Driving classics

[Steve_Mack_CT]

Guys I think AJ was simply comparing his 35 Sport Phaeton to the 35 with blackwalls and Wayne was bringing that post from way back up in order to comment on the tires.

 

That post coming up on the heels of Den's fabulous sedan is a coincidence, not a comparison.

 

That said, what a cool car Den has and nice to see it on the roads in Southern New England.  Hope to cross paths this season if I can find time to free my car from the garage..

Edited June 5 by Steve_Mack_CT (see edit history)

[Den41Buick]

Out for a Father’s Day breakfast and ride. Beautiful day. Happy Father’s Day to all.

 

 

[Packard enthus.]

On 6/5/2024 at 11:34 AM, Su8overdrive said:

Peter, we know your Packard Twelve is of course the greatest show on wheels.      Again, Peter, we know your Twelve a magnificent, silky powerhouse.  For its price, it should've been.  But when we laud one car--especially that which we own -- above all others, we lose credibility.   

WOW - for those who wonder about Su8's long tirade attacking my "credibility".  Let me explain why he did not answer the question I proposed.    I don't blame him - would require an admission of what was going on at Packard in its long slide down-hill, to the point here its products were rejected by the automotive buying public, until they finally had to close the factory in mid-1956 production.

 

Su8 knows that his '37 "Super" Eight was no Super Eight.   To save money  that SHOULD have been used to keep abreast of the industry,  was  "blown"  on stockholder and executive perks.   That is why the REAL Packard Super Eight was discontinued for 1937 production - in its place was the anemic and much smaller Packard Standard Eight of previous years.   This engine, with its much smaller displacement than the REAL Super Eight,  was obsolete -  the  rest of the industry was moving on to shorter strokes and more efficient combustion and exhaust designs.

 

I do not blame Su8 for his avoiding comparing these obsolete engines to the much more advanced, more powerful Packard Twelve.  Why rub it in?    Unfortunately for his credibility,  his advertising his lack of knowledge about engine design makes his rant less useful to automotive historians.

 

For example, he is partially correct about American La France using the Pierce Twelve.  For its cheaper product line.  Not because the Pierce design was better than the Packard Twelve - it was simply available as the failed company sold off its assets.  For its standard product line American La France had its own engine...the much larger, more powerful "E" series V-12 (whose "lower end" bore a remarkable similarity to the Packard V-12!.). 

 

He obviously never worked on Aburn/Cord and Packard Twelve engines, or he'd know the Packard Twelve, for example, had a wedge shaped combustion chamber, enabled by having an angle between the bore and the "deck" of the top of the block.   While technically an "L" head like the Aburn/Cords,  that wedge was one reason why the Packard Twelve produced significantly more REAL horsepower and torque than its displacement would indicate given the compression ratios of that era.

 

Bottom line - there are MAJOR differences in engineering between Packard "Super" Eights and Packard Twelves.   I refuse to take personal blame for the simple fact that the Packard Twelve was a vastly superior power plant!   

[alsancle]

120 miles today in two different cars.    A 41 Super Eight Packard with a factory high speed rear end did great on the highway, even in heavy traffic on the way home.   Then we took a 34 Standard Eight out lunch.   Beautifuly 75 degrees in New England today.  Sunny, low humidity. 

 

Went to a show on the ocean (bay) and they had maybe 300 cars.   But mostly post war. I only counted three cars (including ours) that would be considered Classic.

[Su8overdrive]

Peter, in your zeal to take up the cudgels for Packard Twelves, you didn't read my "tirade."   Why not do so first?   And nowhere do i see proof the Packard Twelve was better than the same design Auburn/Lycoming V-12, which debuted a year earlier.  How, precisely, is the Packard Twelve engine better than the Auburn or Pierce V-12s?   You make assumptions that i don't know Packard Twelves, but you can't even get your non-Packard facts straight.   American LaFrance did not use Pierce V-12.

 

  Nowhere in my "tirade" did i contrast Packard's earlier 320 and 385 straight 8s with the Twelve.  

 

  Then you assume i  wouldn't admit Packard's inexorable postwar slide?   Why, Peter, do you insert that?   I never said a word about that.  Not one.

 

  Please don't tell me you were a trial lawyer.  You'd have lasted 20 minutes.   What do you know about the Aub/Lycoming or Pierce-Arrow engines?   Nothing.  Instead, you regurgitate the same out of context Packard fanboy jazz you've been expounding on these forums for decades.       For cryin' aloud, i said the Packard Twelve was a fine automobile.  All here gathered well know this.   

