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It is amazing, stunning that people are continuing to claim that the Packard plant had no rail access. This is simply just not true and I have been all over this topic in the posting section on this web site entitled "How did they do it?"

Packard had tons of rail access. I was there. I saw it. Regularly. People are making all kinds of mistaken conclusions today off of bad photos and 21st century satellite views that leave off the reality of what things really looked like when Packard was in business! You may not be seeing it in photos and Google maps today, but it was certainly very much there! Rail heads came out of what was a huge shipping and storage lot at Mt. Elliot and East Grand Blvd. This had all been torn out by the 1960s, but sorry, it WAS indeed there when the plant was operating. There was a second line of track and spurs that went right through the plant and supplied coal to the power plant, oil, gasoline and lube to the plant depot and more. MORE rail access. It is neither fair, nor accurate to say that all this did not exist because it did! Most of this was removed in the ensuing years, but it certainly was there.

RE: Conner Ave. Packard Plant being "single story"... Again, this is not true. There was indeed a second floor there and the first floor height was already huge. There were in fact overhead conveyors that indeed led to the second floor (as well as stairs) and you can see all of these things in plant layouts. And it is likewise amazing that people have somehow forgotten the total fascination in the 1950s with single-story facilities of all kinds... from schools to factories. Stacked floors, stairs and elevators were considered outmoded and old-fashioned in the 1950s. Every-and I mean every write-up about the Conner Avenue Packard Plant referred to it as "modern" and implied it was cutting edge in every way. Now, all these years later we have folks railing against single-story factories!

RE: Packard Plant being "surrounded by urban residential"... (Presumably this means the Packard Plant on East Grand Blvd.) A good number of the people living in those "urban residential" areas in fact worked at the plant. And all of these areas came AFTER the plant, not before it. Furthermore, Conner had loads of residential area around it-which is why it was almost immediately turned into a shopping mall after Packard left! In fact, one of the most controversial government housing projects ever in Detroit was right across the street! I won't go into this one, but there were lots and lots of "urban residents" in the area... probably a lot more than over at Grand Blvd. Gotta know your Detroit history here.

RE: buying Willow Run instead of Conner Briggs...Doing so would have been twice or even three times as expensive as doing Conner-if only from an operational standpoint. That would have been like going out of the world backwards.

And Willow Run wayyyyy the heck out out by Ypsilanti in those days to a Detroiter was considered a HUGE trip... it was nowhere near Detroit city limits-no matter what direction it was on the compass. With Conner, the movement of cars by truck continued almost as it had earlier since the cars were still stored and shipped out from the same place as always at Mt. Elliot and East Grand Blvd. And the bodies had already been coming from Connor anyway. Had Packard moved to Willow run, this storing/shipping operation would have been lost too... or absurdly expensive to continue using.

People today think nothing of going to Ypsi from Detroit. I have a cousin who lives there. But...this was a very, very long trip from Detroit (especially East Grand) out there in those days. And the highways were nothing like today when a drive to Ypsi is nothing. Again, gotta adjust your thinking from 21st century back to the 20th century and the 1950s.

Furthermore, Packard bodies were already being built at Conner anyway! All Packard did was move the rest of the assembly line from Grand Blvd. to Conner to finish the complete car rather than truck the bodies from Conner over to East Grand. They didn't have to pick up every last thing and drag it over to Conner. So all of the howling about Conner is not about a complete move of anything. Yes, Conner could have been bigger. Yes, the move could have been a better one. Yes, the changeover could have been better refined. Much new equipment was added at the time and there were many unproven machines and processes that needed to have the bugs worked out. There just wasn't time to do all this. Then factor in the new V8 engine, new technology torsion suspension, new body styling... all these things were happening at the same time! It is a miracle that it worked out as well as it did with so many opportunities for something to go wrong! So people today need to put this all into perspective.

