MECHANIX ILLUSTRATE

tests the new

1952 300

H FAVORITE MAGAZINE OF MOTOR-MINDED MEN

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Ml Tests the '52 Packard 300

Power brakes, luxury and

speed distinguish this

year's bearers of a fine

old name in American cars.

By Tom McCahill

Midway in price between the 200 and 400 models,the Packard 300 when equipped with Ultramaticdrive is powered with a 155-hp Thunderboltengine which can whip it over the highways atbetter than 100 mph. fast going in any league.

A lot more has been added to the 1952Packards than meets the eye. At a

quick glance the line looks pretty much asit did in 1951. But when you start toanalyze it, bolt by bolt, a whole laboratoryfull of changes jumps out at you—andthereby hangs a tale.

Like all other car manufacturers, Pack-ard is harried by the JS-factor, stand-ing for Joe Stalin, and by its corollary,WTAGTDN, meaning What's The Admin-istration Going To Do Next? Nobody inDetroit seems to know from today to to-morrow what to expect in the way ofregulations from Washington. The latestorder is that all automobile models willbe frozen, as of February 1, 1952, for sev-eral years.

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Diagram at top shows how Packard's new Easa-matic power brakes work off engine vacuum. Theyreduce pedal pressure by 40 per cent and "reactionlag" by 29 per cent, Packard engineers claim. Bot-tom shot shows smaller size of the new brake pedal.

Emphasis on greater luxury has been made throughthe entire Packard line this year, as top andbottom photos show. Insulation and sound-proofingmaterial has been doubled. Even door and trunklocks were redesigned to make them rattle-proof.

Even before this new ruling was an-nounced, the uncertainty about futurerestrictions on auto production, and' thescarcity of strategic defense materialswhich is going to get worse before it getsbetter, had already had their effect onnew cars. Copper is at the acute stage,for instance. This means redesigned cool-ing systems because automobile radiatorcores require a lot of copper tubings andfins.

Recently I inspected five brand new 1952models of various makes and found thatall of them, including Packard, have cutdown the size of their cooling cores, thenincreased the fan size and pitch to com-pensate. This move may very well becomeuniversal in the industry and if so it poses

a new problem. Few people realize justhow much horsepower it takes to turn afan at cruising speeds. On one popular-priced car which I saw tested right afterthe war, the standard fan took approxi-mately ten horsepower away from the rearwheels at 60 miles an hour. (With fansgetting bigger the horsepower robbery willnaturally increase, so this should be thetime to bring back fan governors to cut thisrobber out at speeds above 45 to 50, whichis where a fan stops being useful and justgets in the way. At the lower speeds wherea fan is needed it would cut back in again.)

Packard is also introducing in the 1952models some molded nylon gears to takethe place of former brass and copper units.As the material pinch from Washington gets

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Barreling through a driving rainstorm at thefamed Packard proving ground track. Uncle Tomgave the fleet 300 sedan a real workout, asshown in this series of photos taken en route.

Following the sequence, 1 through 4, gives youseme idea of how it feels to head into a bankedturn at far better than 90 miles an hour withan expert test-driver like McCahill at the wheel.

tougher, more and more substitutions andchanges are inevitable. Fortunately for us,America produces the world's greatest balewire, or seat-of-the-pants, engineers andthese boys should be able to keep us goingfor some time with improvisations that insome instances may prove even better thanthe original.

While Cadillac, with its new 190-horse-power engine hop-up, and Chrysler haveelected to fight it out on the horsepowerand performance line for '52, Packard hasselected the luxury and silent ride tack.Not that the new Packards are backwardsin performance, as the tests will show, buttheir main pitch this year is more de luxe,less noise and a set of brand-new vacuumpower brakes that make stopping at highspeeds as easy as cracking a peanut with aparatrooper's boot.

Vacuum booster brakes, new to Ameri-

can passenger cars, are old hat on othershores. In 1929 I owned a Belgian Minervaconvertible sedan that had vacuum boosterbrakes. This big job from across the seaweighed 6,000 pounds and you could stopit on a nickel at high speeds. This big to-mato had 23-inch spider wire wheels andone day I was cruising along in New YorkCity at about 25 mph when a little girldarted right out in front of me from behinda parked car. With no time to swerve, I ac-tually stood on the brakes and the carstopped in its own length—just about twoinches from the child. As the Minerva andmy pulse came to a halt, simultaneously, Iheard a strange tinkle of breaking metaland then the whole car slowly settled to thepavement. Every spoke in all four wheelshad snapped from the sudden applicationof those vacuum brakes!

That incident of 23 years ago left a warm

(Continued on next

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On his two-way runs through the rain, McCahillaveraged slightly higher than 99 mph. On a hard,dry surface he believes the powerful new Packardcan probably average between 101-102 mph.

spot in my heart for power brakes in spiteof the bill for new wheels. ̂ They saved achild's life when no other conventionalbrake could have halted that monster sofast. Besides,- when the wheels stayed on,driving was much easier. At times whenthe engine stalled and the vacuum wentout I was forced to realize how much workthose brakes did. (All booster brakes todayare rigged so that if the vacuum should failyou still have mechanical or hydraulicbraking at your disposal.) The 1952 Pack-ard's vacuum brakes, called Easamatic, areone type of "matic" stuff I'll buy. They'rea tremendous improvement, long overdueon all American luxury cars.

