Pop Quiz: Stillborn Engine Name

[BobPalma]

During the era discussed in the Collectible Automobile High-Performance Studebakers article, Studebaker considered offering a high-performance engine they were going to identify as Jet-Streak. Extant, internal Studebaker documentation verifies this.

Nonetheless, despite early planning, it was not offered.

For what year(s) was it considered, for what model(s), and what would have made it particularly distinctive?

Hint: (but don't let this throw you off!) The "particular distinction" would have been shared with the 1964 R4 engine. BP

[2R5]

I'll say 1956 GH and it had 2 4bbls


[IMG]Home of the Fried Green Tomato
"IF YOU WANT THE SMILES YOU NEED TO DO THE MILES "

1960 Champ
1964 Daytona HT

[BobPalma]

quote:Originally posted by 2R5

I'll say 1956 GH and it had 2 4bbls


[IMG]Home of the Fried Green Tomato
"IF YOU WANT THE SMILES YOU NEED TO DO THE MILES "

1960 Champ
1964 Daytona HT

BINGO! That was fast, Bob, and you're right on!

The 1956 Golden Hawk Jet-Streak engine option would have been, for all practical purposes, the 1955 Packard Caribbean engine, which was the 352 with dual quads.

The 1956 Caribbean engine was the 374 with dual quads, so the corporation still wouldn't have made available its most powerful 1956 engine for the 1956 Golden Hawk, even if the Jet Streak option had been brought to fruition.

Back to the drawing board....[}] Congrats, Bob. BP

[2R5]

just a wild guess

[IMG]Home of the Fried Green Tomato
"IF YOU WANT THE SMILES YOU NEED TO DO THE MILES "

1960 Champ
1964 Daytona HT

[silverhawk]

That would have been cool. I wonder if it would have sold well?

Dylan
'61 lark deluxe 4dr wagon

[BobPalma]

quote:Originally posted by silverhawk

That would have been cool. I wonder if it would have sold well?

Dylan

Possibly so, Dylan. The Jet-Streak Kit was pretty far along before the plug was pulled, as evidenced by the various needed parts having been assigned Studebaker part numbers (true).

Pure speculation on my part would be this: They could look ahead and see they weren't going to be able to use the Packard V-8 for 1957. Good product planning, and the use of engineering resources, would indictate they had better spend their time working on the new supercharger package and equipment for the existing Studebaker V-8, so it would be ready for introduction in the 1957 Golden Hawk on 1957 model introduction day.

The 1956 Golden Hawk was getting good press, so they would need an equally-fast 1957 model at the starting gate when the '57s came out. With the 1956 Golden Hawk selling pretty well, they needed to address the reality that its main feature, 275 HP under the hood, would not be available for 1957![:0]

So they needed to get crackin' on something to produce 275 HP besides the soon-to-be-extinct Packard V-8. Getting the Jet Streak option the rest of the way to production for a lame-duck engine may have been a casualty of that reality...not to mention that its power would have raised the bar even higher for the 1957 Golden Hawk!

Again, I emphasize: The above is my personal opinion. I have no documents to support those ideas. BP

[Jessie J.]

One can not help but imagine what the '56 Golden Hawk would have been like fitted with the '56 Caribbean 374 Dual-Quad, That would have been one hard act to follow, likely why it didn't happen. It would have overwhelmed those wimpy 265 Vettes and 292 'Birds.
Me thinks they should'a done it anyway, even if it was for only one year it would have given Studebaker a real performance image rub-off that would have lasted for a decade.

[Allan Songer]

quote:Originally posted by Jessie J.

One can not help but imagine what the '56 Golden Hawk would have been like fitted with the '56 Caribbean 374 Dual-Quad, That would have been one hard act to follow, likely why it didn't happen. It would have overwhelmed those wimpy 265 Vettes and 292 'Birds.
Me thinks they should'a done it anyway, even if it was for only one year it would have given Studebaker a real performance image rub-off that would have lasted for a decade.

I almost bought a '56 GH from a guy out in Riverside County back in the mid-1980's. It was a rust free 3-OD car with an "Earl Sheib" paint job and tatterd seats and when I popped the hood I saw the dual-quad Carribean set up. The guy selling it told me it was a 374, but I don't know for sure if it was. The car wasn't in great tune, but it was bloody quick--probably had a 3.92 rear end in it--and I really wanted to buy it.

The seller was asking $3500 for the car and I thought that it was too much. I offered $2500 and then upped the offer to $3000 and he turned me down flat. My wife was already driving a '61 Hawk and we didn't really need another one, but I should have bought the '56 and and sold the '61.

[BobPalma]

Identifying a Packard V-8 is the same as a Studebaker: Buzz off the rough-machined pad at the front left side of the block, right where you'd expect to see a Studebaker V-8's ID stamp, and there will be the Packard V-8's ID.

