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

I like the Junior Clippers better. The shorter hood looks better.

I've fixed Electromatics (if you could call it that) and the problem is the pivot points are not very robust and suffer from wear problems. This makes the unit impossible to adjust properly and for demonstration purposes only. On paper the unit should result in longer clutch life, but starting out in second gear as authorized by Packard results in obvious shorter clutch life.

Until you look carefully at Hydramatic you just can't realize what an engineering triumph it was. On paper it should be trouble prone, but in actual use it was superior and lasted 25 years. It really was a remarkable feat and a standard bearer.

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.

I'm not familiar with the details of Electromatic. Did it also act as freewheeling??? As in disengaging clutch when going down a hill????

From a standing stop. Say one pulled up to a stop sign. Would the clutch pedal have to be operated at all to stop the car AND to take off from the stop sign from a standing stop???

Can just see the kid's reaction to his dad pulling into the garage in this brand new '42 One Eighty Clipper.

https://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=3745

"Wow, look at that car!" And his dad is all proud too, loving the roomy front seats that his just-traded '37 Twelve never had. He also loves the ease with which the car operates and handles and believes that he just bought something ultra modern. He's eager to try the "automatic" feature of the manual shifter and is happy to see that the manual mode is even easier to shift than his '37, which itself was a great improvement over his '32. He thought about a '42 Cadillac 60 Special but decided that Packard was still making one of the very few best cars that money could buy. No longer was it better than a Cadillac but since it was equal, though somewhat different, he was sticking with Packard.

Quote:
As long as speed was above governed speed of approx 17-20 mph, no. The clutch was locked out when OD engagement speed was reached so it would not freewheel in the conventional sense other than what OD would normally do. If car had slowed below 17 going down a hill and you let off the gas, conceivably the clutch would energize when the accelerator pedal reached fully closed. In circumstances where that might happen clutch could be turned off and I believe it and OD was recommended to be locked out in hilly driving.

Quote:
When the car was below speed and accelerator fully closed such as when coming to a stop the clutch would automatically come in. Taking off, the throttle linkage controlled the engagement and would engage the clutch at a rate depending on throttle position. If you were above speed, at times such as when wanting to shift down from 3rd, a separate "third or direct speed" switch would also cause the clutch to operate as soon as shift lever was moved slightly off it's resting or fully engaged position. Typically first wasn't needed but a second to first downshift requiring clutch action relied on a combination of the direct speed switch bypassing the governor and the throttle position.

The speed and smoothness of the postwar clutch functions were controlled by throttle position modifying vacuum to the power cylinder. Electric on/off operations were controlled by a switch on the accelerator which was operated when it was fully released and by another switch actuated by the 3rd speed linkage which would bypass the governor. Electric just turned on and off the full vacuum supply. Prewars was both linkage controlled vacuum for some control and solenoids to determine the amount and duration of vacuum depending on gear selected.

Wonder how similar the Electromatic is in construction to Hudson's Vacumotive drive. Maybe Hudson even had one better because they also had a feature where you could have the trans shift between 2-3 automatically.