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| Packard Twelve Club Sedan 1936 |
What could Packard have done after 1940 to prevent itself from being eclipsed by Cadillac as the luxury car of choice? Cadillac had inestimable advantages: a huge, rich corporation to bail it out when sales tumbled; massive transfusions of engineering and styling talent from the many-tentacled ganglia of General Motors; and a lot moremoney by half.
Still, Packard could have defended itself by continuing to build the Twelve. The lessons of history were staring Packard in the face at the time, but the men in charge paid no attention.
In 1915, Cadillac had made a powerful bid for engineering leadership by switching from four-cylinder cars to a V-8 -- a bold and challenging move. But within months, Packard countered by moving up from six- to twelve-cylinderengines.
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| Packard Twelve Close-Coupled Limousine 1935 |
The famous Twin Six trumped Cadillac's "King" with an "Ace," and for the next 10 years, as during the 15 years prior, Cadillac was never mentioned in the same breath as Packard.
Packard management failed to recall that lesson of history, or if they did, they rejected it. Had the firm continued building Twelves in the early 1940s -- after Cadillac had abandoned its own Twelve and Sixteen, leaving no multi-cylinder rival save for the lackluster Lincoln-Zephyr -- Packard would clearly have retained its reputation and image as America's premier automobile.
Then, after the war, Packard's peerless engineering staff could have put three decades of multi-cylinder experience to work building a modern, overhead-valve V-12, again trumping Cadillac's ohv V-8 introduced for 1949.
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| Packard Twelve 2/4P Coupe 1935 |
Imagine how people would have then felt about Packard and Cadillac! "You bought a V-8 when you could have a Packard Twelve?" That, and better styling than Packard settled for in 1948, would have made the difference.
Instead, money was wasted larding up the beautiful 1941-1947 Clipper, money that could have been better spent for that ohv V-12. Another right move for Packard would have been to make its first new postwar body style a hardtop, not a station wagon, of all things -- but that's another story.
Why did Packard drop the Twelve? Because Packard management in 1939 no longer viewed the product in the same way that Packard's management team had in 1929. President George Christopher, production mavens like Max Gilman, and numerous other transplants from mass-market companies, had revolutionized corporate thinking.
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| Packard Twelve 2/4-Passenger Coupe 1937 |
Packard was geared for the middle-priced field, building hundreds of thousands of One Twentys and Sixes instead of tens of thousands of rich people's toys. That approach undoubtedly saved Packard in the 1930s -- and condemned it to a slow death after 1945.
Since we're dealing here with only eight model years and fewer than 6,000 cars, it's best to define what all the fuss is about. Maurice D. Hendry, New Zealand's top authority on Classic cars (capital "C," in the Classic Car Club of America sense), said it best years ago in The Packard Cormorant, the Packard Club magazine: "If you set out to design a luxury car that would have high performance, but be far quieter and smoother than a Duesenberg; that would rival the refinement of the Cadillac V-16, but be mechanically simpler; you would have your work cut out for a start.
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| Packard Twelve All Weather Cabriolet 1939 |
"But if in addition you sought a car Europeans rated superior to the finest Old World contemporaries, you would face a monumental task. If you succeeded, you'd be able to congratulate yourself on a job uncommonly well done. Packard succeeded."
The Twelve was, manifestly, one of the fastest cars you could buy for the money (save for the Duesenberg). The multi-cylinder likes of Cadillac, Marmon, and Fierce-Arrow could probably nip a Packard Twelve in a close race, but as Warren Fitzgerald wrote of a 1934 model, "... no more than a handful of these more powerful cars were actually built or assembled in 1934, and anyone who bought a Packard Twelve could feel reasonably confident that few, if any, cars could challenge its title, 'Boss of the Road.'"
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| Packard Twelve Club Sedan 1937 |
Fitzgerald's road test of a Victoria by Dietrich in Car Life gave 0-60 in 19.2 seconds and a standing quarter-mile in 21.5 seconds at 63 mph, which was going some for a car weighing nearly three tons as tested.
Experts are divided over what a Twelve could do. Documented evidence exists of cars with stock rear axles recording 90-95 mph; it's reasonable to assume that, with a high ratio, a model like a Speedster could nudge past 100 mph.
