1953 Packard Henny Jr

I use the Cadillac, Packard, Jaguar & Mercedes Forums a lot, now it’s your turn. One of my British car friends found this about 7-8 years ago, and I, of course, grabbed it. It came with the entire front loaded in the back and Ca Historical plates from 1984. I’m finally finding time to attack it. The car was on some property my friend bought and the only clue to its history is a nicely lettered but faded sign on the side, “Professional Detail Complete Car Care”. It’s been sitting outside with everything past the fire wall exposed for years before I bought it and about 8 years after. By some miracle, the engine is free and runs nicely on starting fluid. Whatever it hit was higher then the bumper. The frame and bumper escