The color photo in question I believe was taken around the old Studebaker plant in South Bend in more recent years for a magazine article. Possibly near where Newman & Altman used to be. All of which-in answer to the question-is why it is all over the internet. It is a photo taken in more recent years.
The silliness comes in not due to the juxtaposition of a futuristic car and apocolyptic background. It comes in some of the wild things regarding Predictor said on the internet and in magazines in more recent years.
Due to the iridescent murano pearl white paint (formula devised by Creative Industries of Detroit with Rinshed-Mason)and thus used by Ghia on Predictor there was an age issue. As the years went by, the paint increasingly turned yellowish (it has since been refurbished). Some folks even have stated that the actual color of Predictor was yellow! Not true. The yellowing hue was just due to the paint age issues and the fact that herring scales in the mix turned yellow with age.
As for the article referred to in the Guscha posting, the photo shown of personnel is claimed to be of Packard styling team. Not! While it does indeed show my friend Tom Beaubien (back row)and Dick Teague, it was not a styling team photo and was not taken at Packard. According to Tom (who was one of the two who built the original Predictor scale model) the photo shown was on a non-Packard project and was taken elsewhere in Detroit. In fact, one of the guys shown in the photo was simply a relative of a designer.
Other articles on the internet have made a big deal out of pics of Predictor taken in front of Creative Industries' old building on East Outer Drive... claiming it is a newly revealed "mystery." Yet this information was clearly revealed to the public in the December, 1978 issue of "Car Classics" magazine where there was a pictorial article on Creative Industries. Page 61 stated thusly: "Publicity photos (of Predictor) were taken in front of Creative's Outer Drive plant"... That's 38 years ago. The information has been out there a long time. So this information should not be a new surprise resolution/answer to a "mystery" in 2016!
And yes,(and if I do say so myself) there was perhaps the world's most intensive and extensive history of the Predictor in The Packard Cormorant magazine (Summer, 2008 issue No. 131), as ECAnthony points out. Everything that nobody ever knew about Predictor. AND the video I rescued from 8MM film my friend Tom shot of the uncrating of Predictor at Packard in 1956 was referenced in this article and posted on the PAC web site. There ARE benefits to belonging!
