Re: 1941 PACKARD MAKES ICE CUBES

Posted by HH56 On 2016/10/25 10:29:11

The Henney history book mentions a lot of collaboration between Packard engineering and Henney on commercial chassis design but kind of skips over any combined AC work. Henney came out with their first AC ambulance in 38 with Henney and Trane collaborating to adapt the 1 ton Trane commercial unit to the ambulance and the Packard chassis. That was in answer to Miller coming out with a Kelvinator collaboration in 37.

It would be interesting to know if Packard was at all involved with Henney on their 38 ambulance AC offering for possible future car use or if that was entirely a Henney operation. Since the 38 Macauley car had AC did Henney build the Macauley car and could the AC have been the same Trane commercial unit used in the ambulance or was it an early prototype B&B unit.

If it was the same Trane offering, looking at the one illustration of the unit mounted under the floor in the ambulance that must have been some masterful packaging to get all the mechanicals either in the trunk or between the frame rails in the car. The Henney-Trane collaboration was short lived because as soon as the Packard B&B unit was available in 40 the Trane unit was dropped and the Packard offering was reworked for the ambulance.