Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

The Packard V-8 in the '56 Golden Hawk has the reputation of being too heavy, but I recall an article (I think it was in Frank Ambrosia's "56K" newsletter) where someone had weighed a Studebaker 289 and a Packard 352 (the engine used in the Golden Hawk) and was surprised to find that the Packard engine only weighed around 60 pounds more than the Studebaker engine.

In any case, my point is that had Studebaker-Packard kept access to manufacturing engines and transmissions in the relatively new Utica plant, they would have had an engine that would have been competitive for many years while the Studebaker engine was tapped out at 289 cubic inches.

" ... Hmmmm. A Packard 440 in a Studebaker Scotsman. That would make a surprise at a stop light ..."

I like the way you think! Woo! Hoo!

Hi

The Utica plant, along with the Chippewa Avenue plant in South Bend and the defense contracts, were among the spoils Curtiss-Wright extracted from Studebaker-Packard as conditions of its 1956 management agreement in exchange for $35M in operating capital to make it into 1957.

Whatever went on politically in the background between the Eisenhower administration, the Pentagon and Curtiss-Wright can be surmised, as it was an election year. It wouldn't have done to have two major automakers collapse months before November. C-W got its arm twisted a bit to step up and take on the problem. Ultimately, salvaging an auto-making operation (and the employment thereof) while stemming the financial losses was their mandate. Studebaker had a greater chance of doing so in volume and was the larger employer of the two companies.

Packard would exist in name, remaining on the market in reduced form while the company retrenched. Even as that retrenchment with the Lark progressed, no product they could afford to subsequently develop truly needed large displacement V8 engines after that point, even if the Utica plant were still available.

Simply my opinions, for what they're worth.

Steve

This might be a dumb question, but I always wondered why the company was called "Studebaker-Packard" instead of "Packard-Studebaker", as Packard purchased Studebaker, they should have had top billing.

<i>"... I always wondered why the company was called "Studebaker-Packard" instead of "Packard-Studebaker" ..."</i>

This is not a dumb question! The merger was done hastily and many details of it were not as well thought out (not to mention researched!) as they should have been. One glaring example is the name. Studebaker had too much say in the way the deal was structured and this is, in part, reflected in the name. Studebaker's chairman and president remained (Vance and Hoffman), adding unnecessary overhead. Both proving grounds remained. More unnecessary overhead. The list goes on. Packard president Nance was hamstrung in many ways because Studebaker had more clout in the deal than it should have. The worst of it was that Studebaker's costs were out of control - and they had no real idea of what their costs actually were. A proper audit was not done until after the deal was completed. Nance complained, with great justification, that "Studebaker was bleeding Packard white."

What happened to our Esquire dialogue in this thread? Did any reader not find it interesting that my privately made-up Esquire "Supplement" somehow got into the hands of a collector who claimed that this was a factory document? Is it just me that is dumbfounded?

Hi

Sorry to have participated in hijacking the thread, though our minds tend to wander...

It doesn't seem so unusual that the Esquire supplement you created has been passed off as factory genuine. Even with well-documented makes and models, documents subsequently created in the ensuing decades often become accepted as factory issued items.

Creating Esquires from the readily-available 400 was a clever and creative marketing idea that could have benefitted far more dealers in markets were Caribbean demand was high.

Steve

Quote:

by 1956, for most Packard dealers, even one more top-of-the-line sale would have made their month.

jack vines

Still missing the point! I created this privately; I never published it or put it on the web. I am still at a loss to know how it ever got into the hands of someone else, although it is with great pleasure that I pass it on to other Esquire owners. A copy has never been in any Packard we own or have owned! I used the 1956 Executive Supplement (which WAS an authorized factory publication) as my guide in wording and designing the document. I am so computer challenged that I did not know how to drop in a crest-and-vee to make it more authentic. Maybe I posted it on this site and just don't remember. Perhaps the gentleman who appears to be so secretive about his Esquire will respond. Inquiring minds want to know!

I think that the man who sent me the photo of the "supplement" that I posted on the blog likely doesn't visit this website and is thus unaware of this discussion. I'll send him an e-mail and see what light he can shed on how he got that.

For any new readers to this discussion, the item in question is shown here:
56packardman.com/2016/09/06/gear-head-tuesday-the-packard-esquire/