Dr. Cole makes a good point. Electromatic was another of those desperations underscoring Dutch Darrin's late '39 or '40 assessment of Packard being "....so afraid of GM they couldn't see straight."

After years of urging owners to at least start out and get rolling in first gear, then go directly to third if they wished, Packard's 1941-on ads were trumpeting Electromatic as a sort of "automatic" drive, drivers in city traffic leaving the gearshift lever in second all day with the overdrive engaged to approximate high year. Starting out in second gear is of course murder on the pressure plate.

Tho' i've NO interest in ANY automatic transmission, when you're in the car biz, you offer what people want or think they need or you go out of business. Simple as that. HydraMatic held up, was troublefree as anything.

Think of the time and money Packard expended on Electromatic, a stop gap at best, a move foreshadowing the Company spending as much to facelift the svelte Clipper by slopping on 200 lbs. more bulboid deadweight on a '46 Clipper styling buck, retaining all the inner body structure, as well as the Clipper's windshield, roof, trunklid----

as it would've cost to restyle an entirely new car.

My '47 Super came with Electromatic, which was rebuilt. I drove it a few times and it worked as it should. But i disliked the robotic aspect, and that whenever you were at a long light, your clutch pedal remained automatically depressed, which just wears your throwout bearing.

Wish my car had been delivered sans Electromatic and driving lights, for that matter, the latter a silly bit of frippery which few used then and no one uses now, only clutters the clean lines. But in the postwar sellers' market, you could sell anything so automakers loaded their cars with options.
This is also why in 1946-47 Packard's senior models accounted for fully 25% of Company sales, while in 1940-41 senior models amounted to a mere 7%.

Dr. Cole's comment #13 in the PT Boat discussion in the General Forum is right on, about Packard's marine and other engine programs after the war. Of course the PT boats are inspiring and their crews performed some heroic actions. But the engines were gas hogs.

We do Packard no service by raving about how wonderful everything a desparate company produced. Packard's heydays
began with the Big Six in 1912, and were tapering off by the late '30s, even though the '40s models remained the best road cars from either side of the Atlantic.

But after Macauley left in April, '48, the Company now run by the GMers brought in to build the One Twenty, Packard was increasingly phoning it in.
Much as i like a Mayfair coupe with stick and overdrive, the ergonomics, the rugged drivetrain, it didn't LOOK like much other than just another '50s car with that It Crawled From the Sea grille opening shared with Hudson, Ford, Oldsmobile and so many others.

In the day, Packard was not about making products that were "as good as." They were the consistenly finest production cars in the world, tho' i think a 1930-32 Stutz SV16 or DV32 was superior in those years.

As mentioned, long ago in my 20s i owned a '51 Packard with Ultramatic, a nice, 48,416-mile little old lady's car not from Pasadena, but nearby Hawthorne. I bought it for a song simply as the Xerox executive wanted his late mother's car out of his three-car garage so he could put in a pool table. That, and thought it'd let me enjoy the Packard experience more often as my '40 One-Twenty was too nice to be driven other than to meets, club events, shows, occasional tours. It was new and novel to my young self, so i was full of the usual rah rah i see from so many here.

Consumers Reports may've given Ultramatic their Best Buy rating, but it would NOT take the beating a HydraMatic would.

I'm a sports car guy who got sidetracked by early '40s Packards, and view my '47 as what it is, a warmed over '42 160 Clipper, which suits me fine. So i come at Packards from a different perspective, perhaps, than many here, having NO interest in any '50s domestic cars, or later stuff for that matter, inc. muscle cars, Mustangs, T-Birds, all that lame "car guy" crapola.

However, were i in the market for an upscale road car
in the '50s, no way under the sun would i buy a Packard instead of a Chrysler New Yorker. Sorry.

No one bats a thousand forever. Packard had a good run, once owned the luxe biz. But saluting everything with a Packard label, i just don't get it.

Absolutely. Macauley and Company knew long before the stock market crash where the action was. Rolls-Royce was
mainly concerned with their "small HP" companion series 20, 20/25, 25/30, postwar Silver Dawn (and "Bentley" versions of the latter three), their huge Phantoms being a minute figure of their production.

Cadillac got a lot of marketing mileage out of the few V-16s they built, concentrating on more affordable cars.

The above posters sum it well. What's remarkable and says volumes for Packard is that they cornered not just the national, but international luxury business from the advent of the Big Six in 1912 through the next nearly three decades.

The problem was not in producing smaller, more rational cars, but in Packard's failure to market them as adroitly
as Rolls-Royce or Cadillac, witness so much of East Grand's downright hokey advertising for the otherwise fine junior cars from 1940-on.

It's one thing to go downscale, so long as you market upscale. Rolls-Royce and Cadillac remembered and practiced this. Packard didn't, regardless how fine their cars were.

Like JW, i too added a pushbutton under the dash tho' to the immediate left of the steering column of my '47 Super Clipper, where i also have the toggle for the electric fuel pump i use to prime the system after the car's been sitting.

I installed it for the same reasons JW did, tho' i always wind up using the accelerator pedal start switch which works fine, a silly marketing ploy Packard got from Buick and Olds--- perhaps more of the nonsense those GM execs East Grand brought in during 1933-34 to teach the Company how to build the One Twenty but stayed to run Packard into numbness by the late '40s.

