Re: Development Cost of Packard V8 vs AMC V8

Posted by Jack Vines On 2011/1/5 21:40:04

Thoughts:

Corporate bookkeeping and tax reporting is legalized theft. There is no way Packard spent $22m on developing the V8. We'll never know all the details, but there was some well-thought-out tax advantage to S-P (and other of Ike's friends) in the building a whole new plant, crashing the company, selling the huge loss to Curtis-Wright as tax writeoff. The Board of Directors and the rest of the industry knew Packard was dead meat before the first '55 rolled off the line.

Yes, the AMC Gen I V8 was hell-for-stout and overall a more robust design than the Packard. For some reason, the Packard engineers put the iron in the wrong places. Too much in the cylinder block and too little in the main bearing webs and lifter bores.

No, the Packard V8 never had a chance. By the time it was in production, the organization was dead and cold. Even the famous Chevy V8 had oiling problems in its first year of production. GM quickly fixed them. Packard didn't last long enough.

Maybe, it is what it is. The only V8 we got and one with great potential, never realized.

jack vines