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I'm thinking soon after WW2. Could this have been the unique powerplant to accelerate them ahead?

What would have been the disadvantages?

Would this have minimized the need for new tooling?

I see design accentuating longer hoods to celebrate the difference.....

Think a six liter type 57 engine.....

Not thinking an ardun head of sorts; a new engine....

I'm thinking 300 hp in 1950.....naturally aspirated....

Intriguing.
The whole country was thinking V-8 in those days,
though it was a young Packard engineer that fostered the development of the OHC 6 for Pontiac.(funny, they used the Executive name too) The resulting technology was later used by Ford, Mercedes Nissan,just to name a couple.
The big cost savings compromise was to use an F head which limited performance. Also prevented making a V12 out of it which would have been rather bodacious!
One negative of an OHC 8-with all that torque,how would you keep skinny little 4 ply tires on it?

Some "rough" numbers to get to the 300 hp mark:

Input Parameters Are the Following:
? Number of Cylinders are = 8
? Piston Diameter = 4.000 Inches
? Engine Stroke = 3.480 Inches

? Computed Engine Displacement (CID) is 350
? Computed Engine Displacement (Litres) is 5.7
? Computed Engine Displacement (CC) is 5733.0

Computation Results:
? Mean Compression ratio is 10.0
? Engine Revolutions Per Minute is 4800
? Computed Engine HP is 306

As 64Avanti is right on target, such an engine at that time would have been one of worst decisions any US car company could have made. Regardless of OHC or not the straight 8 era was dead, V8 was what folks wanted, and any money Packard would have thrown at an OHC in-line 8 would have simply speeded their demise.

G'day all, My understanding of the reason for Packard continuing with the valve in block arrangement was its silence, high Brake Mean Effective pressure (BMEP)with low octane fuels, and the exceptional torque available at low rpm compared to overhead valve motors. There were many "match races' and other comparisons with Overhead and Valve in block engines in the 1920's and 30's. The end result is that a valve in block always had morelow rpm torque than an overhesd valve which breathed better at higher rpm. The automatic transmission provided the OHV motors with torque previously obtained from a side valve motor. This effectively killed off the main advantage of the valve in block motors.
An OHC straight Eight would have been an absolute disaster unless it was done as a racing special with supercharger and cutting edge technology, in conjunction with Offenhauser or some other horsepower gurus. This had already been tried with Miller in the 1920's and Packards failed to achieve. Iconsider that packard should have pursued the 1920's racing as Jesse Vincent and his team were talented enough to shine a lot of new light on that scene. Sigh....if only.....Peter Toet.

I think this is a fascinating question, but the problem would have been Packard's place in the automotive industry. The engine you are talking about is would have been perceived more as a racing engine, possibly for use in Indy cars of that time. Packard was considered a luxury car manufacturer with literally no background in racing.

The comment about the tires is valid, as would be the issues of the transmission, brakes, and suspension. We all know that the Ultramatic was not particularly capable of handing very high torque, so what would be the solution? Ditch it in favor of a manual transmission at a time when the automatic was increasingly desireable? Not likely, particularly after all of the time, money and resources Packard had expended in developing such a transmission. Packard had to modify the Ultramatic to accomodate its new V-8 in 1955.

Another problem I see is the fact that the straight eight was pretty much running out of time by the late 1940s/early 1950s. Bringing out a new, high-powered inline eight could possibly be met by skepticism and possibly even confusion. It would have been similar to Chevrolet countering the Ford Boss 302 Mustang with a dual overhead cam straight six. It may have matched the Mustang in performance, but I am sure it would have flopped in perception and sales.

The best thing Packard could have done, in my humble opinion, would have been to have brought out an overhead valve V-8 in 1947 and beefed up its Ultramatic ASAP so that by 1949, the company would have been ahead of the Detroit curve, especially if it added air conditioning as standard equipment. That would have driven Cadillac nuts!

There are a lot of advantages that a V-8 has over a straight eight. Don't get me wrong, I like the straight eight. But it is extremely difficult to change the public's perception of what is antiquated and what is modern. I think Packard's management would have been aware of that fact.

Well said, Mr. Bumble.

Packard certainly had plenty of experience with overhead cam designs (and supercharging) from their marine and aircraft engine experiences and no doubt had a good feel for the plusses and minuses in moving that into the automotive arena; they also knew what the public wanted and made the move in that direction, though belatedly.

Consider how well (poorly) Jeep and Pontiac did with their in-line overhead cam engines a decade or two later.

The packaging issues of an OHC straight eight (long and tall) would not have been a big deal in the bodies of the era. As pointed out , the high rpm advantages would not have been that noticeable on a luxury car. Packard's 9 main bearing designs of 1940 and 1954 kept the crankshaft whip under control.

However, the inherent distance problems of a straight eight remain - it's a difficult set up for breathing. Equal fuel distribution would have meant a multicarb set up, and as Buick found out that had issues.

So in the era, the OHV V8 made sense, even though it initially offered no power increase.

A supercharged inline 6 is an interesting idea. Imagine someone transplanting one into an XK120!

BK:

I had first-hand experience with the XK120 and believe me, a supercharger might actually have made that car even more unmanageable. Despite its nice lines, it was actually an antiquated car, with mechanical brakes, unsynchronized shift, and crummy handling. Compared to my 1960 Ford Sunliner, the 1951 XK120 I had a chance to buy was a pile of crap!

While I will agree with you that the 1948 double overhead cam Jaguar six was placed into a mostly-undeserving chassis, left-over from a previous generation, the "mechanical brakes" comment was mistaken. The early cars had drum hydraulic brakes combining Lockheed and Girling technology. Remember, those brakes and their inadequacies led Jaguar to fit the world's first early disc brakes to later versions of that best selling premium sports car.

A better example of what might have happened might be either the Pontiac Sprint engine with a belt driven cam on top of what used to be a Chevy six cylinder block, or what Kaiser did with an overhead valve head atop their old L (or was it F-type?) block in Jeep Wagoneers. Each probably reflected engineering departments trying their best to get around accounting's rules of what could be afforded.

Packard, at least, never gave in as witnessed by their independent designs for Ultramatics, Torsion-Level and their own free-breathing V-8. Perhaps a 1951 or 1952, combined with an out-sourced GM or Chrysler V-8, might have been a better seller in hindsight, but the conservative board stayed the course with the L-big eights. If they had gone the overhead valve conversion, all those post-war cars would have sounded like pre-1953 Buicks.