The Packard Proving Grounds: The Water Pump Failure that Resulted in the Proving Grounds Becoming Independent of Engineering.

again, see previous posts for proper citation of sources.  A continuance from Menno Duerksen, in Kimes, ed., Packard, A History of the Motor Car and the Company.

Initially, the Packard Proving Grounds were not independent of Detroit, but rather were an adjunct to the engineering department then headed by chief engineer Al Moorhouse (Jesse Vincent had by now moved up to vice-president in charge of engineering.) This system did not prove to work well at all, as one rather costly mistake demonstrated. Charles Vincent remembers:

“It was during the period when Packard was phasing out production of six-cylinder engines in favor of straight eights [the 626-633 models]. Due to some miscalculation either by the purchasing department or sales department, about $250,000 worth of frames for six-cylinder cars had been carried over from the year before and management was most anxious to salvage these if possible.

Beginning in 1921, the L-head engine was once again the only engine offered with a 116" wheelbase. It was officially identified as the Packard Single Six. Once the eight cylinder engine was introduced, the Six was repositioned as a mid-level luxury car competing with the Buick Master Six and later the Chrysler Six with a retail price of a 1921 5-passenger sedan listed at US$4,940 ($75,049 in 2021 dollars).

View of a 1921-1922 two-toned Packard female driver and passenger, female standing at driver's side with door open. Inscribed on photo back: "Packard 116 first series single six, 6-cylinder, 52-horsepower at 2400 rpm (produced 9/1/1920-4/20/1922), 116-inch wheelbase, 4-person coupe (body type #191), five-sixths left front view, top raised.

This generation introduced updated vehicle identification: 1st digit is series (Six only, Twin Sixes and Eights had their own series designation), 2nd and 3rd digits refer to wheelbase. F.e.: 233 is 2nd series Six, (longer) 133" wheelbase. 326 is 3rd series Six, (shorter) 126" wheelbase.
The line consisted of:

• 1st Series (Single Six)
  • series 116, 116 in. wheelbase (1921-1922). This model was also designated the Single Six.
  • series 126, 126 in. wheelbase (1922-1923). This model was also designated the Single Six.
  • series 133, 133 in. wheelbase (1922-1923). This model was also designated the Single Six.
• 2nd Series (Six)
  • series 226, 126 in. wheelbase
  • series 233, 133 in. wheelbase
• 3rd Series (Six)
  • series 326, 126 in. wheelbase
  • series 333, 133 in. wheelbase
• 4th Series (Six)
  • series 426, 126 in. wheelbase
  • series 433, 133 in. wheelbase
• 5th Series (Six)
  • series 526, 126 in. wheelbase
  • series 533, 133 in. wheelbase

The Six was discontinued after the 5th series, and there was no Packard six cylinder car until the 1937 One-Ten. As the complicated naming system was revised for 1929, 626 and 633 refer to the new 1929 Packard Standard Eight in a similar way.

Close-up view of the engine for a 1932 Packard Eight car. Handwritten on back: "1932 Packard Standard Eight, Ninth series, Model 902. 8 cy., 110 b.h.p., 136 1/2" whb. Club sedan ~ 5 p. #506; 5 p. sedan, #543; 7 p. sedan, #504. Detail: engine from right. Note: Packard deluxe emblem."

 To accomplish this and still find room for an eight-cylinder engine, Moorhouse had designed a new and very thin water pump that required a minimum of space between the cylinder block and the radiator. Shortly after starting high speed tests, the fan belts began to fail and when I reported this, he sent out special fans that had been cut down in diameter to reduce the load on the belts. His feeling was that no customer would drive at high speed long enough to wear out the belt. With this combination, the cars completed their 25,000 miles tests with only one or two failures and the model went into production. Unfortunately, the radiators were also a bit small that year and in many sections of the country it was necessary to install larger than usual fans, this being a common remedy in those days. In every case where the larger fan was installed and, in many cases, where the regular fan was used, the water pump bearings failed in a few thousand miles. After these pumps had been redesigned a few times and. Each car campaigned [called back for repair] that many times, it was necessary to design a full-sized pump and mount it on the left side of the crankcase on a special bracket. The fan problem was then solved by counting it on a special bracket where the thin water pump had been located. All this redesigning and campaigning ran into a lot of money—about five million, as I recall.”