But we should remember, as C.A. Leslie, Jr., wrote, that the Twelve "was not intended as an expensive hot rod." The real gauge of its mettle was its overall performance. To that end let us quote the late John R. Bond, founder ofRoad & Track: "For my money give me a V-12 Packard every time -- a car, in my opinion, superior to the P.III [Phantom III] Rolls-Royce." Enough said?
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| Packard Twelve Coupe Roadster 1937 |
The race toward multi-cylinder luxury cars began just before the Wall Street crash -- and probably wouldn't have started at all had the manufacturers known what was coming. But start it did.
Despite much derisive testimony to the contrary, Packard actually did contemplate a straight twelve, at least according to one former experimental engineer, Ralph Kellogg, who told Hendry that "I laid out the engine and most of the chassis changes required to accommodate it."
Packard knew a multi-cylinder Cadillac was coming, and its quickest response would have been a kind of inline double-six, based on its own excellent six-cylinder engines. Hendry surmised that crankshaft torsional problems, plus such an engine's extreme length, rendered the idea impractical.
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| Packard Twelve Coupe Roadster 1937 |
Nonetheless, Packard photos do exist of a monster prototype with an immense hood, and stylist Werner Gubitz -- who sculpted most of Packard's golden-age classics, and was not a kidder -- turned out impressive renderings of a "straight twelve" body.
For the actual production V-12, engineering vice-president Jesse Gurney Vincent turned to chief engineer Clyde Paton and his crack team of technicians: chief production engineer J. R. Fergusson, chassis engineer E. R. Weiss, draftsman Ralph Kellogg, and stress engineer Walter Griswold. Under Griswold was young Forrest R. MacFarland, a brilliant but introverted engineer who would stay with Packard to the bitter end in 1956, and was responsible for continuing its noble engineering traditions after World War II.
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| Packard Twelve Convertible Sedan 1934 |
To this illustrious cadre of in-house engineers was added a talented outsider, Cornelius W. Van Ranst, who was responsible for that other great Packard design impulse of the late 1920s, front-wheel drive. In the beginning, the Twelve was to have it.
Vincent's interest in it had been piqued by the Ruxtons and Cords running at the Indianapolis 500 and encouraged by retired racing driver Tommy Milton, a Packard engineering consultant. Milton's friend Van Ranst had developed the front-drive Cord L-29. Vincent had his doubts about front-wheel drive on a Packard, but the company's patrician president, Alvan Macauley, encouraged it by hiring Van Ranst personally to work up a design.
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| Packard Twelve Club Sedan 1933 |
Paton recalled that the Van Ranst prototype had numerous problems: "We found it inferior (as to hill climbing and icy surfaces) to the rear-drive car. Also the engine incorporated a new design of hydraulic valve clearance automatic adjusters, which were giving trouble holding the valves open at high speeds."
Paton concluded they would need at least 60 percent of the weight over the front wheels to cure the traction problem, but that would have meant heavy steering (in non-power steering days) and rapid tire wear.
Van Ranst then left, though Paton later solved the valve problem and incorporated Cornelius's hydraulics in the production Twelve. The valve gear owed much to General Motors, being similar to that of the Oakland and Oldsmobile V-8s, and the valve silencers were adapted from the Cadillac V-16 the moment Packard got its hands on one in 1930.
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| Packard Twelve Convertible Coupe 1938 |
This does not imply that the Twelve was a copy of anything else, because many of its features were new and unique. The 67-degree V-angle was greater than the old 60-degree Twin Six of 1916-1923, and, like modern multi-cylinder engines, used an out-of-step firing angle to reduce synchromesh vibrations and side valves to improve accessibility.
Its four main bearings and integrally cast block and crank were matched only by the Marmon Sixteen. The 445.5 cubic inches gave 160 horsepower, plus a mighty 322 pounds/feet torque, which peaked at only 1,400 rpm. The latter was responsible for the V-12's terrific takeoff, especially with low axle ratios (4.41:1 and 4.69:1 were standard for open and closed bodies, respectively, with 4.06 or 5.07 optional).
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| Packard Twelve Convertible Victoria 1934 |
The rest of the spec sheet was classical Packard: a Packard Eight three-speed transmission with synchromesh on the top two gears and a vacuum servo-boosted clutch, hypoid rear axle, mechanical brakes, Bijur central chassis lubrication, and "Ride Control" adjustable shocks.
