Wednesday, December 9, 2015

1937 Packard Formal Sedan 12 Cylinder

Here are some images of Entex's 1/16 scale 1937 Packard Formal Sedan 12 Cylinder.

From Wikipedia"
Packard was founded by James Ward Packard, his brother William, and their partner, George Lewis Weiss, in the city of Warren, Ohio, where 400 Packard automobiles were built at their factory on Dana Street Northeast, from 1899 to 1903. A mechanical engineer, James Packard believed they could build a better horseless carriage than the Winton cars owned by Weiss, an important Winton stockholder, after Packard complained to Alexander Winton and offered suggestions for improvement, which were ignored; Packard's first car was built in Warren, Ohio, on November 6, 1899.
In September, 1900, the Ohio Automobile Company was founded to produce Packard automobiles. These quickly gained an excellent reputation and the name was changed on October 13, 1902,to the Packard Motor Car Company.
All Packards had a single-cylinder engine until 1903. From the very beginning, Packard featured innovations, including the modern steering wheel and, years later, the first production 12-cylinder engine and air-conditioning in a passenger car.
While the Black Motor Company's Black went as low as $375, Western Tool Works' Gale Model A roadster was $500, the high-volume Oldsmobile Runabout went for $650,and the Cole 30 and Cole Runabout were US$1,500, Packard concentrated on cars with prices starting at $2,600. The marque developed a following among wealthy purchasers both in the United States and abroad, competing with European marques like Rolls-Royce and Mercedes Benz.
Henry Bourne Joy, a member of one of Detroit's oldest and wealthiest families, bought a Packard. Impressed by its reliability, he visited the Packards and soon enlisted a group of investors—including Truman Handy Newberry and Russell A. Alger Jr. On October 2, 1902, this group refinanced and renamed the New York and Ohio Automobile Company as the Packard Motor Car Company, with James Packard as president. Alger later served as vice president. Packard moved operations to Detroit soon after, and Joy became general manager (and laterchairman of the board). An original Packard, reputedly the first manufactured, was donated by a grateful James Packard to his alma mater, Lehigh University, and is preserved there in the Packard Laboratory. Another is on display at the Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio.
The 3,500,000-square-foot (330,000 m2) Packard plant on East Grand Boulevard in Detroit was located on over 40 acres (16 ha) of land. Designed by Albert Kahn Associates, it included the first use of reinforced concrete for industrial construction in Detroit and was considered the most modern automobile manufacturing facility in the world when opened in 1903. Its skilled craftsmen practiced over 80 trades. The dilapidated plant still stands, despite repeated fires. Architect Kahn also designed the Packard Proving Grounds at Utica, Michigan.

1937–1941


Packard was still the premier luxury automobile, even though the majority of cars being built were the 120 and Super Eight model ranges. Hoping to catch still more of the market, Packard decided to issue the Packard 115C in 1937, which was powered by Packard's first six-cylinder engine since the Fifth Series cars in 1928. While the move to introduce the Six, priced at around $1200,was brilliant, for the car arrived just in time for the 1938 recession, it also tagged Packards as something less exclusive than they had been in the public's mind, and in the long run hurt Packard's reputation of building some of America's finest luxury cars. The Six, redesignated 110 in 1940–41, continued for three years after the war, with many serving as taxicabs.
In 1939, Packard introduced Econo-Drive, a kind of overdrive, claimed able to reduce engine speed 27.8%; it could be engaged at any speed over 30 mph (48 km/h). The same year, the company introduced a fifth, transverse shock absorber and made column shift (known as Handishift) available on the 120 and Six.

