Re: Brown Bomber article

Posted by su8overdrive On 2016/4/12 16:58:29

Amen to both your observations, JW & Mr. B. We've all read the Packard histories describing what a nice guy Ed Macauley was, bon vivant, "enthusiastic" jazz trombonist. Well, that's all peachy, but nepotism has nothing to do with talent.
Kid Ory, George Brunis, Jack Teagarden were professional jazz trombonists, but we don't know if they should've designed cars, too.

We can only imagine Packard's old guard shaking their heads at Macauley, Jr's monstrosity, well deserving a scatalogical moniker. Packard had over 40% of the remaining luxe biz in the mid '30s, but that was like saying you cornered the market on imported Peruvian art. Tim Cole is right that Packard peaked in 1929 --thanks to the new LaSalle-countering Standard Eight, a new, smaller 319-ci engine shoehorned into the former volume Six, its firewall indented to accept the longer motor -- and it was slowly downhill ever since, nice as some of the cars of the '30s were. The 1932-39 Twelve was originally intended as a 376-ci FWD upper echelon Buick beater, but when Cad introduced a V-16, Packard had to make the Twelve, not their big, refined 384-ci Deluxe Eight, the top-line.

That Cadillac was fielding an inline eight with the firing impulses halved for less crankpin loading was hollow vindication to Packard execs given the public's perception of more is better. Nonetheless, the Packard Twelve's valve layout cribbed from GM's Oakland and Oldsmobile V-8s, its valve silencers adapted from the 1930 Cad V-16.

For all East Grand's refinement, build quality, we should remember that GM was a master at not only marketing, but making driving ever easier, pioneering the electric self-starter, synchromesh and fully automatic transmission.

As Mr. B describes above, the 1938-40 Darrins were jaunty barouches, but the later ones overblown. Adding a DeVille roof, landau irons and pointless chrome "speed lines" to the fenders did nothing for them. The stock 1941-42 traditional bodies would've looked cleaner without the latter. Packard was more of an international car in the '20s, '30s, overwhelmingly the choice of most the world's embassies, but too cowed by, and run by, GM and former GM production men who may have known how to cost B-O-P product, but nothing of sophisticated marketing.
Can you imagine tacky "speed lines" on a Crewe product?

Have often wondered why so many latter-day buffs feel they must salute everything with a Packard label. You'd think these guys were employees concerned about their pensions or stock shares.

Basing everything from 1939-on (other than the leftover Twelves) on the juniors was no crime, since Consumer Reports each year gave the One-Twenty and Clipper variant their Best Buy rating in its price class, and usually preferred the seniors over the concurrent Cad, Lincoln, which were also "junior" based since 1936 in each case (other than the leftover Model Ks).

Packard still had the finest chassis in the industry through the '40s (Chrysler had it in the '50s), but contrast the hipper '48 Cadillac with the production legacy of Ed Macauley's nightmare on wheels. No contest and game over, though in fairness all independents were doomed. By 1948, Packard was enjoying their fat defense and jet engine contracts, which were less hassle than dealers and the public, increasingly phoning in the cars.

The Clipper was making 1942 Packard's biggest ever production year other than only 1937 until Pearl Harbor quashed everything, including the world's remaining innocence; three percent of the globe's population so perishing. Packard was one of only two automakers to emerge profitable from War II, East Grand's legal counsel Henry E. Bodman rewriting the Merlin contract so that it became the basis for defense contracts for years to come, tho' i don't know if we can hang today's $1.5 trillion F-36 black hole, contractors' feeding frenzy on dear old East Grand and Mr. Bodman.

Naturally Packard would continue with jet engines. They'd be fools not to.
R-R's principal business 1935-on was aero engines, but they better knew how to market their postwar assembled product, bodied by Pressed Steel of Cowley, akin to England's Briggs, garbing much of the Sceptered Isle's auto industry.

All Derby's products but the Phantom I-II-III traced their engine back to the 1920 Buick Six, and before WWII, R-R was annually disassembling a new Buick Limited to glean the latest Detroit production tips.
The additional knowledge Packard accrued producing the R-R Merlin's largely aluminum engine showed up, if at all in their auto production, only in Ultramatic, East Grand's sole major postwar engineering accomplishment. Torsion Level was from an outside engineer who had to sell the hell out of it to Packard's hidebound management.

I like my warmed over '42 160 Clipper ('47), but its Briggs body is not quite as nice as an upper echelon GMobile's Fisher.

Regarding the "Brown Bomber," the Emporer's New Clothes comes to mind. Am sure some little boy on a street corner laughed when Ed Macauley drove by in that thing, but his laughter didn't reach East Grand's boardroom.