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straight 12


Guest JT

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I never said a '47 Buick Super (with the "small" version of Buick's DAMN good design)...couldn't go 100 mph.......I just suggested the cost to ship it air freight would be VERY expensive....!

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the French...had.... a STRIAGHT twelve because it reduced the "POLAR MOVEMENT OF INERTIA" ? ( I wonder if that design team also set up the specs on the Maginoit Line....? )

Can you explain for us dumb guys, what you think the technical advantages of a STRAIGHT twelve over other designs, would be..?

Pete Hartmann

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A 'STRAIGHT TWELVE' PACKARD....?

I would NOT be surprised to find PROOF that some off-beat manufacturer DID try out a prototype STRAIGHT twelve in the years prior to the end of the First World War. That was a period of truly wild designs, fewer agreed engineering standards, etc.

My question remains - WOULD Packard have done this at late as the mid 1920's, when, by that time, the SAE was in full swing, with establihed engineering protocals...?

Again, I am HARDLY a "expert" on Packard, or, for that matter, anything else. It just dosn't make sense, given what we DO what about Packard's "skunk works" and what their priorites were (coming up with designs that were saleable) , that they would have wasted time building an entire motor, based on a design that would be utterly useless to the Packard Motor Car Company.

So far, we have seen a lot of talk about what people CLAIM to have heard from their buddies who knew a guy whose girl-friend worked in a MacDonalds that was in the same state as a guy whose dog groomer over-heard at a bar that he once went fishing with a guy who read in an article...etc....etc..

Hopefully, someone will come across a LEGIT document or photos that will tell us what the "true scoop" is on this interesting question.

As we noted in another "thread", I was WRONG about the first year Packard came out with "factory air", and PROVEN wrong by nice fellow who sent me copies of AUTHENTIC stuff confirming Packard came out with "factory air" in 1940, not 1941, as i had thought.

Hopefully, someone will do the same on this question.

Pete Hartmann

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I believe you were proven wrong by the first half dozen post or so on the AC issue.

References were made to credible information that you chose to ignore. Does this mean we will have endless repeated posts on a subject until you receive faxed "proof"?

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JT A few of the "chatters" in here have so little credibility with me, that I wouldn't accept their word on the sky being blue. So - the answer to your question - is YES, I would very much like to see LEGIT proof of a "straight twelve" Packard. LEGIT documentation, rather than nonsence about '39 Packard "160"'s, "Packard Twelves chassis same as Super Eights....U.S. Highway 6 going to Santa Monica....etc....

Again, from the little I know about the priorities of the Packard "Advanced Products Research" Div., I would be surprised if they would do anything so absolutely foolish. We all benefit from the exchange of LEGIT info. We just waste each other's time with personal attacks.

Pete Hartmann

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have not visited this Monobloc 12 forum in some time but when I did, I noted Packard 53?s 11/20/02 retraction of his 11/8/02 post about the article he stumbled across in an old issue of Cars and Parts. I finally got to read the article myself and had to do so a couple of times before I could be sure which Packard 12 the writer was referring to. Yep ? turns out he was talking about a potential V-12 replacement for Packard?s then current V-12, their ?Twin-Six? as they called it at the time, and not an inline twelve. It takes a better man to admit that he tried to eat his own shoe leather than it does to initially make a statement. Most of us make an error now and then, unfortunately some don?t have the guts to admit it.

Incidentally, the Monobloc 12 article I referred to some time ago is finished and I understand it will appear in the Summer issue of The Packard Cormorant. I am sure followers of this subject will read it with interest.

Robert Neal

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I did "not choose to ignore". If you look above, you will see that "53" made a very gentlemanly retraction of his error. I don't judge people by their errors - I sure make enough myself. I DO, however, respect the guy who is willing to listen, and then, when he finds out he was wrong, is not the least bit embarssed to say so. THAT is how we have fun and learn more.

Pete Hartmann

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Peter,

Gee, I thought you were Barred from being a regular contributor to these threads. I will say that you are right about what you said in the above Post. I'll give you credit for that.

However, it is my opinion that when you are banned from something, you are just that, Banned, Barred, Locked Out or what ever you want to call it.

