Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

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Or if they went to high school "There ain't no replacement for displacement."

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That's why I like the large-chested women!

Is it just me, or does the 50's RR Silver Cloud hold a striking resembalance to the original Clipper?

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Interesting observation. The RR is a bit more angular mostly to accommodate the grill but the "Darrin Dip" is sure obvious.

It even looks more like a Packard when you consider Dutch Darrin's original design. However, I don't like the RR square grille with all the other rounded lines. The Clipper was a much more harmonious design.

Peter: Some of your performance claims about the RR of the 20's don't hold water if you do some detailed research.

John F. Shireman

There was a short article in the Packard Club Cormorant magazine back in the early 90's making the same comparison. Peersonally I always liked the RR Silver Cloud, especially the first model with the 6 cylinder engine. Now I own a Super Clipper which to me is a nicer looking car without that razer edge fender line. I definitely think RR must have been influenced by the Packard styling to come up with such a similar design. Another one of those what ifs is what would have happened if Packard had continued to develop the Clipper look, possibly with a convertible model, and not created the "bathtub". The RR Cloud was made into the 1960's and was one of their most successful selling cars.

John :

Please conduct an experiment for me, and let me know how it works out. Open the hood of a mid 20's Packard, Cadillac, Linclon, Pierce Arrow, etc., then open the hood of a mid 1920's Rolls Royce Phantom. Now place all these fancy articles written by these fancy experts, on the engine blocks. Then start the cars up, and run them around.

Let me know how these articles you read, affect the actual real-world tech. specs and capabilities of these respective cars.....

Now, folks - to be fair, John's apparently massive source of reference material isn't all a bunch of smart-mouthed kids trying to re-make history to suit their fantasies. John discovered a couple of things I did not know.

First, he proved my memory and experiences WRONG WRONG WRONG about what I THOUGHT I knew.... about when Packard introduced "real factory-installed" air conditioning.

I'd always thought, based on the cars I personally worked on, that it had been introduced in late 1940 for the '41 model year. I'd even seen it on some "junior" '41 Packards. I found it hard to believe, and, again, was proven wrong by John - it was actually introduced in late '39 for the '40 model year.

Here's another example of John proving what I THOUGHT I knew about Packard and its corporate philosphy WRONG WRONG WRONG!...........John and some guy named "Neal" proved me wrong about this "in-line twelve" deal.

Based on what I THOUGHT I knew about Packard management in the "glory years", I thought it would have been impossible for responsible engineers to recommend to responsible management they waste engineering staff time and effort on anything as goofy as an in-line twelve cylinder motor.

Lo and behold, these guys came up with photos that LOOK "legit", along with what appear to be "legit" Packard offocial documents, confirming they actually built one !

What would possess anyone with even a rudimentry engineering education, and even a sliver of a sense of corporate responsibilty, to waste valuable company staff time building anything so goofy, still puzzles me, but there it is - apparently Packard actually did it and John and Neal found proof!

So - dont "poo poo" John's sources. We can all learn something from time to time. Who knows...John may be able to prove to me that I am wrong again - maybe the weight of all that intellect, and book-learning, when draped over a certain 1920's Rolls Royce Phantom, will shrink its engine size down to that of a '28 Packard 443 (or Cad. or Lincoln of that era), and/or change the advanced over-head valve engine Rolls had that the others did not, perhaps even cause a change in the final drive gear ratios to slow the Rolls down.

Incidentally, yesterday, in an impromptu drag race (we both denied we were actually racing ...!) a fellow in a well-mainted '38 Rolls Phantom Three ( the Rolls V-12 that bears some resemblance to the famour "Merlin" engines of Roll's aircraft division) was able to pull ahead of me (traffic conditions in the prestegious Dana Point area prohibited us from getting much over 50, so I never found out if I could "take" him eventually) my '38 Packard V-12 got beat. Not badly, but just enough to humilate me and give the Phantom Three driver something to smirk about.

Now to be fair, my own car's "off-the-line" accelleration has been crippled by my, years ago, "re-gearing"..reducing my numerical final drive ratio from 4:41 down to 3:23.

Not sure what this particular Phanton III's final drive ratio was - car was apparently "bone stock" - Rolls had a slick four speed closer ratio transmission, that obviously gave him more flexibility in the lower speed ranges. ? ? ? ?

Also keep in mind you could have probably bought three Packard V-12's for what that Phantom Three cost when they were new. Again, had Packard decided to compete in the rarified air of the Rolls Phantom Three price range...well......

The real point of all this, is to show that in the real world, with actual products, the more money you spend, the more likely you are to get a better product. That is why, again, I see little to be learned from comparing cars of entirely different price ranges.

When John has described to us direct "hands-on" comparisons from his own experience, between a '32 Packard V-12 and a '32 Cadillac in ITS price range, then I will be a bit more impressed about his discussing qualitative differences.

Re: the Buick vs RR, Pete, I am in complete agreement about that, the late 30s Buick are a hard car to throw stones at. They have plenty of power, drive well, and look handsome.
One thing about the industry's conversion to all-steel bodies from the "chicken coop" (like that term, it's here to stay) composite bodies--the fate of the independent car makers was sealed by this development. The process of changing the design of an all-steel body was, and is quite high, and once you have the design (style and engineering)down there is a business necessity to let it play for as long as you can. The independents could not afford the rapid changes in body style/engineering that the big three could indulge. An interesting case to study is the 1953-'54 Chrysler bodies. Here was a company that could afford to completely strike a new body from the ground up and when they did it looked so much like the 1949-'52 models that it is not readily apparent that this is a new body. Much of this due to the fact that Chrysler was run by engineers then, and they were still under K.T.Keller's edict about "men being able to wear their hats". The '53-'54 shells could have come down in belt height by two inches, but didn't, it took the appointment of Virgil Exner to VP of styling and the emulation of GMs corporate authority given to the head of styling to change that, the 1955-56 shells (all new) were right with the times, and much of the engineering of those was done by Briggs. If you look at a '55-'56 Chrysler product under restoration, stripped down and compare it to a Packard of the same model years they are almost identical.
The 1957 Chrysler models were a new, and industry challenging design, lower than the competition. This body was slated for the 1958 M-Y, after the 1956 hangover from the 1955 sales bonanza Chrysler crashed that body ahead one year, and it shows. There is amarked difference in build quality and engineering between the '55-'56 Chrysler bodies and the '57-'60 finmobiles. This was the beginning of "the dark ages", the period after Chrysler assumed all engineering of their bodies (after having purchased Briggs to get all major component design/build in house like Ford and GM)a period they did not exit until the K car and LH models.
Back to Rolls: I have driven a PI, PII (two of them), PIII and PIV in addition to several models named for various supernatural spirits. The PII was very good, a powerful machine and a remarkably unfussy one. The PIII was very nice, but not appreciblay nicer than the 6 or so Packard 12s I have driven.
The PIV was outdated, the same year Cadillac put it to shame.
The V-8 models were nice, except when you looked at that massive V-8 American wanna-be under the hood there were two S-U carbs (like a G-D MG!) where there should have been a Rochester Quadra-Jet. I drove four of these from the mid to late 70s, I thought that they were like driving a Cadillac of the same vintage, except the Cadillac was all around a better car. we had RRs and Cadillacs, all one-owner low mile cars in the collection, and I drove some of them concurrently, so the comparison was quite easy.