Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

Dan
I didn't mean to imply that I didn't appreciate your diligence in getting us this information. Please accept my apology if my last post seemed like an attack. Thank you for your help on this.
West

Turbopackman, was the "Boyle" Miller race car owned by the same person who sponsored Wilbur Shaw and the Maseratti GP car he raced and won at Indianapolis? Just curious.

It is good to see this 'conversation' continue.

The Fitzjohn history and photos are very clear that about them stretching Chevys and Packards and other makes for the military in 1942. Guscha linked this discusson to some of the Fitzjohn sites in this thread and the previous one.
(As I write Guscha has already posted what I was also thinking.) Fitzjohn like a million other companies (including Packard) was part of an all out War effort. They made BUSSES out of trucks, cars, whatever, to support the defense effort. They were not a 'custom shop' or 'builder' making luxury Packards for well-heeled folks. They were more an 'industrial' jobber making whatever was needed by a customer

I suspect that the Trinity Project at Los Alamos had several (many) stretch taxis. This was the 'secret city' in the desert that produced the atomic bomb. [I am anxious to get the book that JW mentioned earlier in this thread. The stories of this location, era, are fascinating to me.]

Big Kev - I would also vote for combining these two 'Atomic Packard' threads. Since I started this first thread, we seem to be in 'Round 4' of a 4 month discussion of this era of Packard-&-automobile history.

DanL

Kev,
Did you get the permission of the Albuquerque Journal to post their article on this 'Atomic Packard' on this website?
I would like to see it. I will look online for a link.

JW
Do you know how many people were working on the Trinity Project location? They probably had a 'fleet' of vehicles, not just an 'economy-stretch' Packard Clipper.
Were you there when your dad ran the Packard Dealership during the war?

DanL

Is This the article?

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Rescued hulk likely carried Manhattan Project scientists

By Charles D. Brunt
Copyright ? 2009 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer

IF SO, HERE'S the link:

http://www.g503.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=786186&sid=86a7b88deeac46b5826622883d2d2b45

Interesting reading for this discussion.

DanL

Here is the link to the article Big Kev referenced in old thread: (It is on the last page of this Sandia Nat'l Lab newsletter.

http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/ln01-30-09/labnews01-30-09.pdf

The good photo from the newsletter will not upload.

DanL

41ParPac,

I believe that there were about 1,500 people working on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos during its peak activity. This would include military personnel too. I'll check on this and get back if it is different.

Incidentally, Trinity was the name given to the first test in July, 1945 because of it was conducted at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo.

I was a young lad during this time (born in 1940). I remember the first dealership location (114 West Palace Avenue) which was on the corner of Palace and Borro Alley. Borro Alley was a narrow street, but was used as a main thoroughfare through Santa Fe for traffic going north. Much of the supplies for Los Alamos were shipped into Santa Fe on a spur railroad track from the AT&SF main line at Lamy to the Bruns Army Hospital site. There they were unloaded onto trucks and driven up to Los Alamos through Santa Fe. I remember him saying one time after a caravan of trucks had just passed: "...there goes some more stuff for the submarine factory on the hill."

I don't know about the vehicles used, but don't think there were more than two or three of these stretched limousines.

There is another book that I have just started. It is "The Manhattan Project" edited by Cynthis Kelly. It is a collection of article and excerpts from books that tell the story of developing the atomic bombs from the early 1930s to the mid-1950s. Kelly is the president of the Atomic Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Enough of this, back to Packards.

Edit: that would be Cynthia Kelly.

41ParPack, in Jennet Conant's book, 109 East Palace, she mentions that in the spring of 1944 there were serious shortages in housing, water, and other things because the site designed for 100 scientists had grown to 3,500 and still counting. I was only off in my estimate by a small factor.

Ok, I merged the two topics together. Basically you have to merge the newer of the topics into the older topic.