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Recently, I stumbled over some unusual pics of some Packard Twin Six touring cars with a half track device.

It is known that tsar Nicolaus II used cars from several manufacturers with such devices, AFAIN of French K?gresse design, among them a Rolls-Royce 40/50 "Silver Ghost" and the enclosed Packard Twin Six.

The other pictures are taken from 13x18 cm silver bromide negative plates, and show at least three more Twin Six half tracks with front wheels supported by skis. These pictures were recently released by Swiss federal archives, and show some testing of the vehicles by the Swiss army motor car service. They are dated "1914-1918". Further information is lacking, but there were more pictures from other makes without half track application (Swiss-built Pic-Pics).

It is surprising that Switzerland used cars from overseas for their testing. My explanaton is, that they were delivered before U.S. entered in the war, and that Switzerland, which was not directly involved in the war, wished to avoid to use a make from one of the nations in war. But this is pure speculation.

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Michael

The Swiss had a very hostile attitude towards motorcars in the early twentieth century. At the time of the First World War there were few vehicles in the country. If the Swiss Army wanted to experiment with motorized transport they would have had to import a car or truck to experiment with. Rolls Royce Mercedes and others like Hispano Suiza were making munitions . Pierce was making trucks and their cars were almost tailor made anyway. Packard and Cadillac had the volume and distribution to spare a few. The Twin Six would have been attractive because of the larger engine.

The Twin Six came out in 1915, after the war started in Europe

I an interested in who did the conversions. Someone saw a niche for modifying Packards into halftracks and peddling them to European governments.

To my knowledge there have been only two other native Swiss makers, Martini and Denzel, and Denzel was putting fiberglass bodies on Volkswagens. Someone may know of others

Regards

John Harley

John, I guess I'm a bit surprised to read that the Swiss were hostile to motor cars in the early years as there were quite a few early Swiss automakers, more than one might expect for a small country. One was Ajax, making motor cars from 1906 to 1910. Also Dufaux 1904 to 1907. Franz Brozincevic & Cie made trucks and buses in Switzerland from about the time of the First World War until fairly recent times. Martini started in 1904, ended about 1934. Saurer was another Swiss maker of trucks, buses and military vehicles from before the First World War until sometime quite recently. Zedel started in Switzerland in 1901 but moved to France about 1905. And perhaps there were others, our Swiss correspondent can correct me on those I've noted and perhaps add more.

Does anyone know when Werner Risch became Packard's agent in Switzerland? Certainly he was well-established by the mid 30s; I wonder if Packard had representation in Switzerland before that?

Owen

I stand corrected, actually I'm sitting. In the dim past I remember reading an English book where the subject came up, maybe my memory is equally dim.

The situation I seem to remember would be heavy regulation in rural districts of city slicker's toys, not unlike what happened in parts of the US.

If I find something to dig my self out I'l post it for inquiring minds

Regards

John Harley

John and Owen, you're both right. Official Switzerland - and people in the country - were generally hostile to automobiles. In fact, their use under own power was prohibited in the canton of Graub?nden (where St. Moritz or Davos are) until 1928 or 29; one had to put horses in front when entering this state!

On the other side, there were many more manufacturers than the mentioned, among the very early also Henriod, Popp, SAG (became Pic-Pic; both used engine patents from Mark Birkigt of Hispano-Suiza fame), SIGMA, Turicum or Weber, to mention a few. Fischer used a valveless engine with oscillating feeders of their own design; it was used under licencend by Delaug?re & Clayette in France and, for prototypes only, by the Aristo Co. of New York for their Mondex-Magic Six, and by Palmer-Singer for similar purposes.

Automobile manufacture seized to be a nameable industry in the 1930s due to high wages, the lack of a sufficient home market, and bad economics. Trucks were built here much longer. MOWAG in Kreuzlingen started as a coachbuilder, switchedto mail musses, and then to community and military vehicles. It belongs to General Dynamics since 2003; one of it's development was the Piranha wheeled tank.

Probably best known Swiss post-war ventures are the MBM and Monteverdi GT cars with Chrysler V-8s and Frua or Fissore coachwork. GM cars were mounted in Biel/Bienne from 1936 until ca. 1976 (labeled "Montage Suisse"), and MOPAR importers AMAG did similar with Chrysler, Dodge an Plymouth models until 1967 in Schinznach. My brother owns a '64 Polara 500 convertible mounted here in Switzerland.

Saurer trucks were also built in the USA under licence; from 1911, at first by the Saurer Motor Company in Plainfield (New Jersey), and then by the International Motor Truck Co. It ended as a part of Mack Trucks in 1922.

Denzel was not Swiss but Austrian; but there was the Enzmann with a very similar concept. Albar and Beach Buggy also built Buggy cars based on the VW Beetle.

Known Swiss coachbuilders were Graber, Beutler (who built the very first Porsches), Ghia-Aigle (started by Italians Mario Boano and Giovanni Michelotti), Langenthal, Ramseier, Worblaufen, and T?scher (who did much work for Werner Risch on Packard chassis). All of them did occasional Packard bodies (Graber, of course, quite a lot of), as did Gangloff of Geneva and Berne, mother house of the impotant French coachbuilder of the same name in Colmar.

I have yet to find out when Risch started importing Packards to Switzerland.