Re: Torsion level pamphlet

Posted by BH On 2008/8/24 9:33:54

The Safe Road Ahead was a factory-issued promotional film for 1956 that spends most of its time explaining and demonstrating the T-L suspension - a very good production. It has been circulating on VHS for at least 20 years, but I've found the transfer/copy quality to be substandard. You'll see that title also offered, from time to time, on DVD on eBay, but I never tried one of those - suspecting low quality transfer from VHS, rather than the original film.

Yet, on a tour of the Studebaker Archives, many years ago (long before they built and moved to a new facility), they showed us a small "vault" that included many tins of movie film, and one title, The Safe Road Ahead, caught my eye. I later saw the Studebaker Museum's VHS transfer of The Watchdogs (1954), which shot at the Packard Proving Grounds, and the transfer was excellent. I had hoped they would make a similar quality transfer of The Safe Road Ahead, but I doubt if it will ever happen.

Meanhwile, there is other footage of T-L road tests, and you'll find some (and likely what HH56 is looking for) on a DVD put out by Motor City Packards. When I first popped it in, I was a little disappointed with the interview with Bill Allison at his home (perhaps from way back in the 1980s), as he often rambled (but, then again, so do I). Things picked up, however, when they injected the road test footage (some vs. the "competetion"). Then, they went into the garage where Bill still had his Patrician, PLUS the T-L equipped cyclecar, and fired up the Pat and took her out for a drive, too. A very nice piece.