Re: Packard plant update
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Quote:
Looks like the girders of a bridge to me. Steve
Posted on: 2015/11/8 1:10
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Re: Help identify one of my grandpa's cars
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Early 30s Auburn hubcap closeup from the Old Car Festival last year.
Posted on: 2015/10/29 21:51
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Re: Help identify one of my grandpa's cars
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Steve might be right. Here is a 31 Auburn. Same suicide doors front and rear. Same contrasting paint color around the windows. His eyes are sharper than mine in seeing the contrasting paint on the hood in the old pic.
Posted on: 2015/10/29 21:48
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Re: Original Packard Plant in Warren Ohio - Development proposal
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Meanwhile, there seems to be little going on at E Grand. Arte Express posed in late June that structural testing and measurements were being done on the Admin building. A wrap was put on the bridge over E Grand to catch debris so it don't fall in the street. The wrap is printed with an image of how the bridge looked 60 years ago. Nothing significant since. A bit of a disappointment after the strong start at clearing debris and stabilizing the structure last fall.
Posted on: 2015/10/17 21:20
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Re: Packard plant layout
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Quote:
That pic might have been taken earlier, like summer of 42. The 44 annual report has a diagram showing what was going on where in the plant, and it shows the long wing of Merlin test cells extending down Harper all the way to Mt Elliot. Can't see much past the west end of building 84, but it looks like the parking lot is still there, before 84A was built. Here's another angle on 84 that shows the west side, the diagram from 44, and a DTE aerial from 49 that shows 84A
Posted on: 2015/9/15 19:26
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Re: Packard plant layout
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Ah-ha! The 1944 drawing shows where the tunnel from building 22 entered 84. The 1942 drawing shows something there, but that drawing is showing the tour route, so could have been the path for people to walk across the tracks to 84.
Thanks for posting.
Posted on: 2015/9/14 0:34
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Re: 1935 - Turning Point and What-Ifs
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Packard's problem wasn't lack of capital. Or scale. It was how the company spent its money. Of course, it's easy to look back and critique. But critique we must, if only to understand today's times and the turmoil that many OEMs face. It seems GM voluntarily put itself through a lot of pain in the Thirties, pushing itself to the point of major discomfort as it tried to re-imagine the automobile. Edsel Ford and Chrysler both showed up to play this game too. And yes, so did Packard with its FWD experiment, '32 Light Eight and '32-34 styling exercises. Then for some reason, it took its helmet off and headed for the locker room. Seems from 1935 on it didn't make the connection between saving itself and re-imagining the automobile. GM did, and let Cadillac lead the way.
Packard was clearly in a financial squeeze in the mid 30s. That was the same time they gave up on aircraft engines after pouring untold millions into developing engines that only sold a handful of examples. Then building building 82, and only selling 100 diesel radials. Here's something to ponder. Ever look at a 4M-2500? It's build like a Liberty, with the cylinders as individual barrels with welded on water jackets bolted to the crankcase. Can't help but wonder if they ever tried converting the 1A-1500 to air cooling: replace the cylinder water jackets with fins and drive cooling fans off the crank like the later air cooled Continental tank engines and offering it to the Army as the engine for a new supertank.
Posted on: 2015/9/5 19:02
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Re: 1935 - Turning Point and What-Ifs
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Auburn: Although it had a sporty image which might have been useful, it would have been too costly to buyout, had little in the way of modern, well-located plants as benefit. What such a purchase would have done was divert resources needed to develop their own completely new and integrated series, which could have included their own new Auburn-type sporty series. While it seems insignificant now, the very fact that Lycoming made their engines still branded Auburn as something of an 'assembled' car. Unfair, of course, but that attitude had developed in the prior decades when the market was flooded with such cars, most short-lived. The success of the volume car was so key to their very survival, they had no real choice but it be a Packard. If they still decided to move further downmarket as they did for the 115/Six/110, a newly-introduced make would have been appropriate as well as styling not shared with any Packard.
Auburn was not quite an "assembled" car as Cord owned Lycoming, as well as Columbia, which made the two speed rear axles Auburn used. You could argue that Lycoming and Columbia were divisions of the same company, as Hydramatic, Saginaw Steering Gear and Delco were divisions of GM, so a Chevy or Cadillac was not an assembled car, in spite of having major components made by those companies. The physical assets of Auburn would be of no value to Packard as all production would have been immediately consolidated at E Grand. The only time Auburn was affordable was in 38 when the name and parts inventory were bought for $85K, but by then the 120 was established and the six cylinder models were coming out.
Posted on: 2015/9/5 18:41
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Re: 1935 - Turning Point and What-Ifs
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Looks like they were ripe for a purchase. Maybe the only thing that would have stalled a deal was upcoming Cord 810, which the company would probably have been depending on its Auburn dealers to sell.
Auburn may have been for sale since 32, but, from the annual reports on this site, Packard did not have the funds to buy a going concern. To acquire Auburn in 33-34, Packard would have had to buy the Auburn and Connersville plants, the tooling, equipment and probably assume the company's liabilities. This would have run into millions. Reportedly, Hupp paid $900,000 just for the Cord 810 tooling, from a bankrupt company being liquidated. Looks like Packard did the best thing possible. People may well have not paid $1,000 for a 120 with a new, startup name they had never heard of. Packard did not have the capital to buy a going concern. By the time the Auburn name, and Stutz for that matter, were available, the 120 was well on it's way as a Packard.
Posted on: 2015/9/1 19:30
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