14 Dec 06
Royal Aircraft Factory SE5a
Packard was founded in Warren, Ohio, in 1899 by James and William Packard, who had a solid background in making electrical equipment. Relocating to Detroit in 1903, the Packards started to make pricey, powerful vehicles at their brand-new, state-of-the-art, architectural-landmark factory. Their 1915 Twin Six featured an 88bhp, 7.0-litre V12, and it was this engine which attracted the attention of the Hall-Scott company, who recruited Packard's engineers to particpate in the Liberty V12 engine project. The 400bhp, 27-litre Liberty was then assembled by Packard, Ford, Lincoln, GM and a couple of smaller companies for the US army. Under the leadership of aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss, then the head of America's largest aircraft firm, it was fitted in the RAF SE5a (efforts to use it in the French SPAD and the Bristol Fighter had proved unsuccessful). After the war, the Liberty was used in the large Curtiss-Wright flying boats - and adapted versions fought again in WWI, powering the British Crusader tanks.
Packard went on to develop variants of the V12 which were used in planes including the Packard-Legere biplane (1920) which set new altitude records, the Packard-Verville which hit a new record of 178mph, the Boeing PB-J, 66 and FB-5 fighter, the Cyclops bomber and the Dornier Superwal flying boat. These engines were made alongside Packard's growing range of marine units - and in 1928, the company combined both areas of expertise to produce a nine-cylinder, diesel-powered aero engine. Fitted in a Bellanca monoplane, it set a new record for endurance flying: 84 hours and 32 minutes without refuelling.
This engine-making sustained Packard through the difficult years of the Depression; demand for its luxury cars fell in the 1930s, and failed to pick up by the time the US entered World War II. It was well poised to take on lucrative government contracts, however, building 25,000 engines - the Rolls-Royce Merlin design - for the Canadian-built Lancaster bombers and the Mosquito, Hurricane, Spitfire and P-51 Mustang fighters. It also made marine engines for a variety of torpedo boats, rescue craft, corvettes and mine-sweepers.
Ending the war in good financial health, Packard then misjudged the automotive market of the late '40s and 1950s, pitching its cars a little further downmarket but failing to win buyers in an increasingly competitive sector. It neared bankruptcy, but that wasn't quite the end of the story: in a strange twist, it merged with Studebaker (also struggling), and then to avoid insolvency entered into a stock-option and management deal with Curtiss-Wright in 1956. Curtiss-Wright bought a large enough stake in Studebaker-Packard to get access to Studebaker's jet-engine components business (part of its General Products defence division, later sold to Kaiser), and S-P had enough of a cash injection to continue car-making for another couple of years (it tried to form an alliance with Daimler-Benz for licenced manufacture and distribution of Mercedes in the USA). Curtiss-Wright pulled out of the proposed full merger, however, and the last Packard rolled off the lines in 1958. Studebaker continued alone a while longer, but its automotive division folded in 1966.
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