RE: James Nance wanting to run Packard into the ground"... While this may be the opinion of those stalwarts (some of them good friends) who saw his moves as too brash, too naive, too radical or too expensive, the man did what he thought was best. But it was just too much, too late. Like the guy who yanked the helm on the Titanic hard to one side, there was no way that ship was not going to hit the iceburg. So if we want to do the blame-game here it was Curtiss-Wright that put the final nail in the coffin- no matter how many people were sticking pins in their Jim Nance dolls.

Anyone who even remotely believes the fantasy that Jim Nance did NOT want Packard to succeed is simply mistaken. And obviously never talked with him. I can assure you, losing Packard broke Nance's heart and he was still hurting about it many years later-even if he rarely showed it. Of this, I can assure you... straight from the man.

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The photo displayed in this posting is looking southward, but there is no "freeway" shown (we called them "expressways" back then in Detroit) because this photo was taken long prior to the building of the expressway (freeway). The term, "freeway" by the way was borrowed and adopted later from Los Angeles. Detroit actually changed all of the names from "Expressway" to "Freeway"...heaven knows why. But they were originally called expressways. There is a famous photo of a late 1940s all over the internet with a Packard next to a sign that says "To Detroit via Expressway"...

Anyway, when the Edsel Ford Expressway was built it went right down Harper Avenue at this point, this Harper ceased to exist here. When the expressway was built, a concrete retaining wall was poured in at the very edge of Harper and all that was left of the long rectangular parking lot where you see cars sitting (blacktop lower center of the photo along the building) was a narrow access road. The expressway took every inch of land it could get.

At one time prior to this, the Packard Plant property (and a small test track) extended north (lower right) of where Harper Avenue is in this photo.

New car storage/shipping was off in the huge lot on the upper right of this photo-even after the Conner plant was put in operation.

I am attaching two photos I took in 1973. One shows a view looking northward toward the Ford Expressway and what was left of Harper Avenue. I took this from the rooftop of the Packard Plant where I had access to go at the time. You can see two tracks were left at this time and you can see the bed where another was removed.

If you look past the concrete ditch of a freeway (cars are down below) you can see Chrysler's Oilite Bearing facility, Good Year Tire & Rubber, and Mt. Elliot heading north toward Rinshed-Mason. Most of this stuff is gone now. At the time of this photo the north end of Packard along the expressway was occupied by Stone Container Corporation and Essex Wire Corporation.

The other shot I took was while down below on the Edself Ford Expressway looking up at the concrete retaining wall and north end of the Packard plant as seen from the freeway. This is all you could see from the expressway because is is down in a narrow concrete ditch. In the B&W photo shown earlier in the post, I would be driving 30 feet below the surface of what was then Harper Avenue. Today this building is at Concord Avenue and the Edsel Ford Freeway. It is the end of same building you see in the lower end of the B&W photo in this posting. Also, today, all of the windows have sadly been bricked in. Probably why it has not been vandalized any worse than it has...

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<i>Packard had tons of rail access. I was there. I saw it.</i>

Here's a photo of the north side supposedly taken in 42. Gives a good look at the spur as it comes south from the foundry, across Harper and through the factory complex. That spur heads north and into the huge rail yard that is still between Mt Elliot and Conant.

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<i>RE: Packard Plant being "surrounded by urban residential"...</i>

One thing I noticed in the film about Packard's war work, as the flim is highlighting the new construction for the Merlin program, they superimpose a plant in the middle of the Lutheran cemetary. That plant was in Toledo, at 1330 W Laskey. After the war, Packard did some jet engine work there, until the development program was terminated in 49. That plant, which was government owned, was vacant until Continental moved in in 55.

<i>And Willow Run wayyyyy the heck out out by Ypsilanti in those days to a Detroiter was considered a HUGE trip...</i>

The freeway to Willow Run was one of the first constructed in Michigan.

