O Scale Motor Vehicle Chronicle Dec 18

Merry Christmas to you too Richard!

The Packard was indeed a fine automobile and they produced some real classics. Thanks so much for this weekly thread that is highly educational and brings back so many fond memories for all of us. God bless you richly my friend!

This is one of my favorite topics.  I do appreciate your sharing your knowledge and your time with us .  Thanks, and Merry Christmas to you and yours as well.

          Happy New Year.  Logan

Richard:  Thanx for everything that you do on this topic.  I especially like the Packard discussion.  Never owned one but always wanted to.  Once, while I was in the Army stationed near Augusta GA, I let a really neat '53 Packard slip through my fingers.  Was a coupe/2-door with standard transmission and overdrive.

Never had another chance to own one!  Except on the layout:  I must have ten Packard's, scattered around various roads and parking lots.

I'd like to wish you and your family a Very, Merry Christmas and for a Happy and Healthy New Year.  Same for all the readers of this thread.  See you again at York in Spring?

Look forward to picking this up again after the first of the year.

Paul Fischer

Richard, Thank you for these wonderful post each Friday. I really enjoy them.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR to you and your family.

Azgary

TGIF...even though I am no longer working, this posting is another reason to look forward to Fridays.   First car I ever rode in was probably my dad's 1938 110 touring coupe (trunk coach). I almost got a red 1948 two door with overdrive as my first car, but it had been sold off the lot when I got back from vacation.  Never owned one, or a duplicate for my great aunt's LaSalle, either,  although I came within a hair of getting a LaSalle.  The great aunts had previously owned Franklins and I did once track down an incomplete Franklin Olympic  (this was a desperate last gasp model br Franklin, 1933-34, in which they bought Reo Flying Clouds without engines and front sheet metal, and sold them with the Franklin air-cooled six installed, with new front ends.)  The last version, 18-C, series 185, was an attractive car.   Packardbakers were pretty desperate, too.

2 weeks without this! how am i going to survive without my weekly hit of my model car and truck addiction?

seriously Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours. Again thanks for posting these highly informative postings. I for one greatly appreciate this information!

What's that you said? Packards?

A pair of roadsters by Brooklin, with a LaSalle coupe.

A pair of '56 models by Collectors Classics (Buby)

Dinky Toy on the left, Franklin Mint on the right. Can't say much for either of the colors.

Two by Matchbox.

Two by Rextoys.

Three by Solido

A very nice one by Tin Wizard.

Here is some additional information on the last Packards.

A brochure for the ’56 Clipper

A brochure for’58 Packard Hardtops and sedans.
They dropped the Clipper name and no longer were supercharged.

A brochure for the ’58 Packard Hawk
These had a Supercharged V8

Esval has announced a '58 Packard hardtop.
Frobly had a ’58 Packard Hawk, but they are almost as scarce as the real ones

The 1955-56 Packards were attractive cars, and so were Studebaker Hawks, although their design went unchanged significantly until maybe long in the tooth.  The combination that followed....no.  That front end reminds me, and think there were contemporary comments on it, of that ocean fish that vacuums up plankton or something from the sea bottom.  I think Packard, even if under Studebaker mgt., would have done better with the 1930's mix of a luxury car and the 110/120 medium price car.  The people who once drove the large Packards fled to Cadillac.

I love my cars & here's a picture of some of my Packard's

The maroon '58 hardtop in Richard's picture looks a bit like a '58 DeSoto. And I agree with the comment about it looking like a bottom-feeding fish. 

Southwest Hiawatha posted:

The maroon '58 hardtop in Richard's picture looks a bit like a '58 DeSoto. And I agree with the comment about it looking like a bottom-feeding fish. 

Compare that with a '58 Edsal.

Poor Edsel, with his domineering father, had no luck at all.  He passed away early, after wrecking a DT&I gas electric playing choo-choo on daddy's railroad, but before he could see his name taken in vain with its application to a trimmed up Mercury  to create Ford's "Buick".  The 1960 Edsel had a more practical drivetrain and would have been my choice, as it was based on Ford in the one year, 1960, in a long string, when Ford did not look "like a Ford".  It had less of the 1958 grille, which I liked, but overall it was less "Ford-like", which was also the advantage of the infamous Edsel grille.  Kind of like the current Fusion and other Ford models which have adopted the Fusion grille...they don't "look like a Ford".  Of course, these are my opinions, and auto styling is loved by some and hated by others. 

I remember when the Edsel first came out in 1958, one of my wag buddies said "it looks like an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon".  Probably a pretty good description of that long, "horse collar" grill that they had.

Paul Fischer

Merry Christmas to all, and the readers and poster of this "auto column".  I was thinking of a subject you might address...those small compacts offered by GM about 1962, for Buick, Olds, and Pontiac.  I have certainly seen none of them on the road for some time, although one of the "rope drive" half-a-V8 Pontiacs was parked in a driveway across from a relative's home for some time.  There was a lot of hub-bub about the aluminum V-8 in the Buick.  And I think that engine sold to GB, to appear in a Rover or something.  Most seemed to disappear from the roads, but it may have been my conception of time flying.  I have not seen a model of any of them, but haven't looked.  The Corvair was bad-mouthed, but was it not more successful than those?