What if?

[Harry P.]

Always...

[slusher]

What would a Pacer look like today if AMC was still around..?

[PappyD340]

What if Harry decided to do the American Idol gig?

[Harry P.]

I think the biggest "what if" would be what if the Detroit Big 3 and their sympathetic Michigan senator Ferguson and the SEC hadn't driven Preston Tucker out of business. I think that Tucker would have made some big waves in the world of autos. Who knows what would have been if he had been allowed to continue building Tuckers?

What if Harry decided to do the American Idol gig?

Maybe they did ask me. Maybe I said yes. Maybe I convinced J-Lo to come back, too...

[Longbox55]

There were several different versions of the Corvette early on that never made production but were in the Motorama shows. Pretty nice versions, actually.

Yes, there were.

[PappyD340]

At a boy Harry you got good taste my friend!! We will try to hold the fort down while you and Keith and J-lo grace our little silver screens twice a week!!

[Harry P.]

At a boy Harry you got good taste my friend!! We will try to hold the fort down while you and Keith and J-lo grace our little silver screens twice a week!!

[Richard Bartrop]

What if Packard had survived?

I've often wondered about that too. It might have lasted a little longer if Studebaker hadn't dragged it down, but based what was happenning with the other independents, it was struggle to keep fresh looking product when the Big Three were able to crank out a restyle every year. Packard would have needed a sugar daddy to survive, and Ford, GM and Chrysler already had established luxury brands of their own. I tend to agree with the idea that the aborted merger with American Motors would have been the key to Packard's continued existence. Now, it may just have meant that they ended up folding thirty years later than they did, and the last ones were restyled Hornets instead of Studebakers, but then again, they might be just the thing to keep going a little longer, and in any case, some interesting things could happen along the way.

One of the plans that got shelved for lack of funds was a brand new V-12 good for some 400 hp. A merger with AMC just might have made that possible. If it was successful, it's not hard to imagine a response from the Big Three. Would the sixties see a cylinder race as well as a horsepower race? Would engineers try to squeeze one into a Rambler to produce their answer to the GTO? With upgrades and refinements, would the Packard 12 be the new hot mill for the racing set? Would we see V-12 Javelins and AMXs blowing the doors off 'Cudas and Chargers? With a proper luxury brand to sell it under, would the midengine AMX/3 be okayed for production, only this time with power by Packard?

Just my $.02

[Art Anderson]

What if Tucker had become a viable manufacturer and thus cause the others to "catch up" to its innovations? Was the central "bullet" on the fronts of the late '40s Studebaker and Ford cars a coincidence or were they fillers for a central headlight that steered with the front wheels like the Tucker?

More than likely, both the Ford "spinner" and the Studebaker Bulletnose came out of stylists doodling around with aircraft themes during WW-II, while thinking up new automotive designs for the coming postwar world.

Art

[Longbox55]

Either that, or we would have ended up with Packard badged Gremlins and Pacers :lol:

[Richard Bartrop]

Either that, or we would have ended up with Packard badged Gremlins and Pacers :lol:

I can see that too.

[Richard Bartrop]

I think the biggest "what if" would be what if the Detroit Big 3 and their sympathetic Michigan senator Ferguson and the SEC hadn't driven Preston Tucker out of business. I think that Tucker would have made some big waves in the world of autos. Who knows what would have been if he had been allowed to continue building Tuckers?

I think even without Sen. Ferguson's "help", I still think Tucker would have had a tough go of it. Would they be able to keep it looking fresh in a market where competitors were able to offer new designs every year? (IMO it was the annual model change that really killed off the independents after the war) How would the company handle Preston Tucker's death in 1956, and the "Eisenhower Recession" two years later?

[Richard Bartrop]

Both points are true. Getting the 'Vette into production faster was easier using fiberglass, but there was also a cost savings of not having to produce stamping dies for what would be a low production vehicle. There's also the case that some of the body lines of the Corvette would be much easier to produce using fiberglass over steel.

Ona side tangent, and going along with the alternate history theme of the thread, GM did experiment with an aluminum body for the Corvette, as well as a 4 seat varsion of the '63 Stingray body, which was considered to better compete with the Thunderbird.

If they followed the example of the Thunderbird, the Corvette could have ended up looking more like a Monte Carlo than the sports car we know today.

