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Re: New "What Ifs?"
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JWL
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Steve, I think you may have found a "What If" trail that has been mostly over looked, Packard's jet engine production. What if Packard had become successful making jet engines and these revenue would have allowed the company to continue and develop its motor car production? Or, would it have gone into two separate companies like Rolls Royce?

(o{}o)

Posted on: 2014/8/20 9:21
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Re: New "What Ifs?"
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If the jet engines would of been successful they could of carried the car production for so long before it becomes unsustainable! You cant keep bailing them out.

Posted on: 2014/8/20 9:34
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Re: New "What Ifs?"
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The thing about the jet engine work, Packard didn't have the resouces to use what it was developing. I wouldn't be surprised if that was why the government pulled the development subsidy.

Even if Packard had gone the rounte that Curtiss-Wright did, license foreign designs, Packard still didn't have the resources to build them. While Packard could manage the $15M to build the Utica plant, it certainly didn't have the $48M that the government paid to equip that plant.

All it's competition was vastly more substantial: GE (which was handed rights to Whittle patents by the government), Westinghouse (which got in over it's head with the J40 and dropped out of the industry), Allison (which had GM's checkbook and was handed GE designs by the Army) and Pratt & Whitney, which had been a major aircraft engine producer for decades.

A better move for Packard would have been developing new markets for piston engine technology that it posessed, like moving into diesels for trucks to cash in on the trucking boom that arrived with the Interstate highway system.

Posted on: 2014/8/20 10:02
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Re: New "What Ifs?"
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Leeedy
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Quote:

Steve203 wrote:
I am talking about were not aircraft, but rather automotive gas turbines.

Problem is gas turbines have never caught on for surface transportation. I remember the Chrysler and Rover turbine cars. In the early 70s, Ford was experimenting with a turbine in a long haul truck. Union Pacific had a few turbine powered freight engines. Then there were the Turboliners that Amtrak had in the early 70s. They all went away when fuel prices rose.

Where gas turbines caught on in a big way, and where Packard had a good start was for aircraft.

Packard's XJ49 was one of the most powerful jets of it's day, with takeoff thrust of 12,000lbs. That makes it the equal of the Pratt J57, which first ran 4 years later, and being a turbofan, the XJ49 probably had fuel consumption 20-25% lower than the J57.

Being developed sooner, and being more fuel efficient, which translates into more range and/or more payload, it could have been used instead of the J57, or it's civilian variant JT3C, on several subsonic platforms, namely the early models of B52, KC135, 707, DC8 and several other less well known military and civilian aircraft. Pratt built over 20,000 J57/JT3Cs. That business could have been Packard's, if they had had the resources to develop and produce the XJ49.



One more time... and I don't intend this to turn into a debate about jet vs. gas turbine or why and how gas turbines never "caught on" in ground transportation-which is a whole different subject for a whole different place. With a bunch of insidious politics involved.

Diesel engines and gasoline engines both have pistons and combustion chambers... but one is not the other. Same thing for jet vs. gas turbine. The issue of whether gas turbines in automobiles ever "caught on" is academic in this case especially since the "catching on" (or not) part was clearly not a known factor, not established (if indeed it ever truly was) by the time Packard was approaching its end.

By they way, there were those who kicked and screamed against diesels for many many years and they languished mostly out of view in the USA until trucks finally started using them. AND also by the way... the issue of engine braking was also given for years as a reason why diesels would be impossible for trucks to use. "They got no engine braking!!! Ulp! Can't use'em-especially for hauling loads over mountains... we gotta stick with gas engines!!" Then came Mr. Jacobson. Ever heard of a "Jake Brake"??? The thing that makes the gutteral diesel garggling sound? THAT is what gave big diesels engine braking... and eventually engine braking would have been on automotive gas turbines too!

And another, by the way... know what happened to Mr. Tucker? How about Mr. Rudolph Diesel? Know how many years HIS engines didn't "catch on" and were kept out of the mainstream?

What I am talking about is that Packard's dream at the time just before its demise was a jump to fuel injection, followed by a move to gas turbines. Of course this never happened. The company died and there was never time, finance or opportunity. But we are talking about what if's here rather than what didn'ts.

