1930 Packard

Here's a video of 102 year old woman in MI driving her 82 year old 1930 Packard. Hal
Untitled URL Link

Awesome video!
I hope I'm still that spry at that age!

I have seen that utube before and I enjoy it every time. There was a write up about her and the Packard a few years back in our local paper. She changes her own oil but has a 90 year old male friend that tunes up the car for her. That write up was a few years ago so things could have changed by now.
Packard made engines for the PT-Boats in WWII. Packard was a class act car, Too bad it came to an end in the 50's.

Ask the man who owns one.

Dean

Remember the Packard Merlins in the P51 Mustang!!

Yeah, after the war they should have resumed building expensive, high-end cars to again compete with Cadillac and Lincoln. Packard would probably still be in business today. Instead, they chose to begin building mid-range autos and had to compete with about 15-20 other manufacturers. The venture failed. They made some good cars in the 50s, but they were cheap-looking compared to their pre-war autos. Remember the Packardbaker?

Read something about the lady before, but that is awesome! I love the sticker that said,"Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill." Quite a few of us are beginning to relate to that! LOL

Thanks to the British Rolls Royce Merlin originally..

I recently read that Rolls-Royce/Merlin chose
Packard to subcontract those V16 engines,
because they were the only U.S. company with
acceptable precision machining capability!(1940)

Packard military boat and plane engines that were slightly modified from rolls-royce merlin designs used a packard developed bearing material in some critical wear points that were a known problem- the "Quill Shaft" cam drives were one, the 2 speed supercharger drives another. Packard engine had half the failure and/or need maintenance rate compared to the British made engines. Oil seals were another improvement, some closer manufacture clearances due to somewhat better tooling used in manfacturing helped also. Merlin was a large casting of crankcase and cylinders instead of seperate case and cylinders- the casting molds used by British were adequate but just barely able to cast the units and had a minor heat variation, cooling difference at casting that had some little cracks overlooked until oil leaks, etc. The larger casting units used by Packard maintained even heat during casting, less cracking. British Bristol engines as used on many of the light bombers were multipiece designs, builds about same as Wright Cyclones and P&W radials- put the pieces together and if one part isn"t quite right can do replacement of one cylinder, mix and match, just make sure crank bearing on main rod is good, tolerate some oil use- and the small individual parts won't need as large a foundry or mold capacity so the existing tooling worked better- or wasn't a limitation.. Car engine developement of bearing material worked for aircraft engine, having the manufacturing equipment for mass production of car engine meant capable of detail improvements in the Merlin design.