[blunc]

what if the Pontiac division had the power to stand up to GM corporate and actually get the Banshee produced in numbers that may have kicked the Corvette to the curb?

The Banshee (functional)concept cars worried the Corvette division enough for them to get corporate to squash it. (and even if that's not the case I still prefer this theory)

[Joe Handley]

I thought the Corvette was supposed to be aluminum, but there was a strike somewhere in the aluminum industry that made GM decide to stick with fiberglass instead, and the car has been some sort of plastic ever since.

[johnbuzzed]

What if the Mustang did go front-wheel drive as it almost did in the early '90's?

[kalbert]

What if the Mustang did go front-wheel drive as it almost did in the early '90's?

Probe was a fun car, but whew... sure am glad they steered away from replacing Mustang with it. Not that there's nothing good about Fox or SN95 Mustangs, whatever else they are, they carried the torch long enough for the redesign in 05. Remember the frenzy when those came out?

[Ace-Garageguy]

What if most people weren't idiots? We'd already have viable, practical, productive colonies in space, far far better medical care available to everyone, no hunger or homelessness and we'd be using cheap, clean renewable energy.

Oh, but why would we want any of that anyway ??

Edited September 10, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[johnbuzzed]

Then again, there's always the immortal "What if Elanor Roosevelt could fly?" question from Saturday Night Live. If any of you are into reading and alternative history, I suggest the works of Harry Turtledove. Fascinating stuff.

What if the US remained a productive manufacturing nation, and did not become a service-oriented society?

What if Ferdinand Porsche never designed the "People's Auto" for Hitler?

What would it be like if one went into a crowded hall to play a game called "Boing" instead of "Bingo"?

What if someone- anyone- managed to get all those old JoHan molds back into production?

What if Detail Master created their photoetched products on rubber backing, without the "sprue"?

[slantasaurus]

What if Nascar had approved Ford's SOHC engine and Chrysler had countered with the DOHC Hemi that was in development........

[Rob McKee]

What if Hitler was killed during WWI.

Would there have been a WWII?

Would the VW Bug have been built?

Would the advancement of aircraft been as fast as it was?

[Evilbenny]

Ha ha ha ha! Seriously? You do know that the muscle car boom of the late 1960's was halted to protect the financial interests of insurance providers more so than the environment right? A better question might be "What kind of muscle cars would we have today if people had personal accountability and common sense enough to not behave in ways that would require government intervention to protect those that are capable of making responsible choices". Even if protecting the environment was the primary cause for the demise of the "muscle car", what kind health and longevity would the inhabitants of this planet have to look forward to if the government/EPA would get out of the way? Not to mention that the push toward more efficient energy utilization has birthed the multiple horsepower per cubic inch "muscle cars" we have today that get 20mpg doing it?

http://musclecars.howstuffworks.com/muscle-car-information/how-muscle-cars-work7.htm

[Ace-Garageguy]

What if Hitler was killed during WWI.

Would there have been a WWII?

Would the VW Bug have been built?

Would the advancement of aircraft been as fast as it was?

If you read history, a very good case can be made that, minus Hitler, there would have been no war.

Ferdinand Porsche was working on brilliant car designs for many years prior to the rise of the Third Reich. The Bug most likely would have happened anyway.

As far as aircraft go, racing planes of the '30s laid the groundwork for military aircraft of the WWII period. The Schnieder Trophy Supermarine S6s were direct forerunners of the Spitfire, for instance. Again, a thorough understanding of aviation history seems to indicate that private enterprise would have been working to rapidly advance aviation had war not intervened.

German scientists were working on rockets (along with Americans like Goddard) well before the war, with dreams of peaceful interplanetary travel. Had so much energy, money, and so many lives not been wasted, space flight most likely would have been a reality much earlier.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

If you read history, a very good case can be made that, minus Hitler, there would have been no war.

It's all speculation. It's just as conceivable that another person would have risen to power in Germany who also jumped on the "we need to avenge what happened to us in WWI" bandwagon, whipped the people into a frenzy and became just as powerful. We'll never know.

[Harry P.]

As far as the development of auto and aviation technology during wartime... it would seem to me that a huge war would hinder that, as all effort is put into supplying the military with as much equipment as can possibly be cranked out. Not much time left for R&D...