A section from the bomber plant east to Huron River Dr was built in 42. In 44, the "Detroit Indistrial Expressway" extended it to Southfield. In 45, the freeway was complete to Michigan Ave at the Dearborn/Detroit border.

By the time frame we are talking about, 53, the freeway had been extended to Grand River. In 54 it reached the Lodge. In 55 it was completed to Russell St and it reached Mt Elliott in 57. It reached Conner in 58.

Getting people and goods to Willow Run from downtown Detroit in the mid 50s was a snap compared to getting to/from what became the powertrain plant in Utica.

As for the economics of Willow Run vs Conner, even after the line at Conner had been debottlenecked, who knows, really. I have seen numbers that Packard figured they would save $3M by going into Conner, but it cost them an extra $3M instead.

<i>Anyway, when the Edsel Ford Expressway was built it went right down Harper Avenue at this point, this Harper ceased to exist here. When the expressway was built, a concrete retaining wall was poured in at the very edge of Harper and all that was left of the long rectangular parking lot where you see cars sitting </i>

Here's a pic from 56 showing the right of way being cleared for the freeway. Compared to the 1942 pic, you can see how the north wall of the Merlin test/inspection building has been cut back a good 100' to make room for the right of way. The west wing of the building, where the Merlin test cells were is about to be demoed.

What I find odd is that, after the north wall of the inspection building was cut back, the little two story office space in the northeast corner of the building was rebuilt. The 1961 photo shows it, and you can tell it's new construction because the color of the roof is diffenent.

btw, that is one awesome Caribbean. 55? That isn't the Jean Peters Caribbean is it? That black/white/pink combination seems to have been popular, but that was the color her's was.

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RE: the shortened building... You are correct. They did cut the building back. I remember exactly when they did this. They used the same brick and shortened the building....keeping the same look. Stone Container Corp. eventually moved in this building.

RE: the Caribbean... Actually if you are referring to the icon here, it was my 1956 in Dover White, Scottish Heather, Maltese Gray. However, I know and have driven the Howard Hughes/Jean Peters car. A friend of mine bought it from the Hughes people back in the 1970s. I also wrote its history back in the 1970s. It is in the White Jade, Rose Quartz, Gray Pearl color scheme. Some people call this "white, pink, black" but the bottom color is actually a very dark metallic gray that looks close to black on photos. Interesting too that Rose Quartz was only used on the stripe of the 1955 Caribbean. It was not normally available on any other Packard for 1955.

By the way, according to what she told my friend, Miss Peters was not particularly fond of the color scheme... which was another reason the car was parked in the garage of the Hughes Beverly Hills residence... and never driven again until her nephew got it out in the 1970s when I first saw it! I recall it had about 600 miles on the odometer when I first saw the car.

This photo is a bit faded after all these years, but here I am driving the car in Beverly Hills in the early 1970s. If you look closely at the 1956, I had wire wheels on it. The Hughes/Peters car was ordered with standard Packard wheel covers...

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<i>RE: the shortened building... You are correct. They did cut the building back. I remember exactly when they did this. They used the same brick and shortened the building....keeping the same look. Stone Container Corp. eventually moved in this building.</i>

By any chance, do you know what Packard was doing in that building after the war? I started a seperate thread about it, but noone has answered.

Re the Jean Peters car, There was an article in the Detroit Free Press late 72/early 73 about Frost and French Studebaker in LA. The article mentioned the odd thing that had happened there recently: a man in a chauffer's uniform had driven in with a Caribbean with only 300 miles on the clock, had the oil changed, and they never saw him again. They had no idea where that car came from.

A few months later Motor Trend magazine covered the car in their "Retrospect" feature. One of their staffers had been seeing it around and finally caught up with it at a car wash. By this time the car had 611 miles on it. The young guy who had it explained he was a relative of Jean's, showed the MT staffer the original registration with her name on it. The story he relayed is as you say, Jean didn't like the car, so some Hughes staffer picked it up at the house and drove it off to a warehouse, where it sat for the next 18 years.