Bill Graves, engineering chief, and Ed-ward Macauley, stylist boss, took a standthat I liked when I asked about transmis-sions. They told me that even though nearly80 per cent of (Continued on next page)

SPECIFICATIONS

MODEL TESTED:1952 Packard 300 four-door sedan (withUltramatic transmission)ENGINE:8 cylinder, L-head; bore 3'/i inches, stroke4'/4 inchts; piston displacement 327 cubicinches; maximum torque 270 foot pounds(?) 2000 rpm; brake horsepower 155 @ 3400rpm; compression ratio 7.8 to IDIMENSIONS:Wheelbase 127 inches; overall length 217inches; tread 60 inches front, 61 7/32 rear;width 77 1 1 / 1 6 inches; height 62 29/32inches; weight 3,875 pounds; standard tiresize 8.00x15; gas tank 20 galsPERFORMANCE:

(using Low and shifting to Drive)0 to 30 mph. 4.3 seconds0 to 50 mph, 9.8 seconds0 to 60 mph, 13.8 seconds0 to 70 mph, 18.3 seconds0 to 80 mph, 24.5 secondsHalf-mile from standing start, 32 secondsTop speed, 101-102 mph, estimatedSPEEDOMETER ERROR:At 60 mph on speedometer, actual speed56.60 mphAt 90 mph on speedometer, actual speed84.90 mph

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last year's buyers ordered Ultramatic, theircars would still be offered with a choice ofoverdrive or conventional transmission, asdesired. Macauley said Packard doesn't feelthat it has the right to tell its customers whatthey should or should not have. If you ask aPackard dealer for standard transmission, hedoesn't treat you as though you had gone outof your mind. Quite a refreshing switch fromanother major manufacturer who forces buy-e»..5 >to take the clutchless shift or nothing and*hiii reports that 99 per cent of the customersdemand" automatic transmission.Packard is also making the big 155-horse-

;l power engine available in its smallest model,the 200, if desired instead of the regular 135-horsepower job. This company believes intreating its customers like free thinkingAmericans, not like a bunch of prestige buyingstooges who will take what they get becausethey are told to. In case you haven't guessed,I'm against dictators both in the governmentand in the factory. When I have dough tospend for a car I want to make the selectionmyself, not be told what I must buy.

For my test I selected the Packard 300,which is right in the middle between thesmallest 200 and the battleship-size 400. The300 is powered by a big straight 8 engine de-veloping 155 pretty honest horsepower. Thejob I drove was equipped with Ultramatictransmission, so any of the times I made couldeasily be topped with the overdrive unit. It wasa lousy day, with wind and rain coming out ofthe southwest at 20 mph, when I ran the 300on the Packard track, the world's finest andfastest, bar none.

In spite of the weather, I got a high speedtwo-way clocked average of 99.44, which isbarreling along in anybody's league. Whilemaking this time the Packard proved to meits excellent road holding ability on the waterslimed surface. With a regular transmission

unit this job undoubtedly would top 100 withease. On a hard, dry surface it probably wouldshow a clean 101 or 102 for the two-way av-erage.

I found that acceleration could be speeded upconsiderably by starting the Ultramatic out inthe low range and shifting to high or drive justbefore the rpm's peaked. Zero to 60 in high allthe way, for example, took 17.1 seconds but zeroto 60 starting in low and shifting to high aver-aged 13.8 seconds. After speedometer corrections,one half mile from zero took 34.4 in high allthe way and 32 flat using low and drive. Thesetimes are fractionally slower than those madein 1950 with the big Packard 400, except for thehalf-mile from standing start. This is possiblydue to the added weight of the car and the wet-ness of the track.

The 1952 Packard is an extremely fastAmerican car and must be rated among thebest in spite of the extra weight made neces-sary by the luxury features. (Insulation andsound-deadening material has been doubled,for instance.) The 180-horsepower Chryslerand the new 190 Caddie can take it but withthese two exceptions nothing else made onthese shores can give it a pushing around. ThePackard 200 with a standard or overdrivetransmission, plus that big engine, in my bookwould be a pretty hard car to beat at a greenlight or over a measured mile.

In summing up, Packard cars were foundedas luxury items and in these times of unknownquantities it is good to see a company tryingnot only to maintain its former high standardsbut actually devoting a lot of effort to improv-ing them. Packard had many wonderful yearsin the past when they built the number oneglamor barges of the day. More recently theyhave been through some lean years of in-decision. But it looks now as if "the man whoowns one" can brag about a car that is goodfrom every angle and as sound and impressiveas a pre-inflation $1,000 bill. •

PACKARD SHAREHOLDERSYour nearby Packard dealer cordially invites you to visit his

place of business to see and drive the beautiful new 1952 Packardsdescribed above — and to familiarize yourself with his servicefacilities.

Regardless of the make of car you drive, it is good businessfor you to avail yourself of his precision service at competitiveprices.

As one of the owners of Packard, you ai ? thus giving importantsupport to your company and, in turn, benefiting yourself. »

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