Quieter than a Rolls-Royce? The 1965 Fords

[electra225]

Mr. Hedden, the president of our local bank, bought a new 1965 Ford LTD with a flat valve cover 390. It was the first Ford I had ever seen with power windows and air conditioning. It was a gorgeous car. I found this YouTube video and thought you might enjoy it,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScISU2pS_40

[walyfd]

Perhaps the ENGINE was more quiet with the hood open but, sorry, the only time an LTD may have been quieter than a Ford was when the clock wound on the Rolls and the Ford didn't have one...

[electra225]

The Ford LTD's, particularly the LTD Broughams were very nice cars for Fords, maybe nice cars compared to Lincoln. The LTD's I came in contact with were impressive cars for being Fords. I never knew the difference between the flat valve cover FE engines and the round valve cover jobs. I think one had a four-barrel carb, and maybe standard dual exhaust. The flat valve cover version, I think. I believe I'd rather have a '65 LTD before I would a '65 Rolls. I believe Rolls was the one of last cars to use the old Dual Range Hydra-Matic transmission, weren't they?

[TC Chris]

I've never been in a Rolls, but it's worth remembering that Europeans generally expected more road feel in their cars. We Americans are the ones who demanded silence and complete isolation from the road surface. With road feel may come some noise too. Me, I like to know what's going on, and have favored cars with firm suspensions. Consumer Reports was not happy with the '92 Ranger: "Rides like a truck." Well, yes, and there was a reason for that.... The '05 version carried on that tradition. The '65 Olds needed aftermarket Koni shocks to control its mushiness. Later, radial tires helped too.

Chris Campbell

[Ken Doyle]

I had a 1971 Galaxie 500 and a 1978 LTD Landau, and they were extremely quiet, very trouble free, and effortless to drive on the highway. They both had the 351W engine, and both managed MPG in the 20s on a trip. The '78 lasted 330,000 miles with two transmission overhauls.

[electra225]

I drove Rolls when I was managing a repair shop in Scottsdale. Very British cars. Overdone, with real wood and really nice interior. Very trinkety. They had an electric servo that changed the gears in the Turbo 400 transmission. The ones I worked on all had Frididaire/Harrison air conditioning and Saginaw power steering. A Rolls-Royce oil filter was like $45 back in the 1980's. A filter for a '56 Chrysler was the same and was a fraction of the price. It took four brake pads to reline the front disc brakes. Rolls parts were $400. Two sets of Datsun 240Z pads would work just fine for a fraction of the price. The driveshaft was like on a diesel truck. The engine was of "adequate capacity" and was a rehashed version of the Packard 374 V-8. Something on the order of 418 cid. It had "aluminium" valve covers and SU carbs, but it was all Packard othewise. Most carried Lucas "Prince of Darkness" electricals, but conversion to Delco SI alternators was not unheard of. We converted one of the singing McGuire sister's '85 Rolls that she burned the engine up in to a Chevy 366 school bus engine and Hydra-Boost brakes. I liked Rolls cars. I did not like Jaguar.

[Conelrad]

When I was in high school my optometrist had a black over green '37 Phantom III, one of 13 assembled in America with an Inskip body.

V12, absolutely gorgeous car. He showed me if the engine was warm, you could just flip the ignition switch on & off and it would fire right up without engaging the starter. This because there was always one cylinder ready to fire anyway.

Servo boosted mechanical braking off the transmission took some getting used to.

It also had built-in hydraulic jacks on each wheel, activated by hand turning a small pump under the driver's floor to raise the correct wheel.

He lost a battle with the IRS and sold it to the owner of the Alpha-Beta supermarket chain.