A five-million dollar loss to save a quarter of a million dollars is no way to run a business. Alvan Macauley quickly decided that the Packard Proving Grounds should be independent of, not responsible to, Engineering (as had always been the case at Milford with General Motors). And Charlie Vincent would be Lord of the Grounds.

Thereafter, any new car or new feature had to have Proving Grounds approval, in addition to an okay from Engineering and Distribution and other departments in volved in the overall scheme of production – or as Alvan Macauley admonished vice president of manufacturing E.F. Roberts in a memo, “There should be separate certificates because it is intended that each … shall pass upon the prosed improvement, particularly from the standpoint of his own department.”

Packard Quality First Suspension --- Film of Late 1920s System that Minimized Shimmy

The beginnings of the Packard Motor Car Proving Grounds, Part II

Continued form the previous post. Taken from Menno Duerksen, “Testing the Product: The Packard Proving Grounds,” in Beverly Rae Kimes, ed. Packard A History of the Motor Car and the Company (General Edition, 2nd Printing, Automobile Quarterly, 1978), pp. 682-695. Images from the Detroit Public Library. 

Still, the board was unconvinced, so the land was sold, eventually becoming Selfridge Field, a U.S. Army Air Force base – and the proving grounds idea lay dormant for nearly another decade, until steadily mounting traffic congestion, speed laws and outraged cries from the citizenry dictated a little fresh rethinking. In 1924 General Motors opened its gigantic proving grounds at Milford, thirty miles west of Detroit, and soon thereafter the Packard Motor Car Company concluded as well that Henry Joy had been right all along.

Alvan Macauley, now Packard president, found the necessary land near Utica – no longer could it be had in the sprawling industrial center around Detroit – the eventual 640 acres bisected by a highway, leaving 504 acres on one side of the road, this area to be where the major Packard activities were to be centered. Albert Kahn, Inc. was contracted to design and supervise construction of the facilities. 

Portrait of architect Albert Kahn studying a blueprint. Autographed on front: "To David J. Wilkie, in sincere appreciation, Albert Kahn."

Principal among these, of course, was the speed track. As James B. Forman, one of the men who would be employed at Utica, recalls, the result was a beauty: “The track was so perfectly banked that you could drive the curve at either end full throttle (about 100 mph) and take your hands of the steering wheel and the banking would guide the car around the curve and onto the straightaway.  The drivers liked to initiate the new people on the test crew by demonstrating this.

View of construction of the track at Packard Proving Grounds in Utica, Michigan, several male workers pictured with shovels. Handwritten on back: "Packard Motor Car Co. Proving Grounds, Utica, Michigan. Track construction, 1927-28."

View of workers resurfacing the track at the Packard Proving Grounds in Utica, Michigan. Equipment is from Julius Porath & Son, Detroit, Mich. Typed on back: "Proving grounds, track. Top elevation." Stamped on back: "Sep 5, 1946." Handwritten on back: "Packard Motor Car Co. Proving Grounds, Utica, Michigan. Resurfacing track."

 

In addition to the track, there was the lodge, a residence for the proving grounds manager and his staff, shops and testing laboratories, hills of varying gradations, plus mile upon mile of gravel, dirt and sand roadways. 

View of the lodge at the Packard Proving Grounds in Utica, Michigan. Tudor-style l.odge was designed by Albert Kahn. Typed on back: "Proving grounds, lodge views." Handwritten on back: "Packard Motor Car Co. Proving Grounds, Utica, Michigan. 1927. Lodge shortly after completion. Designed by Albert Kahn, Inc."

Workmen scattered boulders the size of watermelons along some roads, shoveled loads of sand into muck holes on others, devised a devilish stretch with railroad ties embedded crosswise at one-foot intervals, built up hills so steep a car might seemingly bound into the blue when topping the crest. Though some of this had the look of a medieval torture rack, the whole was couched into a beautifully landscaped and utterly grand setting. It had to be. Packard had a rather plush reputation to protect.

