June '09


Feature Article from Hemmings Classic Car

June, 2009

On a trip through Pennsylvania in 1960, I visited Reedman Motors and fell in love with a robin's-egg blue 1960 Chrysler 300F convertible. I've probably owned 50 cars in my long life, but this one was my favorite. I raced it on the road every day, and thus bought new tires every three months. I got so many tickets that I had the receipts for payment sent to my business to hide the deeds from my wife. Under good conditions, I never was as slow as seven seconds to 60 MPH. This car jerked your head back on every test.

I could go faster if the tires were soft and almost bald. I learned not to spin the wheels, but rather make them go eek-eek-eek up to about 30 MPH. I used to push the first gear, with the brakes on and engine revved slightly. The car would stand up and when the light turned, I simply burned everyone--never lost. Such fun.

George Heitman
Ramsey, New Jersey

I read with great interest Jim Schwartz's comments on AMC in "Recaps," HCC #49. Jim is correct on AMC's higher amortization costs compared to the Big Three, but that's only part of the story.

The beginning of the end of AMC started when Ford introduced their mid-sized Fairlane and Mercury Meteor. At that time AMC had the only mid-size car in the market. The CEO of AMC, George Romney, saw the writing on the wall, knowing that GM would soon respond to Ford's new mid-size cars and AMC would lose sales to both of them. So Mr. Romney resigned as head of AMC to pursue politics.

Mr. Romney's successor, Ralph Abernethy, began to make changes to AMC to break with tradition--which did nothing but hurt AMC. The first thing to change at AMC was putting a V-8 into the Rambler Classic, which was always a corporate no-no, as the V-8 was reserved for the Ambassador. From that point on, it was standard practice to copy GM, which meant doing what GM could afford and AMC could not.

I could go on and on, but Jim was correct in his blaming mismanagement as the cause of AMC's demise.

Daniel Dombrowski
Eola, Illinois

When Pat Foster wrote in HCC #53 about what long-gone make deserved being saved, I answered out loud and immediately, as I began reading the article, "PACKARD!" At each paragraph, I shouted it louder. "No, no! Not that one, PACKARD!" Of course, Mr. Foster's clever writing led us to that conclusion close to the end.

For me, the 1960 Lincoln Continental and the 1956 Packard CV tie for first place as America's finest, most beautiful rolling sculptures within the 1940s-'70s era. At 65, I've had to wave goodbye to Nash, Kaiser, Packard, Hudson, Willys, Crosley, Frazer, Studebaker, De Soto, Edsel, Rambler, Olds, Plymouth and more. Now it appears I'll soon be waving goodbye to Mercury, Saturn, Pontiac, plus either Dodge or Chrysler. But the greatest lament will always be PACKARD!

Lane Hönn Sr.
Alamosa, Colorado

While thumbing through my old family album, I came across this photo of my mother and three brothers in front of our 1929 Dodge Super Six four-door sedan while on a camping trip in Michigan in September 1930. My mother was expecting me at any time. My father altered the back of the front seat so it folded down to the rear seat to make a bed. This idea was in use long before Nash used it in their autos years later. How I wish I had this car today; my father sold it to a car dealer during World War II.

And here's a tip: Everyone should consider using a dizzy switch to protect against theft. Years ago, I wired a switch into the cigarette lighter, which was mounted inside the ashtray on my father-in-law's 1977 Chrysler New Yorker. I thought the resistance of the lighter would not damage the electrical circuit to the negative side of the coil. It worked perfectly, as nothing was noticeable when the lighter was depressed and the ashtray was closed.

Ed Schuman
Spring Hill, Florida

Having owned a 1949 Buick Super coupe, a 1953 two-door hardtop Special and a 1954 two-door hardtop Century, I noted with dismay you did not mention the 1954-'55 Century in your Buick article in HCC #54. Now there was a truly great automobile! Power? I don't recall the engine's displacement or its horsepower, but I do recall it could easily out-accelerate and "top end" an Olds 88, and just about any other production iron on the road. Superb handling and comfort. Only drawback that I can remember was fading brakes when coming to a quick stop from 100-plus MPH.

The '54 and '55 were indisputably the fastest-accelerating American cars built at the time. Add a set of dual exhausts coupled to Smittys and you had a real beast. Sorry I foolishly traded it for a 1956 Super convertible.

Ron Baptista
Hilo, Hawaii

"Mechanical Marvels" in HCC #53 described a true mechanical marvel, all right: the direct-lockup-clutch torque converter. But the jaw-dropper was saying that "the engineers at the Hydra-Matic Division of General Motors applied a new logic in developing this idea." New, my foot.

What they did was buy a 1954 Packard, study it and adapt the direct clutch from its Ultramatic transmission (I knew the fellow they got the car from). That design came out not in the early 1970s, but in 1949.

Borg-Warner and Studebaker were right behind, in 1950, with a different design for a lockup torque converter, a rather clever one that changed the gear ratio when it locked up. All GM did that was new was to control the thing electronically.