But... since it was brought up... gas turbine engine development in general was never allowed to reach a pinnacle for automobiles for numerous and zillion factors.

1.) People could not distinguish jet from gas turbine.

2.) People fell into believing the myth (largely spread by those who never really knew automotive gas turbines-or didn't want them around) that a turbine's exhaust would melt things. This silly idea is still held to this day based on rumors or raw aircraft turbines that were directly converted to use in a car with NO refinements, no regenerators, and no special adaptations. George Huebner proved that Chrysler's highly developed (for the 1960s) automotive gas turbine exhaust was in fact cooler than a conventional V8 exhaust. Fact.

3.) When gas turbines turned up in racing cars (take a look at Indianapolis and Andy Granatelli's effort for example) they cleaned everybody's clock on the track. "Not catching on" was not what happened. What really took place is that turbines scared the living daylights out of racing authorities and all those advertising with them! THAT is where the money was and you don't fight big money. So? They changed the rules to eliminate turbines. End of story. Adios muchachos. And the only reason Granatelli's turbine didn't sweep Indy on its amazing run and revolutionize racing forever was a $2 transmission part that failed on the last lap (which-by the way, was a lap AHEAD of the pack!). We can't have anything THAT good showing up the status quo, now can we?

4.) When turbines hit the streets the first thing they found was that leaded gas was death to them (dumped deposits on the turbine blades and destroyed them). So what did these engines work best using? Unleaded (white) gas. The cheapest stuff on earth (8 to 11 cents a gallon when leaded gas was 35 cents a gallon). Of course at THAT time this somehow was mutated into a mark against turbines... because the public had been convinced that leaded gas was the only good gas! So? What happened to that? We ended up all using unleaded gas anyway...only by the time this gas became the norm, somehow they managed to make unleaded MORE expensive than leaded! Ahhhhh. Gotcha!

5.) When turbines hit the streets there was all kinds of talk about how sensitive they were to airborne debris (true) and how they would need expensive sophisticated filtration that was not needed for carburetors. Ohhh those bad turbines! Ever look at the air filtration for most cars in the USA since the 1980s and the onset of electronic fuel injection? Same thing. And poof goes another supposed drawback of turbines.

6.) There were those who moaned that turbine engines would be expensive and complicated to build. Packard was already building jets-which, if we are being totally honest here were hugely more complicated to build than an automotive gas turbine. Wanna talk about expensive and complicated? How about an electronic fuel injected conventional engine with 32 valves and variable timing and computer controls with catalytic converters and evaporative emissions controls? Turbines actually had 50-65% fewer parts than a conventional piston engine-but nobody noticed.

7.) And fuel prices? LOL. Who says turbines have to run on conventional fuels out of the pump? Turbines will run on anything-and I do mean anything-that will flow through a pipe and combust with air. I've seen them run on everything from Chanel No. 5 ...to coal dust... to corn squeezings...to moonshine... Jack Daniels... cooking oil from a McDonald's... and more. Today there are all of these ecology types running around promoting things like "bio-diesel... you think turbines wouldn't run on this stuff? Had turbines become a norm instead of being forced to labor along on fuels made for conventional engines none of this would be an issue.

And all the talk about fuel consumption in turbines is still unconvincing and spurious. The 1960s Chrysler Ghia gas turbine I drove actually got BETTER gas mileage than my late-model Dodge Ram truck! So... everything is relative. And again, turbines were never allowed to reach a level of sophistication-like computer controls.

And nobody ever mentions that the gas turbine technology in cars only got as far as being coupled directly to the rear wheels. It never reached a level of hybridization-for instance with electric. Turbines don't like to speed up and slow down... but they DO like to run at high RPM and constant speed. Hybrid turbines again, HAVE been explored, but only in aircraft. Next time you disembark a jet at the airport, listen for the little sound that seems to be a faint, tiny jet somewhere...

The facts are that gas turbines are in lots of aircraft from turbo-props to helicopters. But they are pretty much dominating unlimited hydroplane boat racing...and they are used in tanks-yes, military tanks (are these not ground vehicles?).