Bob Bosworth

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  • 5 months later...
Guest cnbed

Well - It's Here! The long-awaited article by Robert J. Neal on the Packard Monobloc Twelve has been published. You will find it in the Packard Club's "The Packard Cormorant" magazine (#110, Spring 2003), which is now in the mail to all PAC members. 28-pages worth (including an amazing color photo on the front cover)!

And, yes, the FACTORY PHOTO of the engine is included, and it's worth the price of admission. This should settle this age-old question once and for all. Happy reading!

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To Everyone: Now I can leave the story out of the bag. You will find this an excellent article to read and the picture of the inline monoblock 12 is excellent. Mr. Robert Neal was kind enough to mail me an advanced copy of the article and a 8 X 11 picture of the Packard monoblock inline 12 back in April before it went to the printers for printing. Mr. Neal is to be congradulated for the work and time and research he did for this article. PACKARDBUFF YOU HAVE ALOT OF CROW TO EAT AND OWE HIM A PUBLIC APOLOGY FOR THE WAY YOU TREATED MR. NEAL SO RUDELY ON THIS MATTER. The question is are you man enough to do it. This make twice you have stuck both of your feet in your mouth big time about certain aspects of Packard history. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

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I have only had a chance to scan the article but it looks like there is a lot of info there and the photo of the twelve is very impressive. Very exciting to see such info come out after all these years!

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Guest Randy Berger

I received my Cormorant today. Good solid research and documentation. Mr. Donovan has done a damn fine job and kudos to the Detroit library for keeping all these historical documents available for research. I did not read how Warren Packard came to own the car - I'll have to read again to see if I missed some note regarding that. I was reading that and playing with Gkids I haven't seen in over a year, so I may have missed some references.

YFAM, Randy Berger

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Guest Randy Berger

Stuart, thanks for correcting my faux-pas. Read article in haste and came up with the wrong name. Glad you caught it.

YFAM, Randy Berger

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The "straight twelve" .....

First of all, I am a Latvian reindeer herder - so of course I don't know anything about the guy '53 PACKARD is so mad at.....BUT...if I did, I might make the following response to his demand that I review the CORMORANT article and "eat crow".

First of all, when '53 mentioned this NEAL fellow to me at first, it didn't "ring a bell". It was only later that I realized I have his books in my technical library (most of that is STILL packed away till our new library is done).

Let me assure other suspicious "chatters" I believe the current Comorant article is genuine. I would be VERY surprised if this turns out to be another "hoax". I dont know this fellow NEAL personally, but from what I have seen of his past work, he is a pretty good and sincere historian. Other than a couple of gratuitious comments in this present article that I differ with (see below) I would have to give Mr. Neal high marks for his work.

I found the article quite disappointing in one respect - thanks to Mr. Neal's excellent detective work...it "paints" a far different, and quite disappointing picture of Col. Vincent than I had been led to believe.

C'mon...guys...by the late 1920's, the engineering data on crankcase "vibration" problems, and the technology of vibration dampers, was pretty well developed. Vincent finally discovers the whole damn idea was a waste of time AFTER the engine is installed and running around...? By taking OFF the vibration damper ...? Gawd ! A first-year engineering student of THAT era would have wanted to know more about what the vibration patterns were BEFORE affixing a vibration damper, so that the damper could be "tuned" to the particular harmonics generated by that particular engine.

I am also puzzled by Vincent's use of the term "mono-bloc". This "in line twelve" monstrosity was most certainly NOT a "mono bloc". How amatuerish of Vincent to get his terminology confused! No wonder '53 Packard got me confused about what he was trying to tell me !

The term "mono-block" is a "term of art" for those familiar with the casting process of engine blocks. Again...mystery...how could Col. Vincent have got his terminology so screwed up ? The introduction in 1932 of the Ford V-8's the Packard V-12, and the American La France V-12, amongst others are good examples of "mono bloc" castings....(complex crank-case and cyl. blocks cast as one unit).

The Packard "straight twelve" cobbled up, as it was, from bits and pieces of the already discontinued Packard Six, was "built up" in typical Packard production practice, from separately cast crank-case of aluminum, and cyl. block of iron, ( as was the case of all "big" eight cyl. Packards until the end of the line when production on "big" Packards ceased in 1939 (all Packards built after then were derivitives of the excellent but much smaller, lighter, and cheaper "120" series cars - all of which had engines of the more advanced and efficient "mono bloc" design).