George Hamlin
Clarksville, Maryland

In HCC #53, Ray Bohacz discussed the lockup torque converter clutch developed by General Motors on its Hydra-Matic automatic transmissions and stated it was a breakthrough. Actually, Packard developed this concept for the late 1954 Packards, and called it the Twin Ultramatic.

I had a 1955 Packard and on the quadrant were two positions, one "Drive" and the other "Gear Start." Drive would move the car forward in converter mode until it reached a speed of 25 MPH, at which point the converter clutch would lock up and go into direct drive. Gear Start was used if one wanted more rapid acceleration; it used the planetary gears in the transmission, at which point the converter clutch would also lock up the converter at 25 MPH. Converter lockup speed was achieved by making an adjustment at the throttle linkage at the carburetor.

Both the converter and the main body of the transmission had drain plugs. The converter could be taken apart and the lockup converter clutch replaced if needed. An O-ring installed around the circumference of the converter halves sealed the unit against any potential leaks.

Packard built some of the finest automobiles in the world and it's a shame they no longer exist. I put over 200,000 miles on my Packard following the factory regimen for maintenance.

Andrew Wilson
Pacific Grove, California

Ray Bohacz replies: As is common with almost every accomplishment in the engineering community, there is hardly anything that is truly new. One only needs to study an engineering text from the 1920s to see that almost every technology in use today was thought of in basic form many years back.

I used the term "breakthrough" when discussing the GM TCC because it was the first mass-produced version of the technology and was introduced simultaneously over a number of Hydra-Matic transmissions--unlike the Packard design, which was sold in relatively low volume and only was applied to a specific transmission. Also, GM offered electronic-controlled, throttle pressure and the Cadillac version of TCC engagement.

The Packard was and is still considered the finest automobile in the world by me and others such as yourself. But as with most things in life, the company that brings a technology to the masses first is often credited with the glory.

The start of Patrick Foster's column in HCC #55 brings up one of my pet peeves, the disuse (and particularly misuse) of correct (or incorrect) automotive terminology. We as auto enthusiasts should be the first ones to be using correct language. After all, we all need to be on the same page while conversing.

High on my list is when someone refers to the backlite as a "rear windshield." While often tempted to roll on the floor laughing--or at least ask if they have a town car or dual cowl phaeton--I instead explain that a windshield does exactly what the name implies, and therefore cannot possibly be behind the passengers. Another misused term is "rear fender," which has long since been displaced by the rear quarter panel.

But what really burns my biscuits is the disuse, or worse, misuse, of the term "sedan." The term does not refer to the number of doors, but rather the existence of a full-length, rocker-to-roof "B" pillar. Hardtops do not have a "B" pillar above the beltline, and during the 1950s and '60s, cars were built in both sedan and hardtop styles, with either two or four doors. Therefore, you can just as easily have a two-door sedan as a four-door sedan.

Often appearing in Hemmings Motor News classifieds are advertisers who will refer to their car as a "two-door post" car, obviously being clueless as to their car being a two-door sedan. Also, the hardtop was always the premium body style, with sedans often relegated to the lesser trim levels. So you can understand why I'd get a little testy when someone calls my four-door hardtop a "sedan," as if it's less than a top-line car.

Where this misuse all started, I believe, is when Chevrolet's marketing department misappropriated the term sedan (and also coupe) and tacked on "sport" to designate a hardtop. Never mind that their "sport coupes" were rarely true coupes, or that their "sport sedans" were in no way real sedans. From there, the public began to assume that "sedan" meant having four doors.

Recently, I wrote to the editors of CORSA's national club magazine after noting their habitual misuse of the term "sedan" to describe the late-model Corvair four-door hardtops. They replied that, while I was technically correct, they liked the term and intended to continue to (mis)use it.

Good grief! If we can't even get the editors of our own enthusiast magazines to use correct terminology, how can we expect to encourage the public, let alone our own rank and file, to do so? We should be ashamed of ourselves, very ashamed.

Mark Corbin
Galion, Ohio

I just read the letter in HCC #55 from Art Gritzmacker. According to him, "All cars were puke until that 1949 Oldsmobile 88 came out." I hope he realizes there are legions of Duesenberg, Cord, Packard and Pierce-Arrow fans, just to mention a few, who will be heartbroken when they learn this previously unknown "fact."

Also, it will be very disappointing to fans of Kaisers, which in and after 1951 featured low, swoopy tightly integrated bodies in an era that featured the same "turrets" mounted on shoeboxes (see the 1949 Oldsmobile coupes among most others) and bolt-on quarter panels the public had been treated to since the early Teens.

I happily admit that the 1949 Olds and succeeding models were the GTOs of their day: Fast as could be in a straight line, but worthless if there were any curves to be handled.

If memory serves well, wasn't it one of those "pukemobiles," the Hudson, whose basic design was from 1948, which kicked Olds butt all around race tracks from 1951 until 1954? To make matters worse, that was after the "Wondercar" had two years to perfect its racing prowess!

I'm sorry, Mr. Gritzmacker, I don't find anything that spectacular about the 1949 Olds. I guess I'll have to content myself looking at the pictures of and appreciating the high points of all those "Vomitmobiles" from the years prior to 1949.

Gary Fowler
Saratoga, California


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