When I was at the Motor Muster in Greenfield Village last year, the archivist from the Studebaker museum in South Bend was there. I asked him if he knew what ever happened to "the Jean Peters Caribbean", and he said "who?"

So, where is that car now, in a museum, or in the hands of a lucky collector?

RE: the so-called "Willow Run Expressway"... Yesssss, I know alllll about the WIllow Run Expressway.... and I believe the Davison Expressway in Highland Park predated it. Anyway, my grandmother owned much of the land around Belleville, Michigan. I very, very, very well remember driving out there back in those days. If you know where that is, I assure you it was a half-day trip out there from Detroit in the early 1950s. Whatever freeway, people may be imagining today was a short strip of double roads that bent and went for only a while and then hit traffic lights. Anyone thinking it was "a snap" to go from downtown Detroit to Ypsi... wow. I have no idea what roads they were using... but it was nothing like I-94 is today!

RE: Free Press articles about Frost & French... I didn't need to read the Free Press about goings on at Frost & French since I knew most of everyone there and I was a customer too (still have F&F license plate frames)! I was certainly living in Los Angeles at that time and I was a founding member of PACs Earle C. Anthony Region, so anything unusual happening at Frost & French would have been easily known. As far as a man wearing a chauffeur's uniform driving the Caribbean... strange story... unless it happened to be Jamie Kay who was Peter's nephew...he was the one who got the car out of the garage. And yes, I knew who shot the car for Motor Trend and I have original photo proofs and posters made up by Petersen Publishing personnel who gave them to me back then. Yesss, still have them. Yess, know all about the restrospect MT article. Still have that too. By the way, whoever wrote that article claimed the car had "air bags" for suspension...so don't be to bowled over by stuff that was published about it back then-most of it written by people who knew nothing about the real details of the car. And the car wash in question was the Sunset Car Wash...located on Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood...a few blocks away from Petersen's headquarters in those days. I did freelance and contract work there (at Petersen).

RE: The Studebaker archivist response... Of course he would say "who?"... you should have asked any SoCal PAC member and you could have had an immediate and accurate response! As I said earlier, a friend of mine bought the car from Hughes' people in Hollywood and he has had the car ever since. I wrote the history of this car and it was published in the PAC The Packard Cormorant magazine back in the 1970s. Believe you can still buy that back issue of the magazine by going to PAC's web site and requesting one Or look on the back inside cover of TPC and there is a listing of available back issues and how and where to order them. You can also find old issues on eBay.

RE: Whereabouts of the Hughes/Peters Caribbean today... It is alive and very well in a glass enclosure at the Automotive Driving Museum in El Segundo, CA. Curator there is Earl Rubenstein.

<i>...my grandmother owned much of the land around Belleville, Michigan.</i>

Her name wasn't Palmer was it? I have heard that a family named Palmer was a major land owner around here.

I live in Canton, which is the township just north of Belleville, and retired after working for a company in Belleville, near the intersection of Ecorse and Haggerty.

The aircraft museum at Willow Run, whose hanger on the east side of the airport burned to the ground several years ago, has had a fund raising drive and is working up the purchase agreement for the hanger at the east end of the bomber plant for their new home. The rest of the plant is being torn down as GM abandoned it in 2010.

That rail siding sucks. When I say rail access I mean a yard with spurs. It's amazing that 100,000 cars in a year could come out of that situation. For Packard to be a serious competitor would require 250,000 cars on a consistent basis.

And as I said one story plants are cheaper to build and cheaper to tear down. I don't see much difference if materials are off loaded on an elevated dock or transported from a quarter mile away at ground level. To be sure you can't have toilets overflowing, roofs caving in, flooding, and sinking floors in a multistory building without a catastrophe.

Given the situation Packard did a pretty good job of using their plant and equipment to exhaustion. The plant was designed for building hand built cars.