Yes, Ford and GM experimented with gas turbines in trucks. Ford had one in a 1955 Thunderbird. Yes, Rover, Volvo, Toyota, and others toyed with them. Know all this very, very well. Guess who wrote Chrysler's gas turbine history?

Here are some facts about gas turbines:
? Needed no warm-up in cold weather
? Provided instant heat
? Provided huge torque
? Needed no motor oil
? Used only one spark plug
? Needed no complicated engine electronics
? Needed no transmission, but if equipped, trans fluid could service both engine and transmission
? Needed no coolant
? Ran on any combustable material that could flow through a pipe

Bottom line, Packard never got to the starting gate. They actually had real prototype fuel injected V-8 engines built and that is as far as they got-at least to my knowledge. But I do also know that some ex-Packard jet folks went on to Chrysler's gas turbine program. And I know that J.J. Nance was at one point dreaming of producing Packard gas turbines. And I can only imagine what that great dream might have amounted to given Packard's magic touch and direct experience with jets. If only Packard had been allowed to reach that point.

And yes, this is all, "what if"... but that is what this thread was all about. No?

Posted on: 2014/8/20 10:17
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Re: New "What Ifs?"
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Mr.Pushbutton
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I interviewed some of the original engineers from Chrysler's Turbine car program when I worked at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum. They really thought they had a car ready to go to market in 1962 when they ordered the 50 bodies from Ghia and built the bronze test cars. The drivers that tested the cars were chosen because they were good repeat Chrysler customers, bought a new car every couple of years. Most were professionals or executive types. They were supplied with the car for a two-week period and Chrysler paid for the fuel and insurance for that period. In return Chrysler asked that the test subjects (drivers) fill out a lengthily survey, as completely and as honestly as they could.
Three common responses were in every survey:

1) the car was slow to leave the line from a dead stop, at a time when a lot of cars were getting really good at leaving the line.

2) the braking sensation was weird, as there was very little engine braking when you let off the accelerator. The brakes were sized for this, they were ample, but they were drum brakes and the sensation was just foreign to drivers.

3) All surveyed said "my Gosh is that thing thirsty"! and that it was fine as long as Chrysler was paying the bill, but they didn't see themselves wanting to stop at the pump so often.

One of the biggest benefits that Chrysler saw was that there are just a few moving parts in the Turbine engine, and only about 6 bearing fits that matter, far easier than the typical piston engine.
That program was subsidized by the Gub-ment, it stayed alive until 1981, when the subsidy ended. That was the end of the program. Later cars, especially near the end in '81 had the benefit of modern microprocessor electronics, and fuel economy improved as a result.

Posted on: 2014/8/20 10:39
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Re: New "What Ifs?"
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Leeedy
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Quote:

MrPushbutton wrote:
I interviewed some of the original engineers from Chrysler's Turbine car program when I worked at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum. They really thought they had a car ready to go to market in 1962 when they ordered the 50 bodies from Ghia and built the bronze test cars. The drivers that tested the cars were chosen because they were good repeat Chrysler customers, bought a new car every couple of years. Most were professionals or executive types. They were supplied with the car for a two-week period and Chrysler paid for the fuel and insurance for that period. In return Chrysler asked that the test subjects (drivers) fill out a lengthily survey, as completely and as honestly as they could.
Three common responses were in every survey:

1) the car was slow to leave the line from a dead stop, at a time when a lot of cars were getting really good at leaving the line.

2) the braking sensation was weird, as there was very little engine braking when you let off the accelerator. The brakes were sized for this, they were ample, but they were drum brakes and the sensation was just foreign to drivers.

3) All surveyed said "my Gosh is that thing thirsty"! and that it was fine as long as Chrysler was paying the bill, but they didn't see themselves wanting to stop at the pump so often.

One of the biggest benefits that Chrysler saw was that there are just a few moving parts in the Turbine engine, and only about 6 bearing fits that matter, far easier than the typical piston engine.
That program was subsidized by the Gub-ment, it stayed alive until 1981, when the subsidy ended. That was the end of the program. Later cars, especially near the end in '81 had the benefit of modern microprocessor electronics, and fuel economy improved as a result.


