Packard Forum Index » General

Everyone;

I would like your ideas on these items - BigKev can make things happen, but wants it to go through the forum process first...

1. Putting a general history description for the home page of what the Packard motor company was, what it stood for, and very brief paragraph of history, that leads to a different page if necessary.

2. A single page that had a good three quarter thumbnail view of each important body style, all on one page; 1899 - 1958. Just a couple per year; one from the senior, one from the junior...it would help to quickly identify the major differences from one year to the next.

Whaddyathink?

Carl

If BigKev wants to take on all the extra work, it sounds fine. BUT...If doing all this extra work on the site takes time away that BigKev wants to use working on his '54 project... I am more than happy with the site the way it is.

What about a Packard parts X-ref????? e.g. what part that fits a '39 also fits other pACKARDs and year range?????

THe parts catalougs are already loaded to P'info website. So the info is there.

If the parts catalouge PDF's or some other e-storage media can be read by a program then a simple 2-file match program can be written to compare say '38 to '39 parts cataloug for matching part numbers.

I'm with Don in that it would take a fair amount of work to add the features--not a bad idea at any rate. Homepage history might not take much time but on the pictures, maybe someone could help out with layout and just send the completed pages to Kev for posting.

As the to the parts x-ref also not a bad idea, but probably the items would have to either be rescanned with OCR or run thru a conversion program and then the file match applied. None of the item's I've contributed were enabled OCR beforehand. I have one that might work to rescan the pdf's, but would have to have unprotected files to try it out. Most OCR stuff I've tried still requires a bit of user interaction.

I think the website is just ok the way it is for right now.

The website the way it is right now offers more information than any of the two Packard Clubs websites.

In the almost three years that this website has been on the web, not many people realize how many hundreds of hours and dollars Kevin has given out of his own pocket to keep the website going. To ask him to do more isn't the right thing to do right now.

John F. Shireman

Guys I have no problem posting the requested content. I just need someone to volunteer to write all the copy, and select all the pictures, etc. To me, thats all the hard work. Once all the content is written. Then is doesnt take much for me to format it, and add it as an online feature.

I am sure no one wants to read my narrow view of Packard history, and I am sure that the Pre-War stuff would be all mucked up by me.

Along those lines... if someone wants to put together any content for website, I will support them in these or other projects. Much like I did for Brian when he did all the hard work for the Service Index.

The second feature that Carl requested is really a Cliff-Note version of a "Packard Car Spotters Guide". I think this could be done as time-line format showing the various bodystyle changes over the years. If you guys want to select the pictures and the captions, then I can format that into nice graphical timeline. I guess you could break it down into a couple timelines:

Brass Era
Pre-War
Post-War

or something like that.

I'm open, this is all a community effort.

Quote:

Writing the content of Packard History will be a challenge.
With the different theories about the Packard Corp, the SP merger, and terminology etc, this should be a pretty good fight to watch. Popcorn anyone?

BIGKEV: I guess that if given some time that I could write up a brief history of Packard.

Let me know.

John F. Shireman

Regarding parts x-ref, here's just a thought, but it might be too much trouble to implement.

We have some very well-versed members here when it comes to all one needs to know.

If there was a database structure (it would probably require relational databases), preferred, trustworthy members could be granted access to go into it. They could find a year and model and go to a part number. They could then enter other years and models the same parts fit. Their entries would go into a relational database, so that at that point, when you look at year/model, it will point you to all other year/models that are compatible. And if you're on any other year/models, it will point you right back to the original, plus all the others.

I was very good in the DOS days at database design and programming. It would have been pretty easy back then. I have no clue how hard it is, now.

To quality-check, any member could PM Kev and advise of an error that needs to be corrected. If the database had a field to record who entered the data, any mischievous behavior could easily be traced to the culprit.

Also, with such databases, if they were categorized into general categories first, like frame, body, engine, trim, etc., you could thumb through like a catalog.

Even better, members could post parts wanted/for sale with yet another relational database tied to the parts x-ref databases. It would make for a very efficient parts exchange. You could even have fields for price, condition, etc. for ranking. A feature could even be added to automatically e-mail/PM a member when a match is entered between a "for sale" and "wanted" part.

So many ideas; so little time....

EDIT: And with something like that, say I wanted a fuel pump for my 56 Clipper. I would go to 56 Clipper, Fuel Delivery, Fuel Pump and then, do "Find for Sale." It could use the xref to post all "for sale listings" for all fuel pumps for all years/makes that are compatible.

Hello Everyone

I'll start by saying that the current Packard.info website is by far the most useful and informative of any I've seen for a specific marque.

The suggested additions would no doubt add to that, but they do represent quite a bit of work.

By nature, Packard histories are in the eyes of the beholder. Anybody interested in that can get hold of any number of books on the subject. Most reflecting the author's views and take on history!

A timeline of major models/body styles would be interesting but would not add much to the value of what's already here. When I'm interested in that sort of stuff, the first place I look is the Registry. Admittedly, information is harder to come by for the "brass era" cars, but is well covered in many of the Packard history books. And I hate to say it, but the generation who recall (and treasure) the cars of that period (indeed between the wars) is a shrinking population.

And for information on parts commonality, it's fairly easy to spot in the Parts Lists which are already on the website.

It's obvious that a lot of effort goes into building and maintaining what's already here. These sort of treasure troves are typically maintained by just a handful of hard-working people. Unless volunteers emerge to help assemble the additional content, I'd say keep it as is. After all, it's value is still growing as the existing content grows.

Cheers

Brian Wilson