As I noted above, complex "mono block" (again...cyl. block and crank-case cast as one unit) engine castings werent practical with large engines and/or complex motors, until improvements in casting technique made this possible at the end of the 1920's.

As Mr. Neal's excellent article notes, there is apparently no record of this "straight twelve" idiocy in Packard's official corporate records. And, as he confirms, the Gubitz "drawings" were only that...drawings..never actually built.

No wonder ! Looks like ole Jessie kept this whole farce a relative secret from "corporate" for good reason...perhaps even he understood the whole thing was a goof-off.

Interestingly, about ten years ago, some hot rodder took two "mice" ( small block Chevies) and used the basic castings to make a V-16. That engine was pretty successful from a performance standpoint, but...after all..it was a "V" type engine, so there is some logic to the longer crank-case. Big article about it in one of the hot rod magazines...cant recall exactly which one.

How did they make the "Chevy V-16"...? Probably the same way Packard did...the article explains how "jigs" were rigged so they could cut and weld two engine-blocks and two cyl. heads together. I do NOT recall how the article explained how they up with a crank-shaft. A "one off" cam-shaft would NOT have been much of a problem.

Even here in the swamps of eastern Latvia, we do have the ability to "scroll back", where I see earlier on, in this discussion, this "bad guy" enemy of '53 PACK. pointed out that while such an engine as an "in line" twelve was possible, it made no sense. Even less sense when they used an already obsolete engine for the parts !

It still makes no sense to me - and as Mr. Neal notes, for very good reasons, it made no sense to a lot of people, even to its creator, when he finally figured it out.

The fact that VINCENT 1) did go ahead on this fiasco and 2) did NOT get "corporate" authority to do it raises more questions than it answers...including.. "what in heck was he thinking of".

Again long before this absurdity was running, it was obsolete. Improvements in gasoline made much higher compression, and much more sophisticated cylinder design possible. The "real" Packard Twelve produced MORE torque, and about the same horse-power, from almost a third less displacement.

A review of a side- cut-away of a Packard Twelve shows us how far advanced cylinder design for mass-produced engines had come since the Packard "six" was discontinued (replaced for their lower cost line, by the so called "standard eight").

In the "real" Packard Twelve, you see wedge-shaped pistons, "ram" intake / induction, and a fully machined combustion chamber of the "squish" design, made possible by the cylinder bore NOT being at right angles to the "top" of the engine block. Its compact "V" type layout is typical of advanced thinking.

The so called "in line" twelve was a step BACKWARD, which is why I remain totally puzzled by the fact it now turns out it really DID exist !

As Mr. Neal notes, we don't know why research on the over-head valve engines Packard was working on at the same time, were discontinued. We can guess - given the roads and culture of the day, MOST Packards spent their lives being conservatively driven, in the better parts of big cities, owned by people born BEFORE the onset of the "mechanical/automotive era".

Given that, and the limited compression due to the limited octane then available for automotive use, the added complexity of the over-head valve design really didn't make much sense for that application. Remember, Packard had extensive experience with over-head valve and over-head cam engines going as far back as pre-world war ONE days, so, obviously, had they thought that design made sense economically, knocking out the hardware would have been a "no brainer" for them.

Thanks to Mr. Neal's "digging around", and combining his detective skills with excellent writing, we now have a glimpse into a slice of Packard's R & D activities that no doubt will leave many of us totally baffled.

I certainly apologize for hurting '53's feelings, but I am not clear what he is angry about. Looking over the forests and swamps of eastern Latvia, to those previous "posts" by this "notorious" PH before he was so justifiably "banned" (after all..we cant have people making fun of guys who insist their stock '47 Buick Supers can go 100 mph..) I really dont see anything that '53 would find demeaning.

But...if it makes '53 happy...I will go out in the back-yard, and see if I can shoot down a crow or two...cook em up..and eat em.....!

Best Regards from the swamps of eastern Latvia....

Your Happy Reindeer Herder......

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  • 4 years later...
Guest imported_Speedster

Wow, this thread was started over 6 years ago. Did they Really have Computers back then. laugh.gif

Man, there were some hot debates about the 12 then. Too bad the picture wasn't available then, to shake it up even more. grin.gif

We Don't have Debates like that Anymore. smirk.gif Oh well, that may be a Good thing, keeps the blood-pressure lower.

Thanks for finding and bringing it back from the dead.

post-33516-143137964644_thumb.jpg

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