=================
Yes, but as one who personally, actually drove this car more than once... and other turbines as well, I am not talking second-hand he-said, she-said. I am speaking from personal experience.

RE: "turbine lag?... The early cars were not "torquey"... and they were not rubber peelers from a dead stop. BUT... a couple of miliseconds in...POW! Ever drive a turbocharged modern car? Pretty much the same thing-only they call it "turbo-lag" instead of "turbine lag." And above all... remember, these cars were not final product... they were in development and out for evaluation, not "this is the best we can do-take it or leave it kind of thing."

RE: Chrysler ordering 50 bodies from Ghia... Another huge myth that refuses to die. They actually ordered 55 cars, not 50. I know the license numbers of all five extra cars that never seem to get counted. These five cars were not put into the survey, so not mentioned in the press releases, so POOF, these cars never get counted in the total. But I assure you, they existed. One of these cars was in a movie entitled "The Lively Set" with James Darren and Pamela Tiffen. I was the first to state this fact in a written history in the 1970s.

And since the cars ordered has been brought up I also was the first to reveal that Chrysler had actually decided to go to production with 500 (yes, five-0-0) new cars that would have been called "Turbine-Charger."These would have been sold to hand-picked customers. Low volume tooling was already ordered and several new generation parts had already been designed along with a new body. Know what this car became when the project was cancelled at the last minute? The 1966 Dodge Charger...equipped with a conventional engine.

RE: Engine braking... These cars did not have a conventional feel... because they did not have conventional engines! So expecting them to feel exactly the same way is unrealistic. Of course they felt different... but not that different. I drove them (BTW, Chrysler later found ways to add in simulated engine braking). And I have driven thousands and thousands of cars over my career. Certainly there was nothing objectionable about the braking on these cars-especially by 1960s standards. Wow. That's reaching a bit. What great braking standards existed on American production cars in the eariy 1960s anyway?

RE: fuel consumption... No matter who said what in a survey (and I have personally overseen a lot of automotive surveys)...here is the reality. White gas at 8 to 11 cents a gallon (I know-I bought a lot of it to clean paint brushes out of the GREEN pump at Standard stations in Detroit) vs. leaded gas at 35 cents a gallon at that time... and diesel was very cheap as well EVEN IF the car was really all that thirsty (which I do not completely believe) it is another non-issue. I have already told you the Ghia turbine I personally drove got around 15-17 MPG and this is BETTER than my late model Dodge Ram and WAY batter than my 1968 GTO Bobcat convertible which I bought new and was getting (are you ready?) 12!!!!!!! So IF those almighty customers were paying their own bill to fill the tank, that bill at the time would have been a third of the cost of normal gas. So let's keep ALL the facts in this story.

And since we are on the subject of surveys and the automotive buying public, my friend, the late Richard Teague of Packard once told me about an interesting survey that American Motors conducted regarding Javelin and AMX. Know what the almighty customers told AMC was the reason they didn't buy an AMX? They said it didn't have a back seat!!!! So? Why didn't they just buy a Javelin (which was just the same car as the AMX-only with a back seat)?....Do you really wanna know the answer to this one?

By the way, I interviewed and even knew (still know one of them today) all these same people you mention at Chrysler... and I did so in the 1960s and 1970s-not at a museum-which didn't exist at the time. I received an award from Chrysler for my work and I still have my little 1/25th scale model they gave me of the car.

Finally, it is almost never that a survey is 100% uniform... and usually when they are, it is either because of a very terrible (or very good) product... or a badly-written, poorly conducted survey. Or some other issue... which is well known to people who conduct such surveys professionally. But 100%?

Yes, the last part of the Chrysler turbine program indeed was government subsidized, but again... I personally drove one of those last cars... a turbine Aspen, which I believe was done for DOE. So this is not an unfamiliar subject to me. There ARE some of us still alive out here... with intact memories who don't need to ask someone else how it was.

Again, none of this has to do with Packard "what-ifs" so I have not gone into it earlier. The main point of my original point, sadly has been completely missed here. But, it is what it is.

