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I find this article extremely interesting, not only for Mr. Cahill's contemporary impressions of the 1952 Packard 300 that he tested, and how well it stacked up against its competition but for his viewpoint on government and corporate entities, "dictating," what products consumers should have available to purchase with their own money.

His reference to a, "pre-inflation $1,000 bill," will undoubtedly be confusing to modern readers as a majority of them are not aware that our government once trusted the population in general to possess currency in denominations larger than $100

Yes, that was enjoyable reading. Perhaps we forget how competitive those machines were at the time. But Uncle Tom made a significant error when he stated that vacuum power brakes were new to American cars and long overdue. He was no doubt unaware that many of the prewar seniors had vacuum power brakes, as did some other luxury makes.

A bit off the topic but I've always had a bit of a fascination with the power brake system Pierce Arrow used for a few years, it's derivation was European, perhaps Daimler. It use was with mechanical (cable) brakes. The system used a large disc on the driveline (back of the transmission) with an attached friction disc not entirely unlike a clutch disc. When you applied the brake you essentially brought the two together and the force of the stationary disc trying to rotate was applied to the brake linkage. The neat advantage was the faster you went, the more the boost. I believe the Pierces that use this system can be identified by a brake pedal shaped in the outline of a footprint and very close to the floorboard. Perhaps someone will come along and remind me of the patent holder or inventor of this system, I've long since forgotten. It's a bit of an odd sensation when you drive one of these Pierces because at very low speeds you have almost no power boost and thus need a bit more pedal pressure; then you cruise along and forgetfully apply a similar pressure and damn near impale yourself on the steering column.

Quote:

I agree. I don't know when power breaks appeared on American cars but I had a 1935 Cadillac that had vacuum assisted mechanical breaks.

I'm not sure about others, but, even the 33 101 had vacuum assist.

Rolls Royce used the power brakes driven by a clutch disc on the transmission. I doubt they originated this design, they never originated anything and were proud of it.

I think they copied it from Hispano Suiza.

This design was expensive and complicated to make, and as you point out, the assist was not constant but was related to the car's speed and, in reverse, gave no assist at all!

In the end the vacuum system proved better and cheaper.

Owen

The clutch brake booster system was a Mark Brigkit (Hispano Suiza) patent. Rolls Royce was the best known licensee . RR started to pay royalties on it when they went to four wheel brakes in 1923. Henry Royce would never duplicate effort to dodge someone else's patent if he thought it was sound. It was used by RR until the end of the SIlver Cloud era as their cars used a dual hydraulic /mechanical system like Hudson.

I was unaware that Pierce system was the same.

Regards


JHH

LLoyd


I think the "choice"comment was a dig at Cadillac. They were charging for the Hydramatic but you couldn't get a manual transmission.


Regards



JHH

Ah yes, Hispano. Thanks John for triggering my memory.