Packard Forum Index » ZIS, ZIL, and other Packard Cousins!

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Yes Howard, it is. More than three decades after taking pic #1 the time had come to leap onto the driver's seat of a ZIL-114. It was a disapointment to me to see the cheap liquid level indicators, made from plastic. The car seemed to suffer from anticipating the rising 1980s. The astethic value of the central mounted mass-production clock in the dash visualized its manufacturing costs of less than three dollar. As they say, you shouldn't meet your heroes.
To discover Chinese-plastic in a handmade car has been somewhat disillusioning but some design mistakes are repetitive. In trying to sugarcoat the first impression I bore in mind that in 1940 the dashboard of one of the most luxuriant Packard's of all times, the One-Eighty, was chock-full of cheap synthetic material.
In 1967 it was probably the hight of fashion to come up with acrylic resin.
To find the push-buttons of the 1967 ZIL-114 superseded by a plastic handle of the later version was almost consecutive. Packard faded.

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Gerd,

Isn't your statement "in 1940 the dashboard of one of the most luxuriant Packard's of all times, the One-Eighty, was chock-full of cheap synthetic material", reflect more hindsight than foresight? Wouldn't what are now viewed as cheap dash plastic, be viewed in 1940 as new cutting edge materials?

Thanks, Gerd. That is an interesting and kind of unusual place to have the driver look and reach down to find the buttons but then I guess no different than American cars where they positioned them all over the dash. I think Packard was the only one that put them on the steering column which I thought was a strange arrangement with that big pod hanging there the first time I saw those.

The photo you posted of the 114 early dash also has an interesting placement of what I assume are AC grills. It looks like they are mostly blowing toward the roof whereas on the late 114 dash they look like they would actually blow some air toward the passengers.

Mal, absolutely right! We are time travelers.

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As long as we focus on buttons that might well be so. Before the war, Cord introduced a gearshift pre-selector, mounted to the steering colum.




The source of the photo above -> classiccarstodayonline.com hosts a nice collection of alternative gear shift levers.

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After achieving operating safety in the mid-sixties, company ZIL installed the pushbutton transmission selector in every kind of car. Below an optical pleasing microbus with V8 drivetrain. Their eagerness to experiment was undeterred even by forest elephants.

Odd side note: I just realized that -> the end of the linked video clip keeps a surprise. The soundtrack is from Franz Liszt‍ '​s symphonic poem Les Pr?ludes, a music which announced every Wehrmachtsbericht ("armed forces report") from the first to the last day of the Eastern Front (World War II).

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I think Packard was the only one that put them on the steering column which I thought was a strange arrangement with that big pod hanging there the first time I saw those.


Plenty of precedent for transmission controls on a stalk on the steering column. Though not push buttons or automatic transmissions, in addition to the Cord 810/812 quite a few other cars used a miniature selector at the end of a stalk on the steering column. Hudson did so for a year or two prewar, and many of the higher end prewar European cars like Delage, Daimler, Delahaye, Lagonda, Alvis and others that used the epicyclic (planetary) Cotal or Wilson gearbox. These transmissions were the precursors to today's automatics, the Cotal box accomplishing planetary gear changes electromagnetically rather than with bands. Very unique and interesting. If you're curious, see for a starter:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preselector_gearbox

You're both correct, of course. I didn't consider the Cord and some of the other manual transmissions with the stalks -- although I think most of those were somewhat smaller overall.

I was thinking of the PB's that were used on automatics. Chrysler and most everyone else placed them on the dash in varying places but usually up higher in a more direct line of sight. Packards may be convenient in that location but was the only one I could think of that had PBs in a huge pod placed right on the column. What was even more interesting with the Packard pod was the 56 authorized change if the driver wanted them on the left. Sticking them at an angle seemed kind of tacky.

The ZIL struck me as interesting because they were so low and the driver had to reach down for them. The only other car I can think of that was somewhat low on the dash was in the late 50s Mercury. Those were on the left in the lower third dash level. Mid 50s Desoto did have an interesting dash mounted stalk that was low but still it was very reachable.

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Howard, knowing your affinity to A/C systems I hired nobody less than James Bond, to acquire related information of the Evil Empire.




Before revealing the facts, eyeball the stooping position of the dead body of the man with orange shirt in the ZIL trunk (a movie scene from Casino Royal). The below shown car, a 117, is the "little" brother of the above shown 114. Its wheelbase is shorter but 7 liter engine as well as trunk size remained unchanged.





sources
image #1 - fanpop.com
image #2 - imcdb.org

A large section of the trunk is occupied by A/C.

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