In the far end Packard needed something drastic and sure got it.
Original article here by George Hamlin and Bud Juneau in Special Interest Autos # 83 October 1984.
Designer Dick Teague had to dig deep in his memory. Packard needed something to show the audience in 1955. The big boys at GM had the money to present dream cars in rows but Packard was at the end of the road and short of funds.
Head designer Dick Teauge remembered Packard drivers coming to him wanting a grille like in the good old days when Packard was “the brand” and contacted Creative Industries of Detroit that after a sketch from Packards designer Dick Collier.
The complete 1955 Packard was kept original. Just the front clip got a 400 pound change including a massive old style grill, bumper divided in two with big parking lights and a peaky hood.
It was done in less than 90 days. They took a bone stock Packard Patrician, added the front, put Caribbean moldings on it, made special color combinations and “special request” name plates to be put on it and voila: They got a Packard Teague. A dream car and a show car and the audience were overwhelmed. Everybody liked it. The dealers, the media and more important the management. They indicated love for the model and that’s the same as production.
Sadly we know what happened. When 1957 came there was no money left and the Teague just vanished both from the drawing tables as in real life. Yes, it just was like gone from the earth and when people started to ask for it again decades later no one new.
Packard show cars were unlike many other built to run. The chassis were simply taken of the production line and put in special treatment. Therefore the Teague, if it was to be found, would most likely need just gasoline to be ready for a spin.
The car was not to be found but had left a trail. Dick Teauge got a phone call. A man wanted to know details about the grille. Even much later Studebaker got a letter in the same matter. It was obvious that man had something to do with the illusive car.
The trail dried up and when the car was found much later it was in a back yard in Portland Oregon. It was a wreck. Things missing. The front had been messed with. Many had walked up the hill t
o buy it and just walked back again. The came Larry Dropps of Pasco Washington in 1974.
The car was restored and with the extra 400 pounds in the front Larry Dropps was thinking of getting heavy duty shocks and springs but after a drive he discovered that the new system from Packard in 1955 with torsion bars that were turned by electrical motors to compensate for more people or heaver luggage just did that adjustment automatically as just another thing to compensate for.
Would it had sold? Probably. Pontiac and Lincoln did that retro styling later with good results. Would it had sold to save Packard?
-We can only wish.
Richard Teague, (which you mis-spelled a couple of times) did not disappear. He went on to design most AMC cars until AMC was bought out by Chrysler, including the fantastic AMX/3. Perhaps before you write any more articles about cars, you should do a little more research.