The Ride Control caused an unexpected contretemps, Kellogg told Maury Hendry, when initial Twelves reached the dealerships. The dashboard control button was a plunger device over which was an engraved plate reading: IN -- HARD .... OUT -- SOFT. "It was not long before Packard was flooded with angry letters," Kellogg said. "Col. Vincent had the wording changed to something more appropriate." (Will owners of Twelves please send photographs of this plaque so we can savor Packard's angst?)
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| Packard Twelve Convertible Sedan 1934 |
Innovations for the new model included vacuum assist for the brakes, electric gas gauge, automatic clock, solenoid-operated starter switch, downdraft carburetion, and even an oil dipstick. Also new were "Packard Stabilizer" chassis vibration dampers in the front bumpers.
Clyde Paton, who engineered the system, noted at the time that the Stabilizer "is as simple and as certain as the heavy pole that holds the tight rope walker in balance. At each end of the bumper is a small weight supported between two sets of specifically designed springs in an oil tight housing .... The weights and springs are so designed that they are instantaneously and automatically brought into action to neutralize shocks reaching the car frame."
1932 Packard Twelve
When the 1932 Packard Twelve models were announced to Packard distributors and dealers in Detroit on June 17, 1931, word leaked out about the upcoming new Twin Six.
The result, as noted by Packard expert Robert E. Turnquist in his excellent book, The Packard Story, was that "Its re-introduction caused such excitement among the well-to-do that the news was flashed across the ticker tape on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange."
On January 9, 1932, at the Hotel Roosevelt in New York City, Packard formally debuted the Twin Six on two wheelbases -- a long 142.5 inches and a longer 147.5 -- priced from $3,650 for the two/four-passenger coupe to $4,395 for the Convertible Sedan.
The equivalents in today's money run $150,000 to $175,000, but that wasn't all. The bare chassis -- $3,150-$3,450 depending on wheelbase -- could be fitted with a wide variety of custom bodies, raising the final tab to Rolls-Royce levels.
Packard's News Service, for its part, chimed in that the Twin Six " ... enters that exclusive and limited production field where the last word in motoring luxury is demanded and where prices are correspondingly higher."
Still, the Twelve's price range was $500 to $1,000 below the rival Cadillac Sixteen's, which Packard easily outproduced throughout 1932-1939. On the other hand, prices were higher than for the Cadillac Twelve, which on paper might have been considered its chief rival (and did sell slightly more copies than Packard's Twelve from 1932-1937).
The public, however, tended to view Packard as at least the equal of the Sixteen, such was the car's gilt-edged reputation. Unlike 1916, Packard had not trumped Cadillac's latest effort with more cylinders, but with its superb classical styling and long dominance of sales in the luxury field.
It is significant that after the Packard Twelve was introduced (shipments began in April), Cadillac Sixteen sales dropped through the floor, totaling fewer than 1,000 cars between 1932 and 1939. Meanwhile, Packard sales not only weathered the Depression, but increased rapidly as the economy recovered, scoring a profitable 1,300 sales for the Twelve in 1937 alone.
In 1932, although the top end of the luxury market amounted to only about 22,000 units, Packard took a 35.6 percent share, compared to 16.9 percent for Cadillac. Combining LaSalle and Cadillac upped General Motors to 32.2 percent, still less than Packard.
That "classical styling" just mentioned deliberately maintained the formal Packard look, particularly in the trademark grille recognized by nearly everyone. Early efforts at streamlining were showing up, however, with the cars being slightly more rounded.
As Packard stepped tentatively into the "modern" world, its advertising/public relations people tried to set the tone: "as modem as an architectural design by Frank Lloyd Wright," "as modish as Matisse in painting," and "as recent as Debussy in music." The transition to more streamlined styling would be evident throughout the decade.
The Ninth Series was notable for the introduction of the famed "Pelican" hood ornament, chosen most likely because that bird was also found on the Packard crest. Designed by the firm's styling department -- after a contest in which young artists vied to create a new ornament, but didn't bring acceptable results -- it was soon nicknamed the "Cormorant."
Indeed, Packard itself called it that in the late 1930s, then reverted to pelican in 1949, and reaffirmed that in a 1953 management meeting. The ornament endured in various forms through the mid-1950s.
Also available was the Packard DeLuxe Emblem, nicknamed "Flying Lady," and many large Packard distributorships even offered Lalique of France glass ornaments. Because Packards left the factory with a plain cap, it was the buyer's choice as to what type of ornament would grace his or her car.
