1933 Packard Super Eight

I know the engine is running only when I rev it. I pull the gearshift lever into first and give the huge 142-inch-wheelbase classic a nudge. Shifting is silent and silky smooth, with synchromesh in second and high gears. The magnificent old Packard pulls away effortlessly with very little throttle, and when I push the pedal down a bit farther, we accelerate like a modern car. At about 20 miles per hour I shift into second and we are truly away. For city driving, second gear is all you need because of the Super Eight’s tremendous bottom-end and mid-range torque.

Bumps are implied, not felt, due to the car’s 4,670-pound weight. Rear visibility is restricted when the top is up and the back window is in place, which was probably rarely the case when the car was new because this was an automobile meant for touring, not for driving back and forth to work. In fact, one doesn’t “drive” a classic Packard at all. Instead, one goes motoring in such a car. It’s like the difference between eating and dining. Even the rumble seat is roomy, comfortable, leather-covered and fairly easy to access. (It takes a young, fit person for dignified rumble seat ingress and egress in the best of circumstances with any car.) As we motor along, people pull up beside us, smile, and give us the thumbs up as they stare at the majestic old roadster and inadvertently steer into us. Then we give it a little throttle and pull away from them, surprising our audience completely. Other people wave and take pictures using their cell phones as we roll by.

Designers say a classic work of art is one that transcends its time, and this Packard does exactly that. I have no doubt that the car generated much the same admiration and envy by spectators when it was new as it does today, 81 years later. Even taken out of its historic environment, its styling stands the test of time.

Big Packard roadsters were not common even in 1933. But the car’s distinctive neoclassical styling is like no other car from the era. It fit eminently with the cityscape of the times. Banks looked like Greek Parthenons, government buildings had domes reminiscent of the Roman Pantheon, and houses looked like Mediterranean villas or Tudor stately homes. Packard’s radiator shell reflected the English Gothic trefoil cathedral window. It was a sort of a counter to Rolls-Royce’s pagan Parthenon grille still sported by that marque today.

The main reason the 1933 Packard lineup of motor cars was superlative, however, was because—as the great depression, beginning in 1929, deepened—the superbly crafted hand-built luxury automakers of the day tried to outdo one another in opulence and quality in order to compete for the ever-diminishing, wealthy, custom carriage trade. Of course, Packard had the advantage of being the best-selling luxury marque of the time, even though its competition included the likes of Duesenberg, Marmon, Stutz, Pierce, Peerless, Cadillac, Cord and Lincoln.

Fortunately for Cadillac and Lincoln, they had the advantage of being small parts of huge conglomerates that had vast cash reserves and less expensive offerings to keep them going through the tough times. As a result of the financial meltdown, the rest of the custom carriage trade marques, excepting Packard, did not survive the Great Depression.

In 1932, Packard made an unsuccessful attempt to build a smaller, less expensive car called the Light Eight, but it ended up being a losing proposition because it was still handcrafted, and as a result, it cost so much to build that Packard lost money on every one of them. The Light Eights of 1932 were smaller, but quite beautiful in their own right, but they did not sell in sufficient numbers during the worst year of the depression to do anything but further depress the company’s bottom line.

Later, in 1935, Packard introduced the 120; its first mid-priced production car built on a moving assembly line. It, and later six-cylinder 115 junior models, saved the company and made it prosper when other high-end car companies were failing. Interestingly, 1937 was actually Packard’s best year ever, as it turns out. However, that all came later.

In 1933, all Packard could do was try to out-class the field, and they largely succeeded. Most classic car connoisseurs would agree that Packard’s supremely elegant “Car of the Dome” built for the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition, is one of the most stunningly beautiful closed sedans ever created. An art jury voted it “The highest expression of the industry” at the time.

If, however, you had money and wanted sportiness back then, the 10th series (1933) coupe roadster was the car to have; either equipped with the company’s legendary V12, the Super Eight or even the smaller Eight. Packard did not use a year-model system back in the classic era, preferring to bring out new offerings as and when it deemed fit to do so. Some series lasted less than a year, and that includes the tenth series for 1933 that endured for only seven months; but others lasted a couple of years. Today, for the sake of the modern reader, we will use the year model designation for the purpose of clarity, but that is not how Packard did things.

The 10th series cars were beautifully styled by Ray Dietrich’s shop, which, in addition to his work for Packard, did custom coachwork in Detroit for a number of high-end automakers. Unfortunately, there were few buyers for such cars in the depths of the depression. The entire 10th series output totaled only 4,800 cars, which was paltry indeed when you consider that only the year before, production for the 9th series cars was 16,613. Further, this figure was only a fraction of the 55,000 cars the company sold in 1929. In fact, 10th series production was the shortest and lowest for Packard during the era.

Ekberg tells us that, thanks to a set of lower numeric ratio ring and pinion gears he had custom made, the old roadster can now cruise at 80 miles per hour on the freeway without drama, and do over 100 if pushed. Before, 65 miles per hour was a more comfortable cruising speed. Why were cars geared so low back then, you might ask? It was because in 1933 there were very few roads that would allow you to sustain high speeds. The cars of the day had rugged rigid chassis that were actually better engineered for the unsealed, washboard roads of the era than paved highways. The dirt shaker on the weather front grille of Ekberg’s roadster is not ornamental. It kept dirt and rocks from being flipped up into the vanes of the grille, which were actuated by a thermostat to control engine temperature.

