Packard Forum Index » Studebaker Built Packards (1957 - 58)

Quote:

Yes, the Packard V8 is 4" longer and 2" taller than the Studebaker V8, so it carries the weight fractionally farther forward. This was not a good thing on an already nose heavy car. The '56GH was usually equipped with stone-heavy PS, PB, PS, PW; all which added to the nose-heavy feel. A completely equipped '56 GH was much more nose-heavy than the lesser-equipped coupes most Stude drivers and road testers were used to.

No, the Packard V8 is not much heavier than the Studebaker V8. I've personally weighed both ready-to-run standard shift engines on the same scale on the same day. The '56 GH 352" Packard V8 and the '57 GH 289" w/supercharger weigh the same 710#. The Stude V8 in terms of pounds-per-cubic-inch-per-cubic-feet-of-space is one of the least-efficient designs ever. The only upside is that makes it hell-for-stout. The Studebaker V8 is inherently a much stronger block than the Packard V8.

Maybe, the Packard engined '56GH was just so much faster, it overpowered the skinny tires of the day. FWIW, the '56 Golden Hawk was faster and quicker than the '56 Corvette, Thunderbird and Chrysler 300B. The '57 GH was not.

Bottom line, by 1956 S-P understood there was no way to fix their systemic problems and had irrevocably decided to get out of the automobile manufacturing business. Shutting down all the Packard factories was just the first step.

jack vines

Quote:

Jack,

I would speculate that one reason for this overbuilt approach by Studebaker was the inclusion of a supercharger, which would require a heavy duty approach, including the bottom end. It's strange that they didn't go for the gusto in c.i.d. when that would have made a real screamer. Perhaps because, as it was, the little Studebaker was way overpowered for its platform, and as you mention, the tires etc. of the era. Even late-60's tires and brakes would have had a lot to handle with this hot-rod setup.

BTW, anyone remember the famous "flying Studebaker" rumors-- that these S-P things could go fast enough to become airborne? Unintentionally, of course. Maybe all that weight in the front was still not quite enough.

Quote:

One point in favor of this is... it would fit in my garage!

Another is the Studebaker styling (as opposed to the "Packardbaker") was really nice. I particularly like the incorporation of the "Mercedes grille."

Quote:

More than a few with style and automotive credentials have called the '53-64 Studebaker C/K/GTs the best looking car of the era. That they are correct is proved by the fact the cars are still beautiful today. Most '50s-60s automotive styling did not age well.

The Virgil Exner late '50s-early '60s Mopars are probably the worst in that respect, but the '58-61 GM are almost tied as the worst b-fuglies.

As to the '58 Packard Hawk, I'll admit it took forty years for it to grow on me, but I'd proudly drive one today. This from a guy who has had dozens of Studebaker Hawks.

jack vines

The P-Hawk is definitely the cream of the Packardbakers in styling, but I still prefer the Studebaker design. It's not as striking, but it is cleaner. At least with the Packard Hawk, you could see they were trying more than tissue paper and spit add-ons to make it work. I saw one on U-Tube a while back, but the camera work was so bad you really didn't even get a walk-around.

I don't think they had any idea of supercharging the Stude V8 when it was on the drawing board. My guess is it was heavy for 2 reasons. One is, all the first generation V8s are heavy. They hadn't figured out how to cheapen them yet. The second is, Studebaker took a very conservative, take no chance approach which means the engine was overbuilt for the stresses it had to take. The result was a very stout engine, much stronger than it needed to be, and quite capable of dealing with the extra pressure of supercharging.

It is also likely they had in mind that they would be building the same engine for up to 20 years, like its predecessor. They planned ahead for future increases in displacement, compression and horsepower building in plenty of extra strength.

FWIW, I stopped again to look at the Clipper Wagon, and it indeed does have Senior gauges-- no idiot lights, all needles, all silver with gold/white needles and markings. So on the day this one was made, that was apparently what was in the parts bin.

Again, if anyone is interested, I could take a few pics. Just PM me.

It may be factory special order but think rather than coming from the factory that way, it was changed later -- maybe by the dealer or possibly one of the gauges failed and the owner went to a local yard, picked up a cluster that was available and liked what he saw or changed the bunch so all matched. The senior gauges do look more "class" than the Clipper ones. Alternatively, he had a preference for full instruments instead of idiot lights.

The actual outer cluster case which mounts to the fiberglass dash has a Stude part number but all other items in the Stude 57L 17XX-X instr. grouping cross directly over to 56 Clipper 648XXXX series instruments and will fit without any mods except for an oil sender change. No senior instrument numbers are there at all. What would be interesting would be the ammeter connection. Not normally there, if that looked factory or professional with an extra idiot light wire unused would give a clue.

Didn't look retrofit to me, and also included a signal-seeking radio. I'll get a pic someday for all the doubters. I don't care what the part number was, in those days changes on the fly were no doubt common... and retrofitting a complete complement of senior gauges does not square with the appearance of the rest of the car... bone stock with very few missing pieces. The rinky-dink dash panel looks like it would fall apart if you looked at it, much less tried a major R&R job.

I don't think anyone here doubts what you're seeing. What you've described ARE Senior gauges, as used by the Detroit factory. (Not sure which year as they were slightly different, cosmetically, between '55 and '56.)

I believe the point of contention initially raised was whether they were factory-installed.

The parts books indicates that '56 Clipper instrumentation was used in the '57 Packards (Clippers-only), with no option for an upgrade to full gauges. That corroborates what I wrote for the Model info pages.

Of course, a set of '55-'56 Senior Packard gauges could have easily been installed in place of the regular Clipper units, but you can't tell whether that was done during or after factory production just by looking.

Meanwhile, it's been some time since I looked over a '57, but (unlike most aftermarket units) the gauge bezels on the '55-'56 cars were separate from the gauges, and crimped (from behind) to the instrument panel. THEN, the gauges cluster was inserted. Yet, I don't know what adaptation Studebaker engineered to fit those gauges to their instrument panel for the '57 cars.

The only way you could confirm that the factory installed the Senior gauges as some special request would be from production records, which the Studebaker museum might have on file.

In the meantime, my gut instinct is that it was more likely a dealer or owner retrofit.