Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Curiously enough, both the 1947 Packard Clipper 6 and 1949 Studebaker Commander were powered by 245 cu in flathead sixes.

They differed in details though. The Studebaker had a bore and stroke of 3 5/16X4 3/4, 101HP and the Packard had a bore and stroke of 3 1/2X4 1/4 and 105HP.

Interesting indeed.

Thinking about it, Packard was in a position to expand the V8 line to include an OHV inline 6 for Studebaker, Nash and Hudson had the execs been able to sit down and reason out the cost/benefit equation. 320 V8 / 225 HP translates into a 240 Six of almost 170 HP. That's pretty good stuff. The multi-million dollar estimate to add an OHV V12 might have made better business sense if spent on such a high volume engine.

A V-12 in the Seniors would certainly have helped regain some of Packard's lost status vis-a-vis Cadillac though!

But I think they should have just offered their existing (defunct by then) L-head 6 and 3 spd stick shift plus an older version (non-Twin) Ultramatic as an economy option in the Clippers to hedge their bets... it would have made a great taxi model too. I've always liked the Plain Jane models, and that's the car I'd like to create someday, but it depends on finding the right car and the right Packard 6 cyl drivetrain to put into it.

Quote:

I have given this a lot of though vis a vis the aborted American Motors plan to merge Packard, Studebaker, Nash and Hudson.

Studebaker was the first independent with their own OHV V8. Suppose the AM merger had gone ahead as early as 1951? George Mason I believe proposed such a move in 1949 and had been thinking about it since the end of the war.

Suppose there was a new program based on the Stude V8? I am thinking of different versions of the V8 for Studebaker, Nash, Hudson and possibly Clipper with a Stude based V12 for the senior Packards, and a six cylinder for Stude Lark, Nash Rambler and Hudson Jet.

Take the original 1951 Stude V8, 232 cu in 120HP. Extrapolate from that and you get a 348 cu in 180HP V12. Compare that to Cadillac and Chrysler V8, 331 cu in and 160 and 180HP respectively.

Now add an OHV six of 174 cu in and 90HP compared to the Stude Champion at 169 and 80hp.

The Studebaker was eventually enlarged to 289 cu in and 250HP, unsupercharged, in 1957. This would have translated into a 433 cu in 375HP V12 and a 217 cu in 187HP six. Of course the engineers could juggle the stroke of the six and get whatever displacement and horsepower they wanted while still using the same pistons, valves, etc in all 3 engines.

Such a move would have given all the independents a modern OHV engine to sell and saved millions in tooling, while rationalising the Studebaker engine investment.

This would also have given them the resources to redesign the engine or even come out with a whole new engine as new developments and the market demanded. There was a move to larger displacement engines by the low priced 3 in 1958 and another move to lighter simpler designs in 1962-65 sparked by the new thin wall casting process. If Studebaker, excuse me American Motors had developed as Mason hoped then there would have been a new generation of engines for Packard and the rest too.

But I think they should have just offered their existing (defunct by then) L-head 6 and 3 spd stick shift plus an older version (non-Twin) Ultramatic as an economy option in the Clippers to hedge their bets... it would have made a great taxi model too.

I think that idea would have been a tough, if not impossible sell. Firstly, the taxi business was reportedly a big-time money looser for Packard (perhaps Bob Neal's book will shed some more light on that). Secondly Packard was trying really hard to recoup some of their image as a luxury producer, having (finally, perhaps?) seen the error of their ways in the lower end of the middle price range with the 110s. A 37 Packard (110) for $795? Small wonder the lord of the manor didn't want a Packard anymore when his gardener drove up in one. I've always felt that bringing out the 110 was a catastrophic error in terms of maintaining their status as a luxury car maker. Anyway, just my opinion.

Hi

"... I've always felt that bringing out the 110 was a catastrophic error in terms of maintaining their status as a luxury car maker."

AHEM to that, Owen! You've identified the key move that, while generating volume on low unit profit models, did more long-term damage to Packard reputation and position in the market than can be calculated. The immediate result was to cannibalize 120 sales volume which never really recovered once the 115/Six/110 arrived. If we had the unit profit figures for each series, I suspect we'd see how little financial benefit the company derived from Six production.

A prestige/luxury car reputation was the most fragile thing in the auto industry. Fielding any type of downmarket model quickly diminished the prestige with which the make was regarded. This was the case in the pre-war market, the experiences of Mercedes-Benz postwar are a different situation.

The taxi business: highly competitive, based completely on lowest-cost fleet prices, paper-thin unit profits on cars built to heavy-duty specifications. Worst of all, taxis were regarded by the general public as durable, basic workhorse transportation appliances, to be used up and thrown away and forgot about. Nothing took a car's prestige reputation down faster than seeing it consigned to taxi service. Of all the businesses Packard should have run away from, taxi was the main one.

That said, I'm sure the Packard taxis rendered yeomen service at low-cost, were a good value for those companies that had fleets of them. I do know, if I spent $3,500 to $5,000 for a Custom Super Clipper and the first thing I saw upon alighting from my chauffeured Packard was a Packard Six Taxi plying Park Avenue, my next step would be have the chauffeur drive me to the Cadillac dealer to trade for a nice 60 Special or Fleetwood which I wouldn't see as a Cadillac six taxi! Call me elitist, can't help it!