Posted on: 2014/8/20 11:24
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Re: New "What Ifs?"
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Steve203
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Leeedy, add to your list nearly every US Navy combat ship smaller than a carrier uses gas turbins.

But with all the money and talent put into automotive gas turbines, none of the companies that made that investment was able to make a business case to put them into production.

wrt Packard experimenting with fuel injection, they were not alone. AMC also experimented with the Bendix "Electrojector" system in the late 50s. Chrysler actually got a few Electrojector equipped cars sold, but soon retrofitted those cars with conventional carburetors because the EFI was so underdeveloped and unreliable at that time.

My focus on the "what if" threads is what could Packard have done, with the resources at hand, on it's own, without a handout from the government or other well heeled entity, to get itself past 1956.

We know how the Studebaker thing turned out

We have established that a purchase of Willow Run, as you suggest, would have broken them faster.

Best things I can come up with are the merger with Hudson as Barit offered, and diversification into truck engines, either on their own or by aquisition, but I don't know who in the industry at that time would have been small enough for Packard to aquire (Hercules in Canton, Ohio?)

Posted on: 2014/8/20 11:56
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Re: New "What Ifs?"
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Leeedy
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Steve203 wrote:
Leeedy, add to your list nearly every US Navy combat ship smaller than a carrier uses gas turbins.

But with all the money and talent put into automotive gas turbines, none of the companies that made that investment was able to make a business case to put them into production.

wrt Packard experimenting with fuel injection, they were not alone. AMC also experimented with the Bendix "Electrojector" system in the late 50s. Chrysler actually got a few Electrojector equipped cars sold, but soon retrofitted those cars with conventional carburetors because the EFI was so underdeveloped and unreliable at that time.

My focus on the "what if" threads is what could Packard have done, with the resources at hand, on it's own, without a handout from the government or other well heeled entity, to get itself past 1956.

We know how the Studebaker thing turned out

We have established that a purchase of Willow Run, as you suggest, would have broken them faster.

Best things I can come up with are the merger with Hudson as Barit offered, and diversification into truck engines, either on their own or by aquisition, but I don't know who in the industry at that time would have been small enough for Packard to aquire (Hercules in Canton, Ohio?)


My list was never, ever, ever meant to be all inclusive. OMG! I'm just jotting notes out of memory in a forum here.

Also never said Packard was alone in developing fuel injection for 1957. I would have to be insane or having some severe alzheimer's to think or say that! Especially since I was one of the first people invited IN DETROIT to see the new 1957 Pontiac Bonneville WITH fuel injection (by the way, one of the first public showings was at the Detroit Auto SHow, held at the Detroit Artillery Armory on West 8-Mile Road... and I can even tell you that the Bonneville was up on a turntable and if I recall correctly, it was white with a blue stripe. Either way, I was there too). And Chevrolet also had F.I. in 1957. I know all these things but did not think I had to list them all.

The reasons why gas turbines never "made it to production" ought to be obvious, but apparently they are not. This is sad. And people sat there like fatted cattle when the cars were excluded from racing! And now we're wondering why they didn't get into production? Wow. Perhaps you've heard of Tucker. That didn't make real production either-of course they did make 50 cars. That magic number again.

And who says that given Packard's expertise in jet engines that they could not have done as well as or better than Chrysler's team did with gas turbines? Who is to say that Packard could have never made a production version turbine? We don't know because they were never allowed to get that far. It's called vision... and that is what-to me-"what-ifs" are all about.

I can tell you that there is a very popular car running around the streets today. I suggested something for it that I was originally told was IMPOSSIBLE. But I got one designed, made and into production. First there is the "what-if"... then there is there is the vision... and THEN, if the planets align and the finance and willingness are there... it may just happen for real. This is how movies get made every day. Look at George Lucas' story. And THIS is how cars-really interesting cars-used to get made. Once upon a time. It may be a distant memory for the car biz... but it actually worked...for a while.

Anyway, I also did not realize the title of the thread was "What If Packard Could Have Done With Resources At Hand".... I just thought it was "What Ifs"...

So from here on out, I'll just remain silent on the topic. Thank you.

Posted on: 2014/8/20 12:49
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