1933 Packard Twelve
For the 1933 Packard Twelve, the Twin Six became the "Twelve." Turnquist observed that "The Packard's advertising agency became overly concerned with the Twin Six designation, fearing that the public would confuse the new twelve as a warmed-over 1923 Twin Six engine. It is doubtful that any such thought ever crossed the public's mind, but the Madison Avenue crowd is very persistent in devising cures for illnesses that never exist."
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| Packard Twelve Convertible Coupe 1933 |
Skirted clamshell fenders marked the exterior, a new dashboard the interior. The latter featured buried Carpathian elm accented by American elm, and the speedometer incorporated a tachometer, the fuel gauge an oil-level readout.
Also adopted were a new X-frame chassis and smaller 17-inch wheels. Quality remained uppermost as Packard trumpeted that each Twelve was tested for 250 miles at its Utica, Michigan, proving grounds, under the supervision of Tommy Milton himself.
In fact, before the road test each engine was run for an hour by an electric motor and six hours under its own power before being installed. It was then run for more than an hour on a dynamometer. Incidentally, during 1933 the Twelve introduced bearings with replaceable steel-back liners, precursors of an industry-wide trend.
1934-1937 Packard Twelve
The 1934-1937 Packard Twelve continued its successful run. The Eleventh Series enjoyed record sales in 1934, adding a shorter 135-inch wheelbase for a magnificent Speedster Runabout by LeBaron, which listed at a towering $7,746.
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| Packard Twelve Coupe Roadster 1934 |
But the 1935 catalog dropped that chassis, shortened the others to 139 and 144 inches, and no longer listed the previously broad range of custom bodies. Bodies were more rakish, but still preserved the traditional Packard identity, and the engine was enlarged by stroking it to 473.3 cubic inches, at which point it delivered 175 horses.
Numerically, 1936 had reached the Thirteenth Series, but Packard superstitiously skipped that in favor of the Fourteenth Series. Changes were insignificant, and sales held about even.
Then for 1937 came the most radical redesign in the Twelve's history, led by an independent front suspensioncalled Safe-T-Flex, based on the layout designed for the Packard One Twenty in 1935. Hydraulic brakes and steel disk wheels were also adopted; wire wheels and the Bijur lube system were dropped.
The new independent front suspension and resultant smoother ride combined with a reinstated three-model line (plus an improving economy) to make 1937 the best sales year in the Twelve's history.
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| Packard Twelve All-Weather Town Car 1937 |
The new model was the 1506, a sedan on a 132-inch wheelbase introduced at $3,490, less than any Cadillac Twelve. Public response was immediate, and Packard sold 1,300 Twelves, nearly triple the count for Cadillac's Sixteen and Twelve combined.
One would think that this would have impressed the mass-production types who wanted to permanently eliminate Packard's "goddamn senior stuff," but 1,300 cars was a drop in the bucket compared to the models they really cared about -- that same year saw Packard flog 68,000 Sixes and more than 50,000 One Twentys.
Amazingly, the workforce was almost evenly divided, half of them producing 118,000 junior models, the other half about 7,000 senior-model Twelves and Super Eights. Think about it.
1938-1939 Packard Twelve
For the Sixteenth Series, the 1938 Packard Twelve had just enough appearance changes to keep up with general styling trends that year: a new vee'd windshield and redesigned instrument panel, plus revised body hardware, which was stainless steel on the exterior. The long wheelbase was dropped, and the previous short wheelbase increased slightly.
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| Packard Twelve Convertible Victoria 1938 |
The lack of the really big models this year did have one benefit: there wasn't a Twelve in the line now that couldn't hold its own with handling and performance that was at the top of its class. Most of its early multi-cylinder rivals had dropped off, including Cadillac's Twelve. If anything, this was the time to reemphasize the Twelve's place in the Packard line, but that was not to be.
The 1939 Seventeenth Series Twelve was the last of the line. Aside from a minor styling and trim shuffle, its only new features were an optional column gearshift and a pushbutton radio. The chassis was unchanged, and production fell short of 500 for the first and only time. The last Twelve came down the line on August 8,1939, with the outbreak of World War II just three weeks away. It was in that way, too, the end of an era.