What you'll see will be the Serial Number of the car from which it came, so you have to know which model 1955 and 1956 Packards used which engine, and what the model numbers of each model actually were.

But, still, it's easy to figure out. (Doesn't apply to Packard V-8s originally installed in 1956 Golden Hawks, of course; that's discussed in Studebaker books.) BP

[yorgatron]

i think the reason they didn't use the Packard engine was because it wasn't very good.

pot-metal oil pump anyone?

wagons ho!

[Roscomacaw]

OK, what was the trade-name for the stillborn flat four???

"Our Four" or R4[)]

The ill-fated Packard V12 was referred to as the "buzzin' dozen" or the "Shelved Twelve"

1957 Transtar 1/2ton
1963 Cruiser
1960 Larkvertible V8
1958 Provincial wagon
1953 Commander coupe
1957 President two door

[Jessie J.]

quote:Originally posted by yorgatron

i think the reason they didn't use the Packard engine was because it wasn't very good.

pot-metal oil pump anyone?

wagons ho!

But the '56 Golden Hawk -DID- use the 352" Packard engine, as used in the "lesser" Packard's in '55-'56.
The "big" 374 was used in '56 in the Caribbean and Patrician top-of-the-line models, its exterior dimensions were identical to the 352, so it would have been a direct bolt in swap for the '56 Golden Hawk, its non-use was simply a marketing decision to keep the big engine "exclusive" to big barge land-yachts. (lot of good that did them) If they had stuck it in the Hawk, at least the world would have noticed.
In 1956 even Packard didn't know that their oiling problems were being caused by the pot-metal oil pump bottom, by the time it was figured out the real Packard engines were already history.
It's sad that Packard was not able to identify the problem earlier, because at the time they were in better position financially than Studebaker, and could have and would have fixed the problem immediately.
Along that line, it is often forgotten that it was Packard that bought Studebaker, not the other way around. Once they combined it was decided to use Packard's assets to "save" the Studebaker half of the deal, retaining the Studebaker-Packard name for years with a very dim hope of some day being able to bring back Packard.

The Packard engine had tremendous potential, and had it survived into the '60s and recieved further engineering refinement, like most other familiar engines, it could have developed into a serious big-block "Luxury" and "Muscle Car" engine, as 500+ cubic inches could have easily been accommodated by the engine's basic architecture.
It was a very good engine with a small engineering flaw, in the mounting of a vacuum wiper pump on the bottom of the oil-pump housing, the oil-pump itself was cast iron, and when used in Hawks didn't have the stupid vacuum pump that caused the problems.

[s2d63lark]

I knew that Packard had bought Studebaker and always wondered why it was that ALL the Packard PRODUCTS were dropped. Had they ceased the Merlin engines by this time as well? It seems to me that the prudent thing to have done would be to pick out the good stuff and continue along with that(kind of like what Chrysler did with AMC, kept the Jeep line and dropped everything else). It should not have been too much of a problem to put another engine into production especially since it already existed elsewhere and would have entailed only moving from Detroit to South Bend.

Off topic a bit but I have also wondered why they stopped with the 4X4 option on the 1/2 & 3/4 tons when they switched to the T cabs.



6E40-195, 1963 Canadian Lark VY-6

[Bill Pressler]

I almost bought a '56 GH from a guy out in Riverside County back in the mid-1980's. It was a rust free 3-OD car with an "Earl Sheib" paint job and tatterd seats and when I popped the hood I saw the dual-quad Carribean set up.

Our local dealer, Carl E. Filer Co., Greenville, PA, sold a solid black '56 GH new to a fellow named Bill Tam. I don't know the serial no. (I remember seeing it on the production order disk available from the '56 GH Owner's Registry website), but the Service Department installed the dual fours at Mr. Tam's request. Don't know what ever happened to the car, but I bet more than two GH's had that conversion done!

Bill Pressler
Kent, OH
'63 Lark Daytona Skytop R1
'64 Daytona Hardtop

[556063]

I remember discussing the S-P merger at length before, but in a nutshell, Packard was forced into the merger in a shotgun wedding style by investment bankers who saw Studebaker with excess capacity to build bodies, at a time when Chrysler had purchased Packard's body supplier, Budd. That purchase happened in 1953, and Chrysler gave Packard until 1956 to find a different supplier. Packard was profitable, but not profitable enough to start it's own body plant at the volume it had achieved.

While the purchase of Budd by Chrysler can not be pointed to as the reason Packard failed, it certainly caused Packard to make some bad decisions. Even though Packard was profitable and more respected going into the merger, Studebaker ended up having more say in what was built because Studebaker had control over the means of production. I've seen it said that the investment banks made the arrangement look like Packard was in control to smooth investors nerves, but the opposite was the truth. So, as brief as I can make it, that is why everything exclusively Packard ended up going away, and everything Studebaker ended up winning out.