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Re: Albert Kahn and the Packard plant
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Hello and thanks for your interest... but Leeedy does not control sales or distribution. These are all matters controlled by the publisher. This is not a self-published book. By the way, if you ordered early, you will notice that you received a very deep discount in the purchase price (which means the author gets less). And if you think a few months is a long wait... try waiting over 3 years and investing thousands of dollars and years of work... having people die while you are writing... and more. Some people were so advanced in age they had to be interviewed in hospital beds or in nursing homes. Others had to be sought out in obituary pages. Not to mention saving all this stuff since the 1950s. And... even after all of the years of work and editing, a few typos and minor errors in captions incredibly managed to sneak past several sets of eyes. But hopefully you will be more than satisfied with the end product. And you will see photos and read information never before seen anywhere in publication. As for the companies you just mentioned, Creative Industries did work for all of them... and I do mean all of them. So unlike what many people think. Creative was not some little customizer shop in Detroit. It was a very big operation.
Posted on: 2017/1/27 21:38
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Re: Albert Kahn and the Packard plant
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This posting claims that Highland Park was Ford's first factory and implies it is the birthplace of the Model T, but if memory serves this old Detroiter (me) I believe the honor of the first Ford plant goes to Piquette Avenue, not Highland Park. The big plant in Highland Park only got going after the T was a hit. The Ford Piquette Plant is now a museum and the Packard Club toured it a few years ago when the PAC National was held in Pontiac.
Posted on: 2017/1/26 17:55
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Re: Albert Kahn and the Packard plant
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Wherever B-29s were built, one thing is for sure-and this is an unknown fact: some B-29 components and the machinery to make the planes were made in Detroit. The components and machines to make parts of the planes was manufactured at a company known as Progressive Welder Company. Who was Progressive Welder? The predecessor company to Creative Industries of Detroit-which, by the way-made numerous components and did engineering for Boeing and the military... all the way up to the B-2 stealth bomber. Some of this information will be included in the new book on Creative Industries of Detroit. This book will be in stores as of February, 2017. Creative Industries, of course did a lot of work for Packard.
Posted on: 2017/1/26 17:40
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Re: Behind the doors at Kanter Auto Products. 3rd Floor Packard
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Back in the 1970s, I thought I had a lot of Packard parts. Then I thought a friend of mine had a really serious, serious bunch of Packard parts that filled several garages. Then I met a guy out in the dsert who had hundreds of Packards and several buildings full of parts. But this... THIS makes everything I have ever seen pale in comparison. Just one word: WOW! Thanks for sharing... and inspiring.
Posted on: 2017/1/18 20:37
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Re: A piece of history?
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Ohhhhhhhh! THAT is one very beautiful 1956 Patrician. I once had one identical with factory air. It was solid Roman Copper with brown interior. Beautiful car... and the color would have pleased Ed Macauley very, very much!
Posted on: 2017/1/12 15:18
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Re: Any '56 400's out there painted solid Scottish Heather (K)?
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First, there were lots of V8 Four Hundreds and Patricians made in a solid single color. This is nowhere near as unusual as people seem to be thinking today. I had both a solid Corsican Black Patrician and a solid Roman Copper 56 Patrician (with factory air). I knew of at least two 1956 and one 1955 Patricians in solid dark metallic blue and several all-black Four Hundreds. One 1956 Corsican Black Four Hundred was an original California car with factory air. I believe it still exists today. I knew of a solid Maltese Gray 1956 Patrician that lived in the San Fernando Valley in SoCal for many years. And I knew of a solid Flamingo 1956 Patrician also in SoCal in the 1970s. No idea where these cars are today. There were also several 1955 and 1956 Caribbeans done in solid colors. I know of a 1956 Caribbean in solid Corsican Black that just recently sold. The cars I've mentioned here were factory paints only-no re-paint jobs. There was also a 1956 Caribbean convertible that lived in Southern California that had ribbed trim back to the tail lights and up to the antennae instead of a painted middle stripe. It was not listed that way in the factory records but I knew the original owner and he ordered the car that way-new. An interesting look (all of the ribbing ran horizontal). Finally, regarding the mention of "gold" color "with wide aluminum stripe"... actually the ribbed inserts on production cars were stainless steel-at least ones I have removed over the years were. However there were at least two 1956 Packards-one a Patrician and the other a Four Hundred done in all gold trim. I know one of these cars was solid black. And... the ribbed trim was made of gold anodized aluminum. I still have a piece of this trim in my collection today. And from time to time, gold pieces turn up for sale in recent years-sometimes with wild stories attached... and people wondering.
