Master Motor Builders

Posted by Steve203 On 2014/9/14 17:31:05

Finished the book last night. It paints an interesting portrait. Of the many different aero and marine engine models that Packard developed in the 20s and 30s, most sold in microscopic quantities, if at all. Packard landed some development contracts from the Army and Navy that helped cover the costs, but most did not result in orders. Only the 1500 and 2500 actually saw production orders and then only for 200 and 300 engines respectively. In contrast, Hall-Scott was averaging between 500 and 1000 engines sold per year in the truck and marine markets alone, having exited the aero market in 1925 as the market started moving to the cheaper and simpler air cooled radials, and Hall-Scott was small compared to Continental and Hercules.

After the war, Packard sold marinized car engines for about 3 years. In those three years, they sold more of those engines than they did all their aero and marine models combined for the entire 1920-1939 period. But Hugh Ferry killed the marine engine program as too small to bother with.

So why did they keep sinking resources into aero and marine in the 20s and, until Packard started making losses, in the 30s, when the effort produced failure after failure in the market? Neal could not uncover any profit/loss breakout for the pre-WWII period, though he did show how profitable the J-47 and mine sweeper engine programs were in the 50s era of cold war cost plus contracts with their guaranteed profits.

What comes to mind is that the aero and marine engine programs were done for publicity. They tried to claim the Liberty as entirely their own, which Neal handles correctly. They crowed about every Navy zeppelin and flying boat accomplishment. They covered magazine pages with cheering every time Gar Wood won, with Packard power, which the company subsidized.

Then there was the DR980 program. Every source I have read says building 82 was built for the DR980 program. Neal notes that Packard published photos of the building under construction in 29. Always puzzles me about that, as the architecture of the building looks wrong for 29. I would have expected something that would echo the Albert Kahn architecture of the rest of the Packard complex, or, being 1929, early art deco. Instead, building 82, with it's stone facade with a balustrade at the top, looks more 1918, something that would have been built for the Liberty program. Then there is the issue of spending $650,000 for a building designed to produce 500 engines per month when they only had a handful of orders. Shades of Henry Kaiser and Preston Tucker scale hubris.

All in all, very thought provoking.