Re: Hemmings Motor News June issue reprint of Romney interview...

Posted by su8overdrive On 2013/5/10 4:35:38

Tho' i said goodbye to this subject in my post (#7) of Midan's What Single Factor Most Contributed to the Demise of Packard? a few threads below on this forum, i don't know what this endless Monday morning quarterbacking does.

Packard survived several permutations. The Company originally produced lightweight, nimble, "sporting"
"motors" for entrepreneurs, doctors, playboys, even taking some heat for introducing "that French thing," the steering wheel to the States.
110 years ago, gasoline was still novel, even tho' Packard was an electric goods producer, that industry as state of the art as the Silicon Valley producing today's Tesla, even as Rolls-Royce, formed five years later, originally produced electric industrial cranes.

J.W. Packard wanted his namesake cars to remain in this voiturette vogue. Henry Joy and his other backers wanted multicylinders and got them once they moved to Detroit to
be nearer raw material and an open shop environment. The ensuing cars were wonderful, refined, but not ultimate barouches on par with Chadwick, Elcar, Locomobile, Lozier.

The big Six of 1912 entrenched Packard in the automotive firmament. The Twin Six of 1915 was downright exotic--- 12 cylinders!

Packard's "junior" Single Six and Six of the '20s were crisply marketed as Rolls-Royce's "small HP" junior car, the 20, launched about the same time, yet based heavily on the concurrent Buick Six, tho' in the words of one British reviewer, "....not so good."

Image is everything in the car biz. As Dr. Cole mentioned elsewhere, the Cadillac V-16 trumped Packard, even if East Grand execs had a hollow laugh as after years of crowing over the merits of their V-8, Clark Street vindicated Packard by producing a straight eight with the firing pulses halved for less crankpin loading.

But as with Packard's V-12 of 15 years earlier, 16 cylinders had a more is better ring to the man on the street, which was exactly what GM knew would "trickle down" accordant panache on lesser Cadillacs, and GMobiles.

The first practical self starter (discounting earlier compressed air units, etc.); synchromesh, the "last word" of 16 cylinders, the slick, sleek "pocket luxury car (as such were called)" of the '38 60Special Fleetwood, the racy 1940 1/2 C bodies and HydraMatic. GM was increasingly calling the shots through the 1930s, let alone the '40s.

Savvy collectors before and including the likes of Phil Hill, and those here gathered, know Packard had the finest chassis, were the consistently finest production cars in the world, the best road cars, owned by more global embassies, royalties, movers and shakers, celebrities, Supreme Court justices than any marque on the planet.

Packard transformed several times. As mentioned, all Cadillacs from 1936-on were downsized junior cars, GMobiles increasingly sharing components with lesser divisions.

R-R's focus and maintstay from 1935-on was aero engines, the cars an increasingly boutique sideline, after the war having steel bodies whacked out by Pressed Steel, who supplied Austin and half the Sceptered Isle auto biz, even as Briggs supplied Packard, Chrysler, Ford.

The GM production men called in to teach East Grand how to build popularly priced cars took over the Company in the '40s. And they did what they'd always done; all they knew how to do.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Again, WHICH Packard are we talking about saving? The Packard Alvan Macauley left April, 1948 was NOT the same company that ruled the '20s,
or that still cornered most of the luxe business through the '30s.

This is a delicate subject as i know many here own bathtub Packards, which have their merits. But the dean of roadtesters, Tom McCahill, who'd raved over the junior '46 Deluxe Eight Clipper, called the '48 Packard "a goat."

Park a '48 Packard alongside the hipper, crisper '48 Cadillac. No contest. Sure, Packard still had unrivaled build quality, a terrific chassis, but from 1948 the Company was focused on gas turbines, the GE J47 jet engine, building over 3,000 of the latter while increasingly "phoning in" the cars.

I owned a '51 Packard long ago. Excellent ergonomics. Smooth, durable drivetrain. But a nothing car.
Not a PACKARD. The party was over. So again, WHICH Packard shoulda, coulda, woulda been saved?

