Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Absolutely, Mr. PB. GMAC was a real boon, as was FoMoCo and Chrysler credit, but as mentioned, from 1948 when Alvan Macauley left, Packard's real focus was their jet engine contracts, Packard being one of only two domestic automakers to emerge from War II profitable and they now addicted to that. In fact, Packard's legal counsel Henry Bodman wrote the Merlin agreement, which became the basis for all US industrial military contracts for years to come.

So Packard increasingly phoned in their cars. The GM production fellows brought in back in 1933-34 to teach Packard how to build the wonderful One Twenty efficiently remained to run the entire show, and they were out of their league, witness George Christopher's "goddam senior stuff" lament. For all their production wiles, those guys were otherwise bumpkins, witness Packard's increasingly inept advertising and marketing, contrasted with Cadillac and R-R/Bentley, neither of which had better cars than Packard in the '30s and '40s.

My '47 Super Clipper, despite costing more than a concurrent Cad Series 62, and according to a former Chicago Cadillac dealer in that year, a better, stronger,
more reliable car, rolled from the factory with crummy hogshair and rubber front carpet, just like a lousy Oldsmobile. So it mystifies me that some owners today are so concerned about "originality" in that dept. I'm not
letting the legacy of some ex-GM production men tarnish my fine car.

The Chrysler's automatic notwithstanding, i'd still prefer
it to either the Cad or Pack. While none of these barges
were sports cars, the Chrysler tracked faster than the Cad, 16.2:1 steering gear against the Cadillac's clumsy 25.5:1, and better brakes. Also, the 1953-54 Chryslers were downsized those two years. Smart cars, but box office poison in those bigger is better days of chromed schmaltz and excess. There was really just a "Big Two" those years, since Chrysler's market share fell to only 12.9% for '54.

People oft forget that Chrysler was the number two automaker after GM nearly every year in the '30s and '40s.
Packard, however, was in the 1930s still the most widely
held automotive stock after only GM.

Of all the luxe domestic road cars of the early '50s,
i'd take either a New Yorker or a Packard Mayfair coupe but
only with stick and overdrive.

Perhaps time for a new thread, but just for kicks,
what would we own if we didn't have a Packard? Take some time, play with it. Doesn't have to be logical or make sense. For all our talk of engineering, i suspect most of us are as capricious, impulsive about cars as women are about clothes. Of course, i'm catholic in my tastes both
automotive and the distaff.

I think the Packard is a better looking car, because I hate those Mamie Van Dorin bumpers on the Cadillac. I think the 55-56 Packards would look a lot better without them. I thought the 53 Packard Patrician interior was tops, but they cheapened it in 54. I also can't stand that ridiculous rear clip on the Cadillac.

There is no arguing about motors. The 331 OHV Caddy is a deep block and a standard setter. The Packard V-8 isn't even a deep block. Hydramatic was likewise an engineering triumph, but in 55-56 the Packard 400 was actually faster than the Imperial with the hemi. The Chrysler racked up superior miles on the odometer because the hemi head burns cleaner and so the oil stays cleaner.

Everybody copied Cadillac. Nobody copied Packard. Heck, Cadillac was outselling Studebaker. If the 55-56's hadn't racked up so many customer complaints things might have gone better for Packard, but Packard just didn't have the money to sort out the engineering and so their reputation was in tatters.

Mr PB said:
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PatGreen replied:
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The story* goes: Chrysler knew they needed a modern V-8 engine, and the Cadillac V-8 was the first modern large bore,short stroke engine engine and rather than start from scratch they went to a funeral home on Woodward ave, about a mile and a half from the Chrysler Highland Park headquarters, and for a sum of cash borrowed the parlor's relatively new Cadillac hearse, took it to the engineering garage, pulled the engine, mic'ed everything and put it back together, in about three hectic days. If you take to the two blocks, stripped bare and measure they are the same length, the deck height from the crank CL is the same, the machined land surface where the head mates is the same dimension. Compare the bore, stroke, compression ratio and journal diameters from these two charts:

The Cadillac:
secondchancegarage.com/public/492.cfm

The Chrysler:
secondchancegarage.com/public/595.cfm

The manufacture of the Hemi head was a very costly enterprise, and management was not for it because of that cost, but it was a very successful red herring to take GMs eyes off of the base short block numbers, which had been cobbed from the Cadillac OHV V-8.


* as told to me by a retired Chrysler engineer during my days at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum.

I can't speak for the Studebaker V-8, I have heard rubes insist that "it's a Ford engine" because of the discplacement, like a company can own a particular cubic inch displacement.

With regard to the make I would own if it were not a Packard, hands down it would be Imperial. Exclusive and very well built, they also had IMHO the best trimmed interiors. Yes, they were stodgy, but if I wanted flamboyance there was always Buick.

Why Chrysler wouldn't just buy a whole car doesn't make any sense, but then neither does a lot of what Chrysler does. I always thought it curious that the displacement was coincidentally the same. Given the Cadillac motor came out in 49 and the Chrysler 51 doesn't leave much of a window to get from prototype to production. I'll wager if they did get a funeral car they actually pulled the OHV V-8 and put in a flathead. What does a funeral home care if the motor isn't the most powerful?

Just in time 56executive delivers another comparison chart of the same competitors.




[picture source: www.transpak-berlin.de]