Re: Packard V-8 CID race What if?

Posted by 58L8134 On 2011/2/12 8:29:54

Hi

Of the many tragedies that resulted from Packard's collapse, that no other company picked up the tooling and rights to the V-8 is one.

There was one company which could have benefited had Packard management shopped the engine to truckmakers when they were in development stage, that being International Harvester. That they didn't shop it around, given their experience with White and the 245 c.i. six, is just puzzling. IH would begin offering it's own V-8 in 1957, at what must have been tremendous expense for a relatively small company.

Had Packard contracted to supply IH engines begining in 1955, IH would have been obliged to assume production and further development after 1956. However unglamorous its application, IH would have corrected whatever shortcoming the engine had in subsequent iterations.

As I recall, IH had displacements up to 534 c.i.. Other than being thirsty, it was one rugged, long-lived engine.

Steve