Steve

Quote:

I agree with this, and other comments about Packard's lowest priced model line looking too much like the senior models, but find it interesting that some of the most popular taxis in Europe are Mercedes Benz. This has not hurt their image as a luxury car maker. I don't understand it, just observe.

(o{I}o)

The previous may be true, but by '55 whatever damage might have theoretically been done by the 110/115 was long done, and by introducing the problem prone 55th series it merely sealed the fate of an ailing Packard by signifcantly compromising their heretofore sterling reputation for quality and reliability with major mechanical issues in ALL models, the pretender to the throne Seniors included. They would not have made it to '55 without the Jrs. A mechanically proven reliable Jr line anchored by the stalwart L head 6 would have been the lone throwback to when Packard meant relatively "problem free", something that no 55/56 can seriously claim.

As has been pointed out, the proliferation of Mercedes 190/200/220/240D taxis worldwide for the last 40+ years has hardly hurt DB, because the taxis were quality products. If anything, their ability to absorb the punishment required of a taxi only enhances the overall brand. The whole canard of the 110/115/120 diminishing the Packard reputation disregards the costs involved in volume manufacturing. No company was able to survive by making only those kind of automobiles. GM was able to sucessfully sell a Cadillac as well as a Chevy/Pontiac/Olds/Buick simultaneously since people understood and bought the concept of brand differentiation and a value continuum Packard could, imo, have carried off a simple bifurcated product line: Clipper (Buick/Olds) congruently with Patrician/Carib (Cad/Linc), if only the plan had been executed properly with cars that worked as they should have, with ohv V8 engines when they should have had them, in 1950, and promoted with astute marketing.

They didn't and they couldn't. Any brand that foisted such flawed products on the public didn't deserve acceptance in the marketplace, brilliant attempts such as TL and Teague's heroic restyle notwithstanding, and the public rationally responded by staying away in droves. IMO believing that Packard could have survived by producing only top line cars after WWII with no higher volume models is tantamount to living on that river in Egypt. Even GM couldn't have pulled that one off, and it's precisely why Daimler Benz makes the C class, why Bentley is now owned by VW and Rolls is owned by BMW/Mini.

We Packard people being so passionate about the life and demise of the Company, this thread has, as often happens, wildly diverged from the original reason for posting it: the practical question of the logistics of putting a 6 cyl in a 1955. So, back to that, it appears that it will fit in lengthwise. Can anyone address the motor mount issue? And are the 6 cylinder bellhousing and linkages of the std trans likely to be compatible with the pedal assy of a manual trans 55 Clipper?

Quote:

Nice analysis Rusty. This is the kind of big picture thinking that was needed for the Independent's survival. It is amazing how myopic (not to mention bumbling) the would-be Big 4th participants were in those years. I have to throw Mason in there too. It's one thing to want to merge, quite another to have a plan of attack. A detailed plan, not some amorphous "Packard will go on top, then Hudson, then Nash, etc..." They needed a product development plan that leveraged the best practices of each player. They needed an engine, body, platform, manufacturing and sales/marketing plan that brought it all together and they needed to do it up front, fast and lay it out for the investors in a simple and clear way. And they needed a design team that knew their ... from a ..., no more weirdness like enclosed front fenders, brake cooling scoops over headlights and the dozens of other aesthetic atrocities committed by all of them in those years.

Agree on the comments about the poor quality. For Packard it was, I think, a symptom of a larger issue. Nance, by all accounts, caused chaos. Chaos causes delayed decisions and/or quick or ill-considered decisions and a breakdown in tried and true development and production processes. He was not a car person and should have never been hired for the top job right out of the gate. He should have at the very least been put on a systematic training track. But then again, who would have led in the interim? Packard had a leadership crisis dating back many years. There was only one Sloan in town and Packard unfortunately didn't employ him.

Mercedes taxis are comparatively expensive but long-lasting. Am not sure what the exact calculus has long been with German taxi owners but it seems to have worked for them. What taxi riders in Germany get exposed to is a pretty darn good car. Maybe it encourages them to take a closer look come purchase time. I heard in the halls of Detroit that the first and second generation 190 lost money and that M-B hoped to make money on the third generation. I drove a first gen 190 back in 1989. It was a small version of the more expensive M-Bs and one of the most impressive cars I have ever driven (which is probably one reason why it lost money). I drove a second gen 190 in Germany (and rode in those E-class taxis) in 1994; the car was not as good as the first gen and had clearly been cost-reduced, and did nothing but tarnish my reverence for that brand. I agree with the others in the argument against the 110. It stole sales from the 120 and eroded profits. Regarding the Packard taxis, I suppose they could have worked as a premium car not often seen in taxi fleets, the kind of taxi you got picked up from if you were staying at a nice hotel on 5th Avenue. Not as a Chevy/Ford/Plymouth caliber taxi. M-B taxis aren't used as VW alternatives either, they are a more premium ride.