The '51 200 i had long ago in my 20s always started readily, but then the 356 as in JW's, HH56's and some of the above posters' cars has a notoriously touchy choke.

My '40 120's automatic choke, like the automatic choke on my '51's 288, never gave the least impediment.

BTW and off subject, but it's comical that some new cars aimed at the happening kid market have

starter buttons on the dash.

Magnificent as the PT boats looked skipping over the waves at full chat, Black Beerd above sums it well. An ex-Navy friend says the PT boats often ran out of gas after sortees
and had to be towed back to base by destroyers.

Sheriff Law -- Just a thought, since weight is the enemy in any road car, see if you can find a pair of spare 16-inch tires, and place just those ---no steel wheels-- in your front fender wells, then mount the sheet metal covers over them. Packards are already nose heavy, and sidemounts add considerable weight. So if you like the look of sidemounts, but are going to carry a spare tire and wheel in the trunk anyway, give the above a whirl. Why saddle that beauty with extraneous dead weight? Let her fly.

The Electromatic clutch in my '47 Super Clipper was rebuilt and i drove it engaged a few times before tiring of the robotic aspect. That, and whenever you're at a long light with Electromatic on, your clutch pedal is automatically depressed, something i never do in any manual shift car wanting to preserve the throw out bearing,
which may be inexpensive but replacing it is a major job, esp. in Packards having that cross member which must be unbolted.

Don't forget, Electromatic was only Packard's frantic counter to GM's HydraMatic. IMHO, Packards are first and foremost luxe road cars, so nonsense like automatic or semi-automatic transmissions, air conditioning, which do n o t h i n g for performance tho' may've been necessary in the day to remain competitive in the marketplace, are gewgaws discerning motorists wisely eschew.


As for oil, since your engine was rebuilt and is in good shape, you can't go wrong with any premium brand 10W/30 detergent and again, all major brand motor oils are essentially like aspirin, tho' i use Kendall GT1, and as i and others have explained elsewhere here, don't waste your money on "ZDDP" additives and such nonsense.

Funny you mention your car barreling down the highway like a "Greyhound bus." My old mechanic, who worked on cars like ours after serving as staff sergeant of various motor pools in the War II Pacific, once described a 356 Clipper he roadtested after a tune up in the late '40s as racing along "....like a Greyhound bus."

And now, without further ado, the dumbest question ever posed on PI, but someone must wear the mantel. Just got a pair of replacement 11-inch blades from Merritt for my original, correct 1947 Super Clipper's wiper arms.

The little hooks at each end will enter either opening at the top of the small rectangular bracket on Merritt's replacement blades.

B u t, there's gotta be an According to Hoyle on this,
so could and would any of y'all post an extreme, uber focused close up of how they attach on your 1941-47 Clipper?

The wiper arm hook can enter just as easily, in my case,
either the "open" curved contour hole, or the angular closed end hole. Sabe? Capiche? Doesn't seem to make a real difference. Just want to do it according to Packard.

Thanks.

Never ceases to amaze me the stores of information, insight on this best of all possible autoholic sites. Noting you're in Youngstown, Antique Auto Battery on 602 West Rayen Avenue, 1 (800) 426-7580 has bolt in 55-amp, 6-volt, positive-ground alternators for all 49,651 1940-50 senior Packards produced using the 356 with its fat fanbelt, were tooling for the special pulley we require last i heard, depending on level of interest.

Many of us are big on authenticity, but if you drive at dusk or at night, want brighter head and tail lights, faster batter recovery, this is one place to deviate from factory, no altering or butchering of the car in the least required.

Deputy Law -- Monsignors Troxell, post #10, and Santana, post #11 speak the truth. Belay the wire wheels. They look tacky on Packards after the mid-'30s. Keep it simple. Less is more.

Live with it, get your sea legs, baby steps. One thing at a time, no rush. Too many CCCA Cadillac-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack (thank you, Billy Joel, "Movin' Out") types buy Packards,
glom on every piece of glitz they can. That's not what Packard was about.

Wire wheels are out of character for such an elegant road car as yours.

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.

Inews, the above uber knowledgeable gents are correct on all scores, tho' my first suggestion is to give Optima a chance. The one i have is over eight years old and still as good as ever. The 1912 Swedish company, with modern plant in Colorado, was bought by a Mexican concern a coupla years ago, and Optima's former seven year pro-rated warranty (first two years free replacement) has, i've heard, been downed to three years total.

But I'd still give Optima a whirl and again, weight is the enemy in any road car.

If wet cell, Group II was original equipment for both One-Twenty and '39 Super 8. However, as your '39 Super is junior based, you should be able to just shoehorn a Group IV, which was original equipment in the Packard Twelve, in your underseat battery box as i did just that with my '40 120 decades ago.

To play safe, i pop riveted a thin piece of aircraft plywood (anything'll do) on the underside of the floor cover
to prevent impromptu arc welding.

But give Optima a chance. The dealer who told you the above likely also has a vast inventory of funky wet cell batteries he wants to unload.