard with extended hood and vertical grill have fixed the fundamentals. The Premiere's rear sags, the windshield is too tall and the car has a Miss Piggy portliness about it. The Turnpike Cruiser by contrast was lean, mean and not far inbetw.... well, you get the idea... and it had a roof ready-made for a Predictor Packard - provided those crappy twin pods above the windshield could have been removed.

"There really is no place for Packard in the Ford line in 57."

The '57 Eldorado Brougham laid down a new proposition for the late 50s: prestige was not tied to size. This meant that a Packard that was no bigger than concurrent Lincolns could still have sat above Lincoln in the pecking order. It all came down to basic proportions - and the '57 TC was quite different than the '57 Lincoln - and styling, engineering features, interior materials and craftsmanship. It would have been Lincoln, then Packard, then Continental. Lincoln would have come down a tick in pricing into upper Chrysler territory. Packard would have lost it breadth of models, effectively becoming a one-model brand with three body styles. Continental would have had only two body styles. The task for Packard would have been to out-do Sixty Special with a slightly smaller package. But when one thinks about it, Sixty Special shared the 62's roof so it was more about proportions, which meant style, which is what a Predictor-themed Packard would have been all about.

"Packard engine and Predictor styling would be the easy part: Torsion-Level a temporary casualty, Ultramatic replaced with TurboDrive."

Good idea having Packard continuing to be powered by its own V8 in 1957, would have made for good ad copy, helped along by a bump in displacement that put it above Lincoln that year. Also like TurboDrive. Re: Torsion-Level, on this I think The Deuce would have personally needed to involve himself, imploring Packard's chassis team to do everything humanly possible to integrate the system into the '57 Packard. It was a genuine technical improvement that would have translated, in the eyes of many a prospect, into a better car than Sixty Special.

Yes, that's the blue Thunderbird. Looks great with dark blue canvas top up too. My only gripe with the series is that the windshield and greenhouse look a bit high. Is more apparent on the two redesigns that followed.

The greenhouse probably looks too tall because the beltline is so low. A low beltline and tall greenhouse was common in the early 60s. Back then, it was comfortable to drive with your elbow on the window sill. Most people can't do that anymore, because the beltline is so high now.

In "Diamondhead" Charlton Heston drives a squarebird convertible, with the top always down. Heston was 6'3", and, watching the movie, I noticed that the seatback barely came to his shoulder blades.

Here's a series of clips from the film. There is a good look at how short the seatback is at the 2:42 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnUooipC8iw

Steve203 - thanks for the education, never looked at it that way. Makes sense.

Steve - I didn't mean to dent the Nance last ditch plan that you proposed to build upon, it certainly could have bridged the gap for Packard in what turned out to be a very competitive 1957 model year. I did take a quick look at vehicle heights. The '56 Lincoln was 60", which am guessing the '57 continued in hardtop form. The '57 Merc and '58 Lincoln were both 56.5". The '58 T-Bird was a super low 52.5" which would have made the Continental Mk III quite the looker.

Came across a nice '60 Lincoln Mk V image, couldn't help but develop a crush on it. And it got me to thinking... what if the '58 Packard did indeed go to Wixom against all rational logic, the shenanigan behavior in Lincoln planning using it as the "stuckee" that gave McPherson his volume car while keeping Lincoln out of the whole deal. And to divorce Lincoln completely from the project the planners would have even convinced him to use the "way out there" Square 'Bird design on the Packard instead of Lincoln, pointing out that it was almost a dead ringer for what Packard had come up with independently. Schmidt, happy to see a glimmer of hope for Packard and his design, would have embraced the plan while carefully fighting to keep his design elements in tact but with only partial success, preserving the '57 Program's front and insisting the side scallops be removed but losing the battle at the rear and with the body side contours flowing into it.

The net result might have been a car that inadvertanly stumbled upon success, the front and rear both sporting generally harmoneous, delicate chrome elements of disctinctive and somewhat mysterious design. To be honest, I never warmed to the cathedral taillights grafted onto the Predictor show car and '57 Packard proposal. What worked so wonderfully in '55-56 somehow got lost in translation.

