Re: The Sudden End of the Detroit Packards

Posted by su8overdrive On 2014/1/24 18:52:56
Amen, Cardinal Cole. Yours above well sums it. If some fellow at the University of Tennessee.... wants to fill his tenure writing yet another breathless postmortem rehash of the obvious, apparently there's a cottage industry doing that instead of um, uh, b u i l d i n g things.

There's a glut of MBAs, none of whom make pies, only re-slice the existing.

Enough with these what ifs. While we sat around so enthralled, the very real Packard factory gradually became useless even for Starbucks, skateboarders, warehousing, logistics companies and restuarants.

Lotta early retirement talent visits this site. Perhaps
some of you might launch another reproduction rubber company
so Lynn Steele stops taking us for granted and to the cleaners.
Do something, a n y t h i n g productive other than deep sea diving to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Are there any of us here gathered who spend more time on
our cars than playing with computers?

Meanwhile, no one addressed any of my questions raised
on the Packard Proving Grounds Certificate thread of a week or two ago, which need vetted fact, not conjecture, the former something in as short supply as NOS Carter WDO carburetors. Here again:

"Meanwhile, tho' it's been over a year, we still await any SAE or other papers contrasting Packard's Saf-t-fleX IFS with the GM style used in the 1941-47 Clippers and beyond, and beginning in the R-R Silver Cloud/Bentley S-Series autumn, 1955. We know both are good. But it'd be interesting to see some hard engineering data, a report from a then current "Automotive Industries," something conclusive.

Or engineering papers comparing the four-main-bearing 473-ci Packard Twelve with the seven-main-bearing Pierce 462-ci V-12. We know the Packard had a more modern chassis, but what of the engines?

How about engineering papers --not buff hearsay or press releases -- from the day contrasting the 384-ci Chrysler Imperial, Packard and Pierce nine-main-bearing senior eights, which shared identical bore/stroke?

Or comparing the concurrent Packard with the excellent 1927-33 Stutz?

Most of us here gathered own Packards. We're sold. But let's not live in a vacuum or fantasyland. And that includes each and every Packard Twelve driven

" 2 5 0 "

miles before delivery. So that means the 384-ci eights were only driven, what, 185 miles?"

"Gentlemen" is a relative term, and used as marketing in
Packard's heyday. To see another gentleman in the auto
industry and another opportunity Packard handed to Cadillac on a silver platter, Google: Nicholas Dreystadt and GM, Cadillacs and African-Americans

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