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<i>I wonder of the 1954 sale of the foundry site was prompted by an unwillingness/inability to invest in upgrades needed to produce the V8 block, or by a cut-off from the electricity, steam, and compressed air produced by the Packard power plant (I imagine that the utility tunnel from the Boulevard to the foundry was cut-off by the I-94 dig), or some combination?</i>

It should have been feasible to put a bridge over the freeway to carry the utilities to the foundry.

There might have been a problem with casting the wider block. They might have needed wider flasks (the frame that holds the sand mold) and their ramming equipment might not have been able to accommodate a wider pattern and flask, so upgrades may have had a significant cost.

It might have just been a matter of low production rates. Kaiser produced it's engines in an old Continental plant on Jefferson. Kaiser had trouble getting enough castings from Continental, so bought the Round Oak stove foundry in Dowagiac, Mi in 46 or 47. Kaiser closed it's foundry and outsourced engine castings to Lakey at the same time that Packard did. Kaiser's decision to outsource must have been driven entirely by low production rates because they were using the same engine in 55 as they had previously.

<i>The ditch they had to dig to get the expressway past EGB was another colossal effort</i>

The entire Ford Expressway was a colossal ditch. Cracks me up to see a photo of where the Ford meets the Detroit Industrial Expressway, and the ditch starts, at the Dearborn/Detroit border between Michigan Ave and Wyoming. I worked on Ford Rd, on the left in the 51 pic, a few years ago and the area is not only totally built up, but it looks like it has been built up forever. Amazes me how open that land was only 2 years before I was born.

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<i>The building (#22) which is identified as the prior Merlin assembly building has the following acitivites listed for 1949 though I'm uncertain if this is the building in question:</i>

Owen, the building I am wondering about is not #22. It's the one story building west of #22 along Harper. The one with all the exhaust stacks on it's east side roof in the 1942 photo. In the photo, you can see the one story section of building 22 off to the left.

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Steve, I continue to examine the 1949 plant photo that was the basis in the Winter 2009 TPC for describing the various plant activities and still can't ID the building you're asking about. Perhaps dyslexia on my part. I won't violate copyright by posting here but if you PM me with your email I'll email you a scan of that image just for your own use and if you see the building identified by #, let me know and I'll send you whatever else Mr. Balfour's text might say about it.

Owen, thanks for the offer. I already pm'd 55Packardconv with that info.

If the plant photo you are talking about is the same one I have seen elsewhere, the test/inspection building looks to be numbered 64, with the wing that was added by 1944 numbered 64A

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Hello Steve:

No, not Building 64A, rather 84A. And 84A was the Aircraft Engine Test building, thus the reason for all the exhaust stacks. 84A was due west of Building #22 Aircraft Engine Assembly and it makes sense the two building were near to one another.

BTW, that photo shows the two buildings were separated by numerous RR tracks, that some folks did not think existed.

Anyway, by 1949 (after the war) Building #84A is listed as being 928' x 173' and used for (1) Parts Shipping Dock (makes sense - near RR tracks) (2) Service parts, Stock/Service and (3) Parts Shipping Dock.

Hope this clears it up. Attached is a Google Earth image from the same perspective from 2013.

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Perhaps I should have clarified. Almost all early Detroit expressways were recessed, dug into the ground. This was patterned after the design set in place by the Davison Expressway in Highland Park... which was thought to be very modern at the time.

However, old Detroiters (of which I am one) referred openly to the short section of Edsel Ford Expressway as it squeezed past the Packard Plant as a "ditch." This because unlike the typical expressway sections that had sloping grassy sides down to the roadway, this one required vertical concrete retainlng walls.

Nearly everyone I ever knew back then in Detroit referred to this section as "the ditch"... until John Lodge Expressway finally was extended out and up what used to be James Couzens Highway (or "Parkway" as some called it). Once THIS happened Detroiters stopped calling little bottleneck on Edsel Ford at the Packard Plant "the ditch" and swapped that name over to the massive section of the John Lodge Expressway that was squeezed into and under James Couzens.

Like the Edsel Ford Expressway at the Packard Plant, the Lodge Expressway was dug deep with vertical concrete retaining walls that went from the new roadway below...all the way up to the roadway above. But this time it went on this way for several miles and was often overhung by concrete lips of the street above which continued as a kind of access road. There were just too many businesses along James Couzens to eliminated them all, so side remnants of the old road were kept as access roads. It was (and still is) considered by many was a very dangerous stretch of road. This feeling was punctuated at least on a could of occasions when terrible wrecks occurred down in this concrete ditch. I know Detroiters who still use this name to reference James Couzens/Lodge Freeway today. But where the term started was at the section of Edsel Ford Expressway as it squeezed past the Packard Plant and eliminated Harper Avenue at Mt. Elliot.

A lot has changed in Detroit, of course. And this is one of those things that has been forgotten.

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Yes. Compare this modern color shot to the B&W shot above (Packard42.JPG) and you will see that the building with the stacks (where aircraft engines were run) is in the right of the tracks and south of (above in this photo) Harper Avenue.

But the buildings giving rise to this discussion-as I have said all along-are north of Harper Avenue where the plant once extended (most people today have forgotten this since the expressway was built and cut everything off).

Thus the area that was being talked about in both the color pic and the B&W matching shot would be off to the lower left.

<i>Anyway, by 1949 (after the war) Building #84A is listed as being 928' x 173' and used for (1) Parts Shipping Dock (makes sense - near RR tracks) (2) Service parts, Stock/Service and (3) Parts Shipping Dock.</i>

Warehouse. Thank you! That is the long narrow wing along Harper correct?

And the building adjoining it and parallel to the railroad tracks, which the film about Packard's war effort "Men Bet Their Lives On It" says was used to tear down and inspect the Merlins after testing, then crate them for shipment (building 84?) was also warehouse space?

<i>it makes sense the two building were near to one another.</i>

Anyone know how they moved the engines from 22 over to 84A for testing? I have visions of men manhandling those engines over the tracks on a dolly, in a Michigan winter.

Sorry for so many questions. I am a bit of a factory geek and am facinated by how things get done.

However, old Detroiters (of which I am one) referred openly to the short section of Edsel Ford Expressway as it squeezed past the Packard Plant as a "ditch." This because unlike the typical expressway sections that had sloping grassy sides down to the roadway, this one required vertical concrete retainlng walls.


A bit ironic that the engineers worked so hard to thread the freeway between the Packard plant and the foundry, relocating Harper, adding the S curve and retaining walls, to minimize the disruption to Packard, but by the time the freeway was complete at that point, Packard was gone. If the Edsel Ford had been delayed 4 years, it could have blown straight through south of building 22. Probably much north of East Grand would have been torn down at that time.

bwy, you are correct, the Davison predates the Edsel Ford and DIE, opening Nov 25th 42. The Willow Run would beat it, opening in Sept 42, but the Willow Run had some local road interections so was not a true limited access freeway in the modern sense.

Fun pic, the DIE interchange with Telegraph. The drive in theatre must be the Jolly Roger. Being 8-10 years old, I didn't care how to get there, that was Dad's job. But I remember looking over the back fence and seeing the freeway.

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