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Hi Paul and Steve203

Utilizing the '57-'58 M-E shell to develop into a Predictor-styled '57 Packard while the concept car's styling was fresh with the public would have been a good move. It would be better than just going the expedient "Packard-ized" '56 Lincoln shell which was becoming out of vogue with its overall height taller than the all-new '57 Cadillac and Imperial. Architecturally, the M-E shell was more similar to what had been developed for the '57 Packards: low, rectilinear styling, the frame design fully integrated with the body concept to provide deep footwells and adequate seating position. Examining the '58 Edsel Citations and Mercury Park Lane impresses one that the size and width is very much what luxury cars were as the time and would become.

Applying Predictor-styling to the M-E platform to would probably be no more costly than to do so on the '56 Lincoln shell. Stretching the wheelbase to 130-131" would present little problem; four inches ahead of the cowl for a nice long hood, kick the rear axle rearward two inches for enough to apply fender skirt to the Packard-unique quarters. The Turnpike Cruiser/Predictor roof without the "Dream Car Design" antennae complete the package, powered still by a Packard engine. Whether they could gin-up a quick installation of half a Torsion-Level for at least the front suspension would be an unknown. Whatever else, definitely they would have to be far more carefully crafted than either of the other M-E body-mates were. Most of the gadgets would remain with Mercury and Edsel; Packard s could share the Mercury push-button transmission selector but.....definitely not Edsel Tele-Touch!

"I never warmed to the cathedral taillights grafted onto the Predictor show car and '57 Packard proposal. What worked so wonderfully in '55-56 somehow got lost in translation."

While they look good in the broad context, they do seem a tad out-sized when one looks at them in isolation. The '55-'56 units are for the time, quite a subtle design, not all that large, fitting the fender ends very nicely. The '54 Cadillac-style bumper ends , something of a gimmick, could have been just as well been neat units shaped like those on the '61 Lincoln and looked just fine.

Steve

Good assessment Steve, and just as I was coming around to your idea for Packardized Lincoln for '57! Under the Wixom Packard scenario just proffered was trying to think of a bridge to get Packard from '56 to '58 and your '57 Lincoln-Packard could have done the trick. Or maybe the marque could have been left without a Patrician for one year, the Studebaker-based Clipper keeping the dealers afloat until the Ford cavalry arrived.

There were many moving parts to the Ford saga in those years including lots of investment. Nance would have needed to sniff this out and play it for all it was worth. He actually did do a fairly good job by approaching Ford and getting as far as he did. Had the Deuce woken up on a different side of the bed one of those key decision-making days, he may well have decided that Packard was an asset worth acquiring. This would have been all it took, the rest playing out almost automatically given the top Ford manager personalities and brand health of the day. One could see a scenario in which Nance was brought in not to run Lincoln but to keep Packard and Packard-Clipper running, the idea being that JJN knew best what made the Packard customer tick, given the years of study his team had invested, and would have been able to hit the ground running.

By 1959 the Studebaker Clipper would have been gone but the '59 Edsel might have been available had Ford pulled the plug on Edsel earlier, which may well have been the case given that its newly acquired Packard showrooms desperately needed a Clipper replacement. The '59 Edsel grill would have fit in nicely with the Patrician, no question there. The Edsel roof could have been modified to look more like Patrician too; see image. As it was, the '59 Edsel's taillights actually came from the '58 Continental, so had the Patrician taken on the body of the Continental as just suggested, there actually would have been parts sharing between it and the new '59 Packard Clipper.

There's another wrinkle to consider in this fabric of auto history. Correct me if wrong but the '60 Comet was actually an Edsel in the studio as late as 1959. I get the impression it became a Mercury (was originally just called Comet) in '60 due to the demise of Edsel. Had Studebaker continued to supply Packard with a Clipper in 1959, now in compact Lark form, the 1960 Comet would have been its logical replacement.

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Here's a pair of 2-doors to go with the hardtop sedan. Wheelbase shrinks by 9 inches and rear overhang by 5, matching the Predictor show car's 122 inch wheelbase and 215 inch length.

Side view proportions are similar to concurrent T-Bird only scaled up, the T-Bird having a 113 inch wheelbase and 205 inch length. These Packards could have gone either way... shortened version of sedan or inner structure of T-Bird. Each would have brought its own cost hits/saves and market opportunities.

The circle/vee on C-pillar would have been glass for visibility. The Victora would have come only with the reverse slanted backlight, the 4-dr sedan/hardtops only with conventional backlight.

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