Studebaker: Different By Design

[Packard5687]

My "Gear Head Tuesday" post: "Studebaker - Different By Design" featuring a 1 minute ad touting what makes Studebaker different from the Detroit "Big Three" for 1964. There are links to many other of my posts about Studebaker in the story.

https://56packardman.com/2017/12/19/gear-head-tuesday-studebaker-different-by-design/comment-page-1/#comment-3230

Thank you for visiting!

[Stu Chapman]

My "Gear Head Tuesday" post: "Studebaker - Different By Design" featuring a 1 minute ad touting what makes Studebaker different from the Detroit "Big Three" for 1964. There are links to many other of my posts about Studebaker in the story.

https://56packardman.com/2017/12/19/gear-head-tuesday-studebaker-different-by-design/comment-page-1/#comment-3230

Thank you for visiting!

Paul, thank you for posting this. It brings back lots of personal memories.

Stu Chapman

[Bish]

I was unaware that twin traction was a Packard design that Studebaker got thru the merger?

[StudeRich]

That would be why only 1956 Packards and Studebaker Transtar Trucks had twin Traction in 1956.

[63t-cab]

I thought 56 Golden Hawks had T.T. ? maybe not !

That would be why only 1956 Packards and Studebaker Transtar Trucks had twin Traction in 1956.

[TWChamp]

I always thought "BETTER by DESIGN" would have been a more fitting slogan.

[DEEPNHOCK]

I was unaware that twin traction was a Packard design that Studebaker got thru the merger?

I question this statement, unless it is just the name 'Twin Traction' as used by Studebaker and Packard.

Dana corp. built the differentials and they offered a positraction option. Studebaker just used Dana as a vendor.

[Dwight FitzSimons]

I believe that S-P held the patent on the posi (Twin Traction) type differential and that GM paid royalties to Studebaker as late as about 1970. I can't recall the source, so someone please correct me if I am wrong or confirm if I am right.
-Dwight

[Chrycoman]

Well, the 1956 issue of Automotive News Almanac (April 30, 1956) has an advertisement by Dana Corporation on page 210. In it Dana is pushing the new Thornton Powr-Lok differential. The ad states that the unit was developed by Dana engineers and Dana resources. It was manufactured by Dana's Spicer division and was available for passenger cars as well as light and medium-duty commercial vehicles.

I suspect "Thornton" was someone behind the design and development of the unit. much as Francis Davis was behind power steering.

Automobile Quarterly's book on Packard, in reviewing the 1956 Packard, the source of the new rear axle was "... limited-slip "Twin-Traction" differential out of Dana (Spicer)."

Quite a few auto accessories were supplied by outside firms. Chrysler introduced speed control, but the units were developed and manufactured by Perfect Circle. Packard's new search tune radio in the early 1950's was made by Delco Radio of General Motors. Delco Radio passed it around all the GM divisions, but no one wanted it. Packard reps came around to Delco Radio and asked what was new. Packard liked it and were the first to use it. GM board president Alfred P. Sloan apparently was not amused that GM spent a lot of money developing a new radio and Packard was the first to use it.

[Lou Van Anne]

...and for 1965 they were "The Common Sense Car"

[BobPalma]

Quite a few auto accessories were supplied by outside firms. Chrysler introduced speed control, but the units were developed and manufactured by Perfect Circle.

To add further to that, Bill, the Perfect Circle inventor, the man who actually invented Speed Control (which came to be known as Cruise Control) was a blind inventor by the name of Ralph Teetor in the east central Indiana town of Hagerstown. There, Perfect Circle, then Dana, was the largest employer for decades. (Sadly, the large Dana plant there has been shuttered; I've driven past it within the last six months. You can guess where those jobs went. Hint: It's warmer and it isn't Bermuda...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Teetor

In Mr. Teetor's later years, at his large home in Hagerstown, he required round-the-clock nursing care. My late mother-in-law, Mary Alice Kuster, was one of the three full-time nurses (three eight-hour shifts per day) who cared for Mr. Teetor until he passed. (My wife grew up on a farm in Centerville IN, south of Hagerstown.)

Small world. My mother-in-law spoke highly of Mr. Teetor; a fine gentleman. (Most guys have unflattering mother-in-law stories, but not me. Mine was a fine lady.) BP

[8E45E]

Perfect Circle labeled it "Speedostat". Chrysler marketed it as "Auto Pilot".

Craig

[8E45E]

Quite a few auto accessories were supplied by outside firms. Chrysler introduced speed control, but the units were developed and manufactured by Perfect Circle. Packard's new search tune radio in the early 1950's was made by Delco Radio of General Motors. Delco Radio passed it around all the GM divisions, but no one wanted it. Packard reps came around to Delco Radio and asked what was new. Packard liked it and were the first to use it. GM board president Alfred P. Sloan apparently was not amused that GM spent a lot of money developing a new radio and Packard was the first to use it.

The 'best' one is Robert Kearn's lawsuits over patent infringement claims over his intermittent windshield wiper invention.

http://www.autonews.com/article/20081002/ZZZ_SPECIAL/810029938/delayed-wiper-inventor-wins-suit-against-ford

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/01/11/the-flash-of-genius

Craig

[Bish]

I question this statement, unless it is just the name 'Twin Traction' as used by Studebaker and Packard.

Dana corp. built the differentials and they offered a positraction option. Studebaker just used Dana as a vendor.

I was using the same terminology as referenced in the article. Geeeze!