The Packards many of us like are from a different era. "The car built for gentlemen by gentlemen."

The nature of the car biz changed quickly so by the '50s, people thought they were getting shortchanged if they didn't get silly, pointless sheetmetal changes and chrome baroque.

Which Packard woulda, coulda, shoulda been saved?
All these yeah buts, if, if, ifs. Packard was by 1948 an
also-ran, following GM's marketing lead, whatever some of us
buffs and clubbies think of certain models.

The ONLY way for that diluted "Packard" to survive another few years, and looking at monstrosities like the Predictor, good riddance, was by uniting with the remaining independents to be able to approach GM/Ford buying clout, tool amortization costs. Who cares what Nance said and Romney said? Boardroom, Detroit Athletic Club ego. Deck chairs on the Titanic.

What's the best scenario? Look at the '66 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. It looks like a concurrent Rambler Ambassador Classic with a cut down R-R grille.

Given nightmares like the Predictor, you really want to see the sorry creations a watered down, evermore rationalized "Packard" would've produced by the '60s?

There's a reason Studebaker only fleetingly considered "Packard" as the name for their new Avanti. The same reason Cadillac at least twice considered reviving the name "LaSalle," but didn't: They no longer meant anything to a new generation of car buyers.

We're buffs. Our sensibilities don't count. Let's get over ourselves. We can't revise history.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Empires come to a close. Rome. Portugal, Spain. France. Britain. US, if we don't stop thumping our chests, flag waving instead of knuckling down and hustling again.

Macauley left. The men remaining were largely GMers and outsiders, befuddled newcomers. Enjoy the attributes of the cars remaining.

Much as i admire John Adams, Grover Cleveland, Harry Truman, they were of their era, and it's difficult to put them in ours, or us in theirs.

What's served by flogging a dead horse?

I always bow to Monsignors O'Dyneto and Cole; their steady, PROFOUND mechanical knowledge of so many of our cars. Yet re: M. Cole's '40 110/Clipper comment above, a clarification:

The 1941 1/2 Clipper was neither junior nor senior, despite using a high-compression version of the proven "One-Twenty" 282-ci eight, and was priced between the One-Twenty and One-Sixty, smack in the lucrative "Lexus" market of Buick Roadmaster, Cadillac Model 61 & 62, Chryler New Yorker, Lincoln.

There was no junior Clipper 'til '42, and that had a different, shorter front clip/hood/front fenders, shorter wheelbase.

Sorry to sound brusque, and hope i haven't stepped on any toes, hurt any feelings. We all have woulda, coulda, shouldas. Mine is that the Company retained and "sweetened," to use John Reinhart's word, the Clipper,
and marketed junior and senior Clippers as adroitly as Crewe peddled their funky little Silver Dawns/Bentley R-Types on the same 120-inch wheelbase, and Silver Wraiths on the same 127-inch wheelbase as the senior Clippers, believing the East Grand fare better automobiles, the English products finer furniture.

But that's living in the past; assuming the men who deftly marketed Packard in the '20s and gave us sterling ads like Peter Helck's 1933 "Hush" still ran the Company.

They didn't. So my what if's as moot as anyone else's.

Before Henry Joy and friends moved Packard to Detroit a century and a decade ago, there were 3,000 makes of automobiles in our nation.

Packard outlived all their storied competitors, including Cadillac and Lincoln----because the Cadillac and Lincoln, a n d Rolls-Royce/"Bentley" that survived, were NOT the same cars they'd been in Packard's heyday.

We want a watered down "Packard" to have survived, sorta, kinda, to do battle with those shells?

Let's enjoy what we've got and wish Tesla all the success in the world. Without a Packard grille.

We have those.

Here's to keeping the cars running as East Grand intended, driving them judiciously, thanks in no small part to the clearinghouse, the wealth, of vital information provided us by the likes of Drs. O'Dyneto and Cole.