 

   Why o why must you change subjects, go looping off on tangents i never raised, make assumptions,  simply as someone suggests.... this not worth the effort.  You didn't read my "tirade."  Others here gathered who did will see the unintended humor in your myopia, which prevents you from fathoming i am a fellow Packardite.  Or more accurately, a broadminded autoholic who happens to own a Packard (his third over the past half century). 

 

   You lose credibility, young Mr. Hartmann,  in making the Packard Twelve seem like it was in a separte league from everything else on wheels.  It was overall, judged as a decathlon, a fine automobile by any yardstick.   Let it go at that and stop beating us over the head with your 3.23 Oldsmobile rear-axled '38 Twelve.   

 

    Calling an imagined "opponent's" factual counter a "tirade," or "rant," or "spiel," or "diatribe" is bush league.   R e a d   what i accurately posted, not that i expect your mania to allow an apology.

 

     Peter, retirement does not agree with you.   Why not teach law at a local college, mentor young attorneys, instead of pouncing on non-existent online arguments.  It's a beautiful afternoon, off to dig holes for my girl's fig tree, Plumbabo, and Butterfly Bush.  May i recommend gardening, kite flying,  occasionally stepping out from your Packard's shadow?

 

   You've been repeatedly overruled.  Contempt of court surely follows.

Edited June 17 by Su8overdrive (see edit history)

[Grimy]

2 hours ago, Su8overdrive said:

Let it go at that and stop beating us over the head with your 3.23 Oldsmobile rear-axled '38 Twelve. 

What??? Peter's Most Magnificent Performer does not still have its original 4.69 diff?  For comparison, the 1936-38 Pierces, 8s and 12s, used 4.58 diffs with 30.5% Borg Warner overdrives--as standard equipment.  2700 rpm at 70 mph.

[Su8overdrive]

.28%.

 

That Packard's and Pierce's 12s use about the same numeric rear cog suggests the car from Detroit no more powerful than that from the same-sized Buffalo factory also designed at the same time by Albert Kahn using his brother Julius's Trussed Concrete Steel Company's product construction.

 

 As a decathlon, Packard's Twelve was a fine automobile, nonpareil, as i earlier posted.  But our compatriot, Mr. Hartmann, only saw that someone posted another maker's engine might, if we're splitting hairs -- a province of engineering -- equal or exceed that parked in his garage, and sprung into his customary attack mode.

 

  Otherwise,  can only refer to my June 5th "tirade," as Peter calls it.    Might add that unlike Chrysler, 1934-on, Pierce, 1936-on, offering overdrive, optional in the former, standard in all the latter, Packard did not option this until 1939, when did much of the rest of the domestic industry save Hudson, 1940, Ford, 1941  (FoMoCo and Auburn did offered Columbia two-speed rear axles, '36-'37 Cord integral 4th speed overdrive).    Packard made a refined, durable product,  abetted by Werner Gubitz's chiseled, tailored lines, thanks also to  consultants Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky and Ray Dietrich,  able to garner up to 42% of the  miniscule   fine car market (above $2,000 FOB)  through 1936.  Packard was into the '40s the most widely held automotive stock after only GM (Ford didn't go public 'til New Year's Day, 1956).   

 

    The ex-Hudson and ex-cash register execs running Packard since the early teens better knew how to milk tooling,  were literally the "General Motors" of the fine car market,  increasingly so as ex-Big B.O.P.ers brought in to cost the new junior car stayed and were running the Company in the '40s.    So Packard skipped overdrive in their pre-'39 products,  the better to enhance margins.

 

    Saw while posting this that .30% reduction for the R-1 used in '36-'38 Pierce.  R-6, R-9, R-11 and  most other '39-on Warner ODs .28%.     Thank you, sir.  I stand corrected, and assume .30% was also the rpm reduction in '34-on Chryslers?

 

     We now return this thread to driving our wheeled alter egos, certainly those here gathered not under de facto house arrest thanks to mindless breeding, 350 million babies onboard, treble or quadruple since our charges produced.

Edited June 20 by Su8overdrive (see edit history)

[Grimy]

41 minutes ago, Su8overdrive said:

.28%.

Really? 28/100 of one percent?

 

Beyond picking nits, I'll concede that (only) R-11 overdrives have a 28% reduction in rpm; R-10 overdrives have 30% reduction.  I was speaking of R-1 (purely mechanical, no electrical components) overdrives.

Edited June 17 by Grimy
added 2nd para (see edit history)