Thanks for the web page and the article's sketch! (That
even looks like Dick Teague on the cover with the
Cunningham) Anyway, don't read too much into the sketch
since at that time all the car designers were doing the same
crazy things! That could also be a Cadillac or a Ford, in
fact maybe a bit tame for a Ford! Anyway, Packard was
actually closer to doing the type of car shown in the upper
right hand corner of the cover photos on your "Car" magazine
cover. As you remember they brought out the Caribbean in 53
albeit without the split roof shown on the car in the photo.
What Packard actually was considering for the long range
future was a car being developed by William Schmidt
Associates in Detroit which was the Packard "Predictor" -
first shown I believe in '56. Bill Schmidt's Office also was
competing in a design competition at Ford for the new
Continental and he generated much that went into the
Continental MKII.
As fate would have it Packard was in deep trouble - as you
point out and in an effort to bail they joined forces with
Studebaker, who unfortunately was also in trouble. Since
their was no money for any of these new Packards, the
decision was made to use the Stude body for the new Packard
(The Packabakers) which came out in '57. A disaster since
neither Studebaker lovers or Packard lovers liked the cars
and they soon went away! Duncan McCrea was the designer of
those cars and did what he could with no budget, but of
course it wasn't enough and even the Packard Hawk was a
disaster.
To those of you who may not remember, I have attached a pic
of the Packard Panther that we have been talking about.
Compare it with the Belmont, they are similar but still very
different.
Brian
CEW wrote:
>
> I've put up a Web page with images so you can see what I'm talking
> about.
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~rapilje/cars.html
>
> This talk about the Plymouth Belmont and Dodge Granada got me to
> wondering again about an article title "Packard Maps Sensational
> Comeback" in ans issue of CARS Magazine I have that was published in May
> of 1953.
>
> There's a sketch of a car on the first page of the article (see Web
> page) that's labeled "Sketch from design section reveals lines along
> which Packard is thinking." The second I saw that sketch I thought,
> "that isn't a Packard, that's the Plymouth Belmont!" which, of course,
> was introduced the following year, in 1954.
>
> That Briggs, as "brians@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" wrote, and not Ghia produced
> this car in their Advanced Design facilities when they were supplying
> bodies to Packard and Hudson before Chrysler took over leads me to
> wonder again whether the car was produced for Packard, who was beginning
> to suffer badly at that point, and who might not have been able to
> couldn't afford the finished product, leading Briggs to offer it to
> Chrysler, who accepted it and displayed it (and the Granada -- it never
> occurred to me until you pointed it out how much that car looks like the
> Panthers) as a Plymouth concept car.
>
> The sketch in the magazine, to me at least, looks amazingly like the
> Belmont. And both the Belmont and Granada would have looked very
> comfortable sporting Packard-type grilles.
>
> What do all of you think? 
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