The Stud Hawk handled very well for its time. In the 50's EVERYTHING
rusted. Undercoating was rare. So cancer overtook the bodies of the cars. I
saw, a few years ago  my old 65 Buick Skylark I had undercoated by the
Texaco system. Paint sucked but NO body rust.

   The Hornets did okay against the small block V-8s in the early 50's. But
Chrysler was eating them alive by 57. The V-8's were just more efficient and
powerful.  Other than that the Hudson's were an excellent car. I don't
recall the Cutlass being the #1 seller.  Pretty much they were all what I
seem to recall being called the "C" body. You left the Buick Skylark out of
that mix.I think it had the best overall engines. The transmissions left
MUCH to be desired. Especially the automatics. Pretty anemic. I had a 66
Skylark Gran Sport with the big block engine and it kept eating
transmissions.  (Mine came with a 503 CID factory experimental engine.) A
trans was good for 45 days or until I stood on it. Buick took it back after
6 months and gave me a brand new 67.

   Actually there are a few fairly good cars today. Still have the same
problem. Detroit is being run by BEAN COUNTERS.

   Well given that the Merc was essentially a FORD with a different grille
and a HIGH price tag - you can say it isn't an orphan. Not in the same sense
that the Saturn will be an orphan.  It has a few years of parts availability
and then will fade into the dustbin of history along with Packard, Kaiser
etc. Since the same engine, trans suspension etc will persist in the Fords
and Lincolns for some time to come, the Merc will live on.

   No, you mean the Packards were turned into Studebakers with Packard
badges. A little cosmetic sheet metal, but the same car as tghe Hawk.

   The 56 Packard was the last PACKARD. From 1957 till they closed they
were Studebakers with the Packard nameplate.  The 54 - 56 Packards while
from an engineering standpoint were interesting cars (torsion bar suspension
push button transmission) they were nightmares in production. Unlike all
previous Packards starting in 1954 the cars kept the service departments
hopping with things that went BANG in the night. The cars were lovely to
look at but dreadful to own. Remember - at that point in time the Packard
was considered to have been the superior to the Cadillac and Lincoln as far
as prestige went. It was the limo of choice. But by the end of 1954 the car
had a stench over it that would end Packard as a brand. It was a magnificent
car killed by bean counters. Too many corners were cut on the magnificent
engineered changes. The steel used in the torsion bars did not meet design
specs so that had a nasty habit of snapping or tearing free of their cheap
mounts.  Cutting corners on the shielding of electrical wiring meant that
lots of Packards would be sitting DEAD, which was a horrible problem because
the shifting was electrical. They were a nightmare to fix. All because some
jackass bean counter didn't want to spend the money to build them right in
the first place. The company had been badly mismanaged for years. Not a
penny had been re-invested in the company. The factory was badly out of
date, inefficient and in horrible state of repair. Again the BEAN COUNTERS.
Going into WW-2 the Packard was considered a better car than either the
Lincoln or Caddy. Packard during the war built all the Merlin engines for
airplanes and a great deal of other war supplies. They did NOT maintain
their facilities. They squeezed the last penny of profits from it and did
not use it to improve their production as other companies did.

No, that would be Studebaker.  Packard bought Studebaker in '55 but it
was like two drunks propping each other up.  Last *real* Packard was
built in '56.  '57-58 Packards were Studebaker sedans or Hawks in drag.
 The only real goodness to come out of that marriage was the '56
Studebaker Golden Hawk with the Packard 352 under the hood.

nate