Posted on: 2017/1/1 14:14
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Re: 55-56 square holes in rear fenders
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Tinnerman nuts came in all manner of fittings/mountings, not just the slide-on type. Many had spring backs with stop prongs on them, which allowed a push-in-and-lock rather than slide-on mounting. Of course the phrase, "Tinnerman nuts today" takes it into a whole new realm. Not many would use Tinnermans like the ones Packard used in such an application today since it is far easier and cheaper (both from engineering and manufacturing standpoints) to simply fill the hole with a push-in-place square blob of Nylon or some kind of plastic with expansion ridges that lock it in. Then screw into that with a sheetmetal screw. My late-model Cadillac has both Tinnermans and the plastic blobs. Chances are pretty good that if you check the rear license plate mounting on whatever late model car you may be driving, you'll discover the plate is anchored in plastic with a sheetmetal screw thread. Same kinda deal. As for parts documentation in parts books... when it gets down to small fittings like these, the books can sometimes be misleading, if not just plain wrong. I can tell you firsthand that these books are written very early, just after initial body engineering is in place. But by the time a vehicle hits the assembly line, things sometimes change. These changes may be listed in service bulletins if management deems them important enough to acknowledge. Otherwise not. Issuing service bulletins costs money and takes time. And remember... the cathedral tail lights were engineered very late in the process. Thus parts documentation and fastener specs for headlight doors versus tail light housings were unlikely to be completed at the same times.
Posted on: 2016/12/15 16:44
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Re: 55-56 square holes in rear fenders
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Not all snap-in cage-type nuts were machine thread. There were also clip-in type Tinnerman nuts (what the people in this forum refer to as "speed nuts") that were used in such applications. These anchor nuts I describe took a sheet metal type threaded fastener or screw. These Tinnerman nuts were used in making everything from aircraft to cars. Of course Tinnerman nuts sped up assembly processes so well during WW2 that they became probably best known as "speed nuts"...and they actually came in both flavors: machine thread and sheetmetal thread.
Posted on: 2016/12/14 21:47
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Re: Packard Plant photos from The Detroit News.
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It is interesting yet brutally frustrating to see photos of the plant-including original ones-with absurd descriptions attached to them. While there are many nice photos here, things are said here that are either totally wrong, contradictory or just plain senseless.
Years are off for the cars. Some descriptions imply things that were not happening. One "warehouse near the Packard plant" in fact IS part of the plant. Don't they know that the plant was MUCH bigger than people left in Detroit seem to imagine today? And if the line on East Grand Blvd. was torn up in 1954, why do these write-ups continue to make it appear that cars were still being built here years later (they were not)? Never a mention of the Connor Avenue Plant. Poured reinforced concrete hanging on rebar is described as "plaster"... c'monnnnn! Really?? PLASTER??????? A "roof" didn't merely collapse... a poured reinforced concrete FLOOR collapsed after it was so vandalized. THAT is what is being shown in the photo. A collapsed floor, probably broken up for the scrap value of the steel inside it. Makes an old Detroiter who knew both the plant and the cars even sadder.
Posted on: 2016/12/12 1:06
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Re: Information- 55th Series Caribbean Hardtop
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Hello Steve... I would be happy to, but I really just don't like doing speculation. So if more info turns up...and if I can see where a provenance leads back to, then it might be possible to talk more in public (like this forum) about this car's history. Doesn't anyone wonder where this car has been all these years since 1955? Surely, having been around all these years, this car is known to more than just the present owner. The history of this car doesn't start now... it started in 1955. Realizing that the present owner does not know the history... who sold it and where did they get it? Where did it come from? Where did the seller get it to sell? Where did the previous seller before that get it? Or was there a previous seller? Where was the car last registered? WHO had papers on it then and what did they know? What did those papers say? Unusual cars like this-especially in nice shape- don't just suddenly materialize out of nothing over 60 years after they were built! Gotta be a whole lot more to this story.
Posted on: 2016/12/2 13:06
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