Also, the low gearing was necessary because hills were not ramped for easy access in 1933. This situation may be a bit hard to picture today, but keep in mind that the first high-speed freeway on the West Coast was only completed in 1940, though there were a couple in the east before that. It was called the Pasadena Freeway, and the speed limit on it, at the time, was 45 miles per hour!

In addition, it is important to understand that in 1933 45 miles per hour was a brisk speed for lesser makes such as Chevrolet, Plymouth and Ford. Sure, such cars could go faster if you didn’t mind possibly throwing a rod through the side of the block or heating the engine up to its destruction. And then you also had the problem of stopping at high speeds. If you weren’t careful, the mechanical brakes on cheaper cars would lock up and put you into a skid, or just fade away completely.

However, the brakes on our 1933 Super Eight—though still mechanical—stop evenly with very little pressure, due to their superb design and well worked-out vacuum booster system. In fact, you can adjust the pressure required for braking from inside the car, and the range goes from hyper-sensitive to needing a strong leg to slow down. Packard knew what it was doing, having pioneered four-wheel brakes back in 1924.

The Super Eight corners with very little body lean thanks to its well thought out, rigid X-frame and conventional semi-elliptic leaf springs all around, with double-acting shock absorbers and solid axles front and rear. The turning radius is large because the car is large, and the steering is the standard kingpin and bushing design of the time.

In fact, there is not a great deal that is cutting-edge innovative about the Packards of this era. The company relied on proven, carefully tested technology, exquisite quality and beautiful, conservative design for its reputation. The tenth series did add synchromesh to the transmission, a downdraft carburetor, automatic choke and adjustable shock absorbers, but none of that was particularly innovative at the time.

When Packard needed to change things, it did so though. Packard invented the steering wheel in 1900, was the first to install a stoplight that same year, and was first to offer a V12 in 1916. Also, it debuted hypoid differentials in 1927, which made the cars whisper quiet; and it was the first to offer air conditioning in 1940. The main focus, however, was impeccable quality in design and construction—values all but lost today.

Now we consider a car to be excellent if it is swoopy and sports a lot of cheep electronic entertainment gadgets. Never mind that all the electronic hocus pocus costs very little to produce, takes months to learn to use, is largely pointless and fails frequently for no reason. Generally today, even expensive cars are mass-produced, and their fit and finish is just good enough. Their interiors are filled with fake wood, leather and chrome, and their workmanship is competent, but not flawless.

The kind of loving care that went into the hand-built classics of the golden age is a thing of the past. Cars that, with routine maintenance, could last for generations are just not available anymore. In fact, these days, all but a few supercars costing astronomical sums are disposable by design. It’s true, today’s cars last a long time before they need work, but when that time comes, they are ready for the junkyard. They are disposed of.

The Packard Motor Company built its reputation on quality, durability, and dependability from its beginning in 1899. The brothers, James Ward Packard and William Doud Packard purchased a Winton automobile in 1898 and were not happy with its dependability; so James—who was a mechanical engineer—complained to Alexander Winton about his problems. Winton’s reply was “If you can build a better car, why don’t you do it?” So the brothers did.

Before building cars, though, the Packard Brothers started the Packard Electric Company in 1890 and had a thriving business making electric carbon arc lamps. In fact, in the end, their focus on automobiles was fairly short-lived. After moving the car company from Warren, Ohio, to Detroit in 1903, the brothers began limiting their efforts to automotive electrics. Many years later, the Packard Electric Company was sold to General Motors in 1932, became Delphi Packard Electric Systems in 1995, and has become an independent company again as of 1999.

Unfortunately, the Packard automobile company died in 1958 after an ill-conceived merger with Studebaker. By that time the company had largely abandoned the high ground and concentrated on building mid-priced cars in a field crowded with them after World War II. The management team that had made the company prosperous during the 1930s and obtained the contract to build the mighty Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine during the war had retired, and the team that took over was too reluctant and unimaginative for the post-war years.

If Packard had gone for the luxury market again in 1949 or ’50 and trumped Cadillac with a modern, high-compression V12 and fresh styling, they might have survived, but they did not do so. Instead, they stuck with designs that were increasingly obsolete. Merging with Studebaker, which was overwhelmed with debt and had its own management problems, followed a short time later by tying in with Curtiss-Wright, the aircraft manufacturing giant that thought jet propulsion was a passing fancy, ultimately killing the company. The 1958 Packard was nothing but a gussied up Studebaker, which was not the brand it once was either. It was an ignominious end for the once halcyon motor car company.

Now’ the great multi-storied Packard factory in Detroit lies in ruins. Its once magnificent buildings crumbling, staring uncomprehendingly through bashed out windows at the wasteland surrounding it. The facility was closed in 1956, and has been the domain of the homeless and scrap pirates since. Alas, there is no more Packard Motor Company or anything like it today, but because of their intrinsic beauty and their mechanical excellence, many of the company’s creations have been lovingly preserved and restored, so we can at least bask in what once was.

Craig Ekberg says his wife loves the car, though doesn’t much care for his modern Jaguar. After I took my extremely careful test drive, we switched seats and Ekberg heartilly wrung the old Packard out with me as passenger. Not only did we get up to 70 in an instant, but we did it silently, smoothly and with style. No wonder Packard’s slogan back in the day was: “The soft spoken boss of the road.” And no wonder their motto was: “Ask the man who owns one.” That answer is obvious from the grin on Ekberg’s face as he puts the great classic that he cherishes, his Super Eight roadster, through its paces.