D

[electra225]

Menno Duerksen of Cars and Parts magazine told the story of when Rolls adapted their cars to use the Hydra-Matic "self-shifting gearbox" in the middle/late 1940's. I believe this was with the Silver Wraith six cylinder chassis, but don't quote me on that. Rolls shipped a car to the Hydra-Matic plant in Kokomo to be converted to Hydra-Matic drive. The GM engineers did their thing, then shipped the car back to England. The Rolls engineers put the car on a hoist and were appalled to see that the Hydra-Matic trans was not "pretty". They removed it, took it all apart, polishing every piece. The put it all back together then were equally appalled to find that it wouldn't work. GM engineers made the trek across the pond to discover the trouble. In the future, the only parts on a Rolls Hydra-Matic that were polished would be the case and external parts. The internals were identical to those found in domestic vehicles. Rolls used Hydra-Matic transmissions until BMW bought the company. I liked the square-bodied Silver Shadow models from the 1980's. These cars had the prettiest stainless trim ever put on a car. There wasn't a bad line on them anywhere. They were horrendously heavy, but very well put together.

I'm not necessarily a Ford guy, but the 1965 to 1972 LTD Broughams were very nice cars, well-built by Ford standards, fast roadable cars. Rolls-Royce quality? Probably not, but didn't cost as much, either. The "385" V-8 series of engines, 429 and 460 cubic inch displacement, were some of the best ever built.

[Firedome]

Paul Niedermier of Curbside Classics considered the "65 LTD to be th beginning of the Broughamification of full-size American cars, and he makes a very good case.

As to Rolls engines, as long time Packard guy (had 3 '55,56s with 352 and 374 engines) for 40 years I've never heard of Rolls using the Packard engine, do you have any documentation of that? If so I'd be very interested to see it. Will ask some of my Packard experts. I read somewhere that Rolls designed their own engines, like Packard they did have their own extensive auto and aero engine experience. There are many myths are out there about Packard stuff being re-used, like the Soviet ZIL, ZIS, and Chaika, none of it true. The Packard V8 was used briefly by Studebaker and Nash/Hudson. They had some significant flaws that can be rectified now with modern updates.

[electra225]

Menno Duerksen of Cars and Parts magazine wrote an article on that. I think I still have the magazine around here someplace. When Packard got into trouble after merging with Studebaker, the Packard V-8 was sold to Rolls-Royce, who needed a modern V-8 engine to remain competitive. Rolls bored and stroked the 374 to over 400 cid. Rolls never really disclosed the exact dimensions, but a the Duerksen article said it was 418 cid. Rolls eventually cast the engine in light alloy "aluminium" rather than cast iron. The booster pump for the brakes and hydraulic suspension was part of the oil pump. If you ever saw a Rolls engine out of the car, it's lineage to Packard was unmistakable. The Packard V-8 was under-developed when introduced in 1955. It was built in three versions, 320, 352, and 374 cubic inches. Nash, Hudson and Studebaker all built models powered by the 320 cubic inch version. It was designed to be capable of being expanded to almost 500 cubic inches, but money for further development did not become available. Rolls developed the Packard V-8 to more modern livery much like Rover did with the little aluminum Buick V-8. Full-flow oil filtration and a better, sturdier water pump and timing cover were the biggest improvements Rolls made to it's V-8. As long as the cooling system was not breeched, it was almost impossible to overheat a Packard/Rolls V-8. They used a massive aluminum-tank radiator, shrouded, and an aluminum-blade clutch fan, 20 inches, propelled by two belts. The Achilles Heel of the system was that the lower radiator tank was below the bumper. It could be struck by a parking curb and damaged.

I don't know whether the Russians actually used Packard dies for their cars or not. The Packard guys deny it, but Studebaker was divesting itself of Packard in the late 1950's even though Packard was technically the parent company. I think it's fair to say they copied some of Packard's design ideas. Packard V-8's were antiques when they were introduced. They did the best they could with available money. Packard was using whatever they could get and bought from whoever would take their credit. Packard might have been better off to continue with the straight 8 for a couple years until the V-8 was better developed and then forget about buying Studebaker. Packard might have also benefited by dropping their cheap line of cars, the Clipper series, and concentrated on their senior lines competing with Lincoln, Imperial and Cadillac. George Mason of AMC, whose untimely death in 1954 had plans to unite the independents. His death put the kaibash on Kaiser-Fraser, Nash, Hudson, Packard and Studebaker uniting was another death blow to Packard. Had Packard-Studebaker been a division of AMC, they might have lasted 30 years or so longer. The demise of Packard is truly one of the sad tales of domestic auto production.