 

These were Packard’s golden years. The marque was outselling every other luxury car built in America—indeed the world. And Packard profits were as lush as its products; the company barely missed the better-than-a-million dollars that was expended outfitting Utica.

 

Put in charge at the Packard Proving grounds was Charles H. Vincent, a man whose career had included being test driver and mechanic for Thomas -Detroit shortly after then turn of the century and later experimental engineer at Ferro machine and Foundry in Cleveland, and with Hudson in Detroit during Super Six development days. He was a well-trained, self-educated engineer, and was Jesse Vincent’s brother – which factors combined to bring him to Packard in 1916. Save for a brief sojourn to work for a bank in Tulsa and to set up a Packard-Reo agency in Arizona, both of which failed during the depression at the end of WWI, he would remain at Packard through 1947.

Packard Co. file photograph of a 1934 Packard three-quarter front view, note 1933 Michigan license plate #Y-3895, two men standing at front driver's side, one taking notes, the other with papers in hand. Inscribed on photo back: "Packard 1107 twelve, eleventh series, 12-cylinder, 160-horsepower, 142-inch wheelbase, 5-person coupe (body type #737), prototype, note 1932-33 twelve bumpers, photographed by timing stand Packard Proving Grounds, left to right: Charles Helm (Charlie) Vincent inside stand, J.A. Gilray, Harold F. Olmsted.

 

At Utica with him was the redoubtable Tommy Milton, hired in April 1927 at an annual salary of $7500, $2900 more than Charlie Vincent was making at the time – and a figure reflective of Milton’s stature in the automobile field, his celebrity as a racing. Driver and his position as a ramrod of the Packard Proving Grounds project. Day-to-day operation of the facility was the charge of Charlie Vincent; overall inspiration was provided by Milton. 

Packard Co. file photograph of a 1932 Packard left side view, top folded, owner Tommy Milton standing at side. Inscribed on photo back: "Packard 905, twin six, ninth series,12-cylinder, 160-horsepower, 142.125-inch wheelbase, 4-person phaeton (body type #571), standing by car: Tommy Milton, setting Packard Motorcar Co. Detroit, Mich."

The Beginnings of the Packard Proving Grounds

View up unpaved road showing square farmhouse with several cars parked on road and in driveway. Handwritten on photograph front: "John Miller farm near Utica, Mich., sales farm service.” Detroit Public Library.

View of Henry Bourne Joy driving 1906 Packard car. Typed on back: "Henry B. Joy in early 1906 Packard roadster. Mr. Joy bought his first Packard after he saw one in New York chasing after a fire engine, ended up buying into the company, and later ran it. He became a leader of the good roads movement, and spark-plugged the development on the Lincoln Highway." Handwritten on back: "Biography--Joy, Henry B. (Packard 1906).”Detroit Public Library.

Portrait of Alvan Macauley. Stamped on back: "Photographic illustration by Nick Lazarnick, 230 Park Ave., N.Y." Handwritten on back: "Biography--Macauley, Alvan. Detroit Public Library

From Menno Duerksen, “Testing the Product: The Packard Proving Grounds,” in Beverly Rae Kimes. Ed., Packard: a History of the Motor Car and the Company (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Publishing, 2^nd General Edition, 1978), pp. 682-695.

 

p.684.

Just weeks before, he had charged his Miller Special round Indy for a lap at 124.018 mph—a record in the 500 that would endure nine years. Now on June 14, 1928, Leon Duray took the same car to another 2 ½ mile oval – in Michagan. The track was paved, though the facility was as yet incomplete. Its lack of a guard rail on the banked turns might have daunted racing drivers. It did not Leon Duray. He took the Miller out and set a world closed-course record at 148.7 mph, which gladdened both Duray and the Miller racing people—and allowed the owner of the new facility to claim it as the “World’s fastest Speedway.

 

The track was at Utica, some twenty miles to the north of Detroit. Its owner was the Packard Motor Car Company.

