1926 Packard Eight

James Ward Packard, his brother William Packard, and George Weiss began building cars in Warren, Ohio in 1899. With immediate success, they moved in 1903 to a new and larger facility in Detroit, designed by Albert Kahn. Over the years that followed, they built a variety of vehicles and engines for cars, trucks, boats, aircraft, and military vehicles.

Packard's first eight-cylinder car, called the Single Eight, was introduced in 1924 (mid-1923). It was also the company's first to use four-wheel brakes. The nine-bearing side-valve straight-eight engine had a compression of 4.51:1 and offered 85 horsepower at 3,000 RPM from its 5.9-liters. Chief Engineer Jesse Vincent and his staff created the engine by cutting a four-cylinder engine in two, putting half on each end of a four-cylinder engine. It received a new crankshaft and an unusual firing sequence that balanced the reciprocating forces of the engine. The average model weighed about 4,000 pounds and had a top speed as high as 80 mph. The engine was powerful, smooth, and had a heavily balanced crankshaft and a Lanchester vibration damper.

The Single Eight was initially available on two-wheelbase lengths, and since Packard did not adhere to an annual model introduction, designated its model by series. The eight-cylinder engine would become the basis of its model for the next three decades.

By the mid-1920s, Packard began offering disc wheels, balloon tires, and a Bijur chassis lubrication system as standard. By the spring of 1926, a Hotchkiss drive was added.

The Single Eight became the Eight in 1925 and was the first volume-produced American automobile powered by an eight-cylinder engine and utilizing four-wheel brakes.

by Daniel Vaughan | Nov 2019