Menno Duerksen was THE best antique auto historian/writer I was aware of. Even better than Tom Cahill. Menno find details that nobody else wrote about. He wrote about obscure manufacturers and tidbits on more common cars. He got into the trivia on subject he wrote about. I susbscribed to Cars and Parts magazine for years. I don't believe it's around anymore.

[Firedome]

I liked Menno back in the day, but he was wrong on that one. Menno tended to sometimes depend on memory or anecdotal info, not always on meticulous research. Cahill was a writer-entertainer, and a darn good one, but no historian. He shilled for Chrysler for $ (and Imperials?) in the later '50s.

"Just the facts Ma'am":
The Rolls "L Series" V8 was designed strictly by Rolls Bentley engineers. I verified this by asking Packard experts in the Club, and you can see it in the Wiki article (including debunking the American origin) by Googling "Rolls Royce V8", (look under the "6.25 liter" section) and there's plenty of other reputable sources available with some research. There were very significant differences in architecture, the original version was 380 cu in. RR may well have copied some aspects of US V8 design, as we ruled in that area, but it was not a Packard engine. The only US influence to RR were the tappets, originally made by Chicago Screw, later production was brought in-house. Only Hash and Studebaker ever used the Packard engine in any shape or form. The Studebaker '56 Golden Hawk used a 352 version, not 320.

The Russians copied some design characteristics from Packard, Imperial and Cadillac, but never used any dies, tools or blueprints from them. They were quite crude hand-built copies that sort-of looked like Packards sometimes, but looked at carefully very different too. This has been proven definitively after extensive research, and not just by Packard people.

[electra225]

Okay, thanks, Roger.....

With the superior knowledge of "the experts in the Packard Club" notwithstanding, let me add the following. The relationship between Rolls and Packard was established during WW2 with the famous Merlin V-12 aero engine. Now, before you get into semantics and telling how wrong I am, consider this. If RR had such hot shot engineers, why did they use Frigidaire air conditioning, Saginaw power steering, Hydra-Matic transmissions, all "Yank" provisions, not to mention Bosch fuel injection later, rather than designing their own? And, since they were in the market for a modern V-8 in the late 1950's and since the Packard engine was no longer produced, it certainly seems logical that this relationship was a possibility. Certainly, as I pointed out earlier, RR made certain changes to the Packard design to modernize and adapt it for their use. But I'll bet the basic RR V-8 engine was the Packard design, and that Menno Duerksen was more right than wrong about this. I have long wondered if the sale of the Packard engine might have given Studebaker the money to develop the Lark series, one that saved its bacon for a time. I have no evidence other than mere speculation, but it seems logical that this might have been the case. The Lark was a re-tool of the older body with some clever modifications, but it was hot stuff for about five years. After it faded, Studebaker was done.

[Conelrad]

I love older cars, like a lot of us.

As a young'in, we had a '48 Ford Coupe, and a '47 Chrysler Windsor with Fluid Drive.

I really liked that big green car. It smelled nice inside, too. Barely remember the coupe.

Both were lost when torpedoed by a '57 Nomad in front of our house. The Ford wound up on the back of the Chrysler.

The driver had a honeybee fly into his eye and caused him to loose control. No one was really hurt tho.

We wound up with a '55 Plymouth Plaza wagon, it served well for years.

Conelrad

[William]

Is the little shaver in the photo you, Conelrad?

Bill

[Conelrad]

Yep, me getting my hair combed by Dad, Mom & Gram checking out an abandoned gold mine on Hwy 80 just West of Winterhaven, Ca.

The photo was taken by my Aunt Mary.

Our wagon had a 3-on-the-tree, 230 cu flathead.

D