 

Packard, of course, had not built the oval to entice the Indianapolis 500 to Utica. [ Interestingly, however, the commercial possibilities of the track were not overlooked by Packard. “Speedway racing and other outdoor events” were noted in board minutes of 1927 as possible future programs for the facility and during the same month Leon Duray was making. His. Record at the track, an appropriation of $150,000 was authorized for preparing he speedway for racing. By December 1928, however, a proposed race was postponed “in view of the heavy development work ahead” – and the idea was dropped thereafter, doubtless another casualty of the Wall Street crash and its aftermath.] Setting a record there, however, made news – and allowed promotional mention of the track’s principal purpose. It was but a part of the new Packard Proving Grounds, designed to test the performance and stamina, even the souls, of Packard motorcars coming off the assembly lines at Detroit.

 

The proving grounds idea was a relatively new one to America. In the early days of the industry, public avenues and roads had sufficed for such testing as there was. Crank it up and send it for a spin of a few miles on streets around the factory – that was about the extent of it for cars fresh off the line. Prototypes were usually tested further – for thousands of miles, sometimes, to Chicago, New York, wherever.

 

Gradually, limited facilities were built near their plants by some manufacturers, he Dodge Brothers, for example, coming up with a test hill and a small board track around 1915. But it was Henry Joy who that same year had a better idea. He walked into a Packard Board of Directors meeting and announced, “I’ve just bought a field” – which explained would be used for construction of extensive testing facilities. Eyebrows shot up. Why?, everyone said. Why buy land when one had the whole country in which to test cars? Joy mentioned that it could also be used for another notion that intrigued. Him – aviation and getting his company involved in that  nascent industry.

Still, the board was unconvinced, so the land was sold, eventually becoming Selfridge Field, a U.S. Army Air Force base – and the proving grounds idea lay dormant for nearly another decade, until steadily mounting traffic congestion, speed laws and outraged cries from the citizenry dictated a little fresh rethinking. In 1924 General Motors opened its gigantic proving grounds at Milford, thirty miles west of Detroit, and soon thereafter the Packard Motor Car Company concluded as well that Henry Joy had been right all along.

Alvan Macauley, now Packard president, found the necessary land near Utica – no longer could it be had in the sprawling industrial center around Detroit – the eventual 640 acres bisected by a highway,

A proposal to write something on the history of automotive proving grounds for a meeting in Baltimore next April

 Back in the saddle again after a long respite!

Packard Co. file photograph of two 1928 Packard race cars on track at proving grounds. Inscribed on photo back: "Packard Motor Car Co. Proving Grounds 2.5 mile concrete speedway, Utica, Mich., inauguration ceremonies 14 June 1928; Leon Duray, 91-cubic inch front drive Miller special #4, & Norman Batton, #22, coming out of curve at 140-mph."

For a conference on “Spaces of Inquiry”

CFP: Spaces of Inquiry

“A Wide Open Space of Inquiry – The Packard Proving Grounds, 1926-1956”

John Heitmann, Professor Emeritus, University of Dayton

 

Nestled in Detroit suburbia, a 14.5-acre property remains of what was once a sprawling site that was the Packard Corporation Proving Grounds. Beginning in 1926 this flat, sandy farmland was transformed into a complex that featured a 2.5-mile banked oval track, 55 acres of dirt, gravel and paved roadway through hills, ponds and sand pits, and remarkable Albert Kahn designed structures.  Kahn’s buildings are unique in that they combine modern industrial design with Tudor Revival style, exemplified in the Gate House, Lodge, Repair Garage, and Engineering laboratory. Continuous automobile testing took place there to 1956. Aviation technology was also developed in an adjacent hanger.

 

While I propose to highlight the space and structures of the proving grounds, I plan to focus on the technical inquiries and testing methods done during the period. Packard was one of the first automobile firms in America, known for high standards of quality, engineering excellence, and luxury. Chief engineer Jesse G. Vincent, championed research and engineering in all aspects of automotive manufacturing. It was fitting that the proving ground’s oval track was inaugurated in June 1928 with a record setting closed track top speed record of 148 mph, a mark that was not eclipsed until 1952. Additionally, the first aviation 9- cylinder radial diesel engine was also developed there. Nevertheless, innovation alone could not save Packard after WWII. Despite the technical brilliance of the 1955 Packard Clipper, the firm’s marriage to Studebaker suggests that a union of two poor partners rarely succeeds! 

The Bock Auto Beer Bar

 I saw this on MIke Edgerton’s Facebook Page. Can this be for real?