Re: Don't make 'em like this anymore

Posted by Dave Brownell On 2014/6/14 7:43:29

Looks and impressions are certainly deceiving. Just after one of my sons first met my 56 Packard, he congratulated me on what a solid and heavy car it appeared to be. We then compared his 2014 Honda Pilot which weighs (depending on content) 4300-4600 lbs dry to my hardtop at about 4100. The family Range Rover is right about 5000 lbs and it has more heavy gauge metal (minus the easily dented exterior aluminum body panels) underneath, so the Packard would fight it in a different weight category, in spite of perceptions of new plastic and vinyl.

Our experience is that the old Packard gets about the same gas mileage as his new Honda heavyweight and perhaps 20 percent better than the Rover, so I'm not complaining. But lots of that weight on the new cars involves much better crash protection than the 58 year old car. There's no question about what we'd rather be in if it comes to a serious accident.

Colin Chapman produced all of his fun to drive Lotus cars with an eye to weight being the enemy of performance and smiles. Years later, the Elite lookalike Miata came in at almost a thousand pounds more, but the smiles remained on their drivers. When I look at the weight and complexity of our Rover's air suspension and the distinctly superior ride of the Packard's Torsion Level application, I must congratulate Mr. Allison and all the other long-gone Packard engineers who designed and built them this way. Different times, needs and capabilities, for sure. But what Packard did at the time still deserves the praise today.