Re: Development Cost of Packard V8 vs AMC V8

Posted by Mr.Pushbutton  On 2011/1/5 19:22:41

Perhaps one reason is that the AMC V8 walked itself in the door of AMC HQ on Plymouth road already designed. The engineer that designed it did so at Kaiser-Frazier, it was meant to be their V-8 effort, but by the time it was ready for production the money had dissipated to fund the program due to sluggish sales of K-F product. He walked into AMC on an interview and brought the prints to the engine with him. They hired him, and used the design almost verbatim. K-F didn't care by then, they knew the deal was up. Packard may have amortized the cost of converting the former Utica defense (that plant was built to accommodate Packard's J-47 jet engine contracts) into the reported cost of the new Packard V-8. I do know one thing, when the V-8 engine line was started at Utica it had almost all new, state-of-the-art machinery, almost nothing was taken from EGB.