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| Packard Twelve Convertible Sedan 1938 |
Granted, it would have taken almost saintly prescience for someone at Packard in 1939 to conceive of the revolutionary market forces that would shape the auto industry in the next 10 years. At that time, President Roosevelt was assuring the nation that it would never go to war again, and business, though still shaky, was picking up.
After the Depression they'd just gone through, after the salvation delivered in 1935 by the middle-priced One Twenty, after the prosperity of 1937 with the lower-middle-priced Six -- after all that, to imagine Packard's management turning course and keeping the Twelve in production would have been asking a lot. But a lot was exactly what was required.
The only leader of an independent automaker who could see farther ahead than his nose, Nash's George Mason, saved his company with compact cars introduced at just the right time, and with canny model rationalization after he took over Hudson. Packard should have had -- indeed needed -- a manager like Mason.
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| Packard Twelve Touring Cabriolet 1939 |
Had Packard in 1939 still been the company that it had been 10 years earlier, it would have been easier to look at past experience in the luxury trade and remember how the old Twin Six had eclipsed the Cadillac V-8 in 1916. The problem was that Packard had changed, and had no intention of going back.
It is interesting to contemplate Packard history if the impossible could have occurred and the 1939 Packard Twelve hadn't been the last of the line.
Imagine a V-12 Clipper Parade phaeton, line leader for a series of 133-inch-wheelbase Clipper seniors, and a longer-wheelbase chassis for the hearse and flower car trade. The dimensions of the 1939 Twelve probably would have lent themselves to the Clipper's narrower engine compartment.
Imagine if all those war profits had not been spent on developing a range of Dodge-Oldsmobile competitors, but on hardtops and two-and four-door convertibles powered by an evolved Twelve and the 356-cid Super Eight.
Packard would have been an also-ran in the great seller's market of 1946-1949, perhaps, but it would have held a substantial hunk of an expanding luxury car business when the boom market vanished after 1950. Then who knows what might have happened?
The Most Famous Packard
The most famous single Packard Twelve was, surprisingly, not a convertible, but a four-door sedan. It was the star of the giant dome of the Travel and Transportation Building at the Century of Progress, the Chicago World's Fair, in 1933: a majestic Dietrich style 3182 Formal Sedan, modified to present "The highest expression of the industry that has civilized the world."
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| Packard Twelve Convertible Victoria 1934 |
Standing next to the spindly 1899 Model A that had started the Packard saga, "the last word in Packards verily cried out unabashed luxury and was guaranteed to cause mouth-watering among the legions of spectators," wrote Morgan Yost in the multi-author Packard: A History of the Motorcar and the Company. It "was a delicate blending of ingredients from Dietrich and [Alexis] de Sakhnoffsky, with dashes of flavor from [chief of design] Edward Macauley and Packard."
The essential shape was that of the Tenth Series Sport Sedan by Dietrich, updated for the Eleventh Series with bumper caps and forward-extended front fenders. The use of a rear-mounted spare obviated sidemounts, revealing the beautifully swept fenders.
An elongated "false hood" and slim spears on the hood vent doors added to the impression of length afforded by the 147-inch wheelbase. On the bail-style radiator cap, the bail was replaced by an upright pelican mascot.
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| Packard Twelve Coupe 1934 |
The factory's description, in MoToR for October 1933, noted "the costliness of its interior furnishings. All body hardware is heavily gold plated and so are the steering column and instruments. Wood paneling and trim are highly polished burley [sic] Carpathian elm. Built into the back of the front seat is a cabinet extending the full width of the car.
"The right side is occupied by a full length dressing case with gold plated fittings. At the left is a cellarette with a drop door which becomes a glass covered table when lowered. Inside are large gold cups in racks and large gold containers for liquid refreshments. Upholstery is especially selected beige broadcloth. The exterior finish is called Sun Glow Pearl, a new finish which is gold, or brown, or pearl, depending on how the light strikes it."
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| Packard Twelve Brunn Touring Cabriolet 1938 |
At the Century of Progress, Packard's fabulous Car of the Dome was a worthy answer to Cadillac's V-16 Aerodynamic Coupe, Lincoln's prototype Zephyr (then rear-engined), Duesenberg's "Twenty Grand," and Pierce's "Silver Arrow," and it carried off more prizes than any of these.
After the fair, Packard displayed it at its distributors around the country, after which it was used for some years by President Alvan Macauley. It was first purchased by a collector in 1951, and is now part of the fine Otis Chandler collection in California.
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