The end

Studebaker-Packard pulled the Packard nameplate from the marketplace in 1959. It kept its name until 1962 when "Packard" was dropped off the corporation's name at a time when it was introducing the all new Avanti, and a less anachronistic image was being sought, thus finishing the story of the great American Packard marque. Ironically, it was considered that the Packard name might be used for the new fiberglass sports car, as well as Pierce-Arrow, the make Studebaker controlled in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
In the late 1950s, Studebaker-Packard was approached by enthusiasts to rebadge the French car maker Facel-Vega's Excellence suicide-door, four-door hardtop as a 'Packard' for sale in North America, using stock Packard V8s, and identifying trim including red hexagonal wheel covers, cormorant hood ornament, and classic vertical ox-yoke grille. The proposition was rejected when Daimler-Benz threatened to pull out of its 1957 marketing and distribution agreement, which would have cost Studebaker-Packard more in revenue than they could have made from the badge-engineered Packard. Daimler-Benz had little of its own dealer network at the time and used this agreement to enter and become more established in the American market through SPC's dealer network, and felt this car was a threat to their models. By acquiescing, SPC did themselves no favors and may have accelerated their exit from automobiles, and Mercedes-Benz protecting their own turf, helped ensure their future.

7 comments:

  1. It looks like it would be a beast of a car to display...1/16th wow. Great looking model with nice details but at that size even my poor eyes could work on this..

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  2. It's not a very well designed model though. I had to make some major adjustments to the undercarriage. It was the same problem I had with the Packard coupe as well.

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  3. Is this thread still live? I am building the Entex Packard formal sedan kit. I converted the Twelve to a Super Eight, and modified the body to a club sedan. That was a lot of work, and I assumed assembling the stock chassis would be comparatively easy. But I find it to be a mystery! Entex went to a lot of trouble making the individual steering and independent suspension parts --with the apparent original intent that both systems would "work." But for whatever reason, in the end they bailed on that--the front springs are solid castings and the instructions say to glue all the suspension joints. I like a model with some spring to it, so I substituted real springs. It seems there's enough flex in the plastic parts for the suspension to give a little. But the steering really baffles me. The instructions make a point to not glue the steering knuckles, and the tie rod and pitman arm ends snap together to move freely. But the tie rods and pitman arm are molded as a single piece and can't swing. When I first studied it, I thought maybe the thin plastic would flex enough for the system to move--but NO! I am determined to make the steering work, and I think I can modify the tie rods and pitman arm to move using pin joints. But I am really curious what others think of this, or have done???

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  4. Hi Paul - It's been a few years since I built this,so it's hard to recall it all.
    What I do remember was that the axles didn't line up with the wheel wells on both kits.
    As a result i had to reposition them. So as a result I didn't worry about the steering mechanism. I just wanted the wheels to line up properly. You haven't come across that problem?

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  5. Hi Warren! Thanks for responding after so many years! Yes, I also experienced the same problem you describe--that the wheels didn't naturally center themselves in the wheel wells. Fortunately I downloaded enough photos beforehand of assembled Entex models with cockeyed wheels to anticipate the problem, and was able to nip it in the bud. I think it's part of a larger problem throughout the kit--that many parts lack precise locating features and have to be hand fitted. As ambitious and detailed as the kit is, it is actually somewhat primitive in this regard--more like early kits of the 1950's than the 1970's. With the suspension, which consists of many individual parts, small placement errors at the beginning of assembly compound into large discrepancies when the model is complete. And there's no easy way to gauge the exact correct position of the parts during those early steps. Believe it or not, I actually consulted a Packard workshop manual to get the alignment right--caster, camber, and trail! I was able to get the wheels centered in the fenders without modifying anything, but I did have to put pressure on the parts during assembly. In the end I was also able to make both the suspension and the steering systems "work"--which I am sure was Entex original intent. As I described before, I substituted real springs for the solid plastic castings, and had to improvise the attachment of the sway bars so they weren't fixed. To make the steering move (although not the steering wheel), I cut the combined pitman arm/tie rod casting into three pieces and reconnected them with working pivots. My model isn't done yet but it's getting close. I think the result will be pleasing and impressive, but even more-so to those of us who know these kits from experience!!!

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  6. Hi Warren,
    I finished my modified Entex Packard club sedan last fall and am pleased with it. I'd love to post some comparative photos. Do you know if that's possible in this comment section? Or if there's another way? Thanks!
    -Paul

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  7. Sorry, if there is a way, I don't know how to do it.

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