Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Recently the Dual Quad Intake thread discussed other intake manifolds fitting or being made to fit Packard V8's. This has spurred me to create this post, although I don't want to open a can of worms but it seems I will with what's said below.

Earlier this week I went and visited a guy, Allan, who recently acquired a '40 Packard 110 Convertible Coupe and among his other cars has a number of Rolls Royces. One of his Rolls is a '69 Convertible with a body by Mullinar, Park Ward once owned by Beatle George Harrison when he lived on Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Roof. Allan bought the car in a very sorry state at auction and didn't find out about it's previous history until later. This included the story that one night on the island, during a partying episode, the Rolls was driven into a swimming pool and left there for three weeks before being extracted.

Be that as it may, what Allan had to say about the engine rebuild he had to do really didn't strike a cord with me until I'd returned home. He mentioned that for the engine rebuild kit it was going to be $23,000 for genuine Rolls parts but after some research he bought and used Nash parts for the engine rebuild at a cost of $2,500. This begs the question - did Rolls acquire Packard's engine tooling, drawings. etc and develop their V8 from there?

I see in the Wikipedia entry for Rolls-Royce V8 engine this - "....The new Rolls-Royce/Bentley V8 was rumoured to be an American license-built V8....." Could Allan's experience regarding interchangeability of parts between Nash and Rolls V8's confirm rather than deny the rumour?

I also understand that the Safe-T-Flex front suspension designed, developed and used by Packard, prior to WW2, was subsequently used by Rolls Royce under licence well after WW2.

Although I've posed the questions I don't have the answers but hope that they will be forthcoming. Because I didn't get any substantive details from Allan, if need be, I will go back to him for more information. And don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger!

But if this turns out to have any substance may provide another source of parts for Packard V8's, including intake manifolds!

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Yet another urban auto legend absolutely without basis in fact. Very good read which debunks that myth:

rroc.org.au/wiki/index.php?title=History:RR-V8_Designer

jack vines

Thankyou Jack, as you said a very good read.

That article only convinces me that the RR is Aluminum and not Ci. So what??? What about the crank, pistons, valves etc. ????


From post#1 above:
"He mentioned that for the engine rebuild kit it was going to be $23,000 for genuine Rolls parts but after some research he bought and used Nash parts for the engine rebuild at a cost of $2,500. This begs the question - did Rolls acquire Packard's engine tooling, drawings. etc and develop their V8 from there?"

To me it begs the question: WHICH nash engine parts and WHAT Nash parts were used to rebui;ld the RR????

With regard to the Safe-T-Flex suspension, it is true that one or more European cars used something very much like it, in the rear of a fully independent suspension system. But the Packard patents on it would have expired about 1950 or 1951 so I doubt there was any licensing issue.

As far as the Rolls engine story, it must amazes me how these myths seems to live forever. In fact, didn't we go thru this same story about 2 years back?

So is it a myth that someone used Nash engine parts to overhaul their RR engine????? I don;t really know. The only person that really knows is the RR engine owner that used the Nash parts to overhaul the engine.

BTW. Some 3 or 4 years ago there was some 'myth' about Packard selling or provideing parts or tooling to Russia during WWII????? I saw on a PBS chanell about 4 years ago original footage of WWII film where huge crates were loaded onto a ship for Russinan export. The crates had the LARGE Packard script on the side of them.

There are people who love to believe myths and conspiracy theories. Witness the recent "Obama born in Kenya" dust-up. It is possible to use Nash 196 cu in six parts to overhaul a Rolls engine, but it would never run and nothing would fit. You use the two empty cylinders for ash trays.

Roosevelt did give Packards as a gift to Stalin , I believe, and either those Packards or others were used a samples by them to build the Packard looking cars. Nobody sold the dies to Russia, by the way.

I got the story from the horses mouth on the suspension. I owned a '47 Bentley, same chassis as a Rolls,and noted the identical torque arm ball as used on the Packard and the near copy of the Safety-Flex suspension. By the way I don;t see anything on it that was patentable.

AT the Packard meet in Milwaukee in '72?? I had a long talk with Irwin Weiss, Chief Engineer on the 120 chassis. Told him about the Safety- Flex look-alike on the Rolls/Bentley. During the war Rolls engineers were at Packard to consult on the Merlin engine production. Weiss' comment "I wondered what those guys were doing over at chassis engineering so often"

Fred, whether or not you saw anything patentable about Saf-T-Flex suspension, obviously the U.S. Patent Office did. There were a flurry of IFS patents by most all U.S. car makers in the early-to-mid 30s, some really bizzare. Two Packard patents I recall in particular were a kind of Twin I-Beam design such as Ford later adapted for trucks, and W. R. Griswold's U.S. 2,153,083 which covers the basic elements of Packard's Saf-T-Flex design. Other Packard IFS designs (not used by Packard) were covered by U.S. 2,152,660, 2,153,233 and 2,153,498.

See my article in The Packard Cormorant, Spring 2000 or obtain a copy of the patent if you have further interest.

O_D, Thanks for the education, always something to learn

Quote:

No, no, hell no! There are no interchangeable parts between Packard and Rolls-Royce, now Bentley V8s.

The only thing Packard has in common with ANY of the OHV8 is it shares lifters with some '50s Mopar V8s. I've never found any other parts which even come close to interchanging with anything else. Heaven knows I've spent hours pouring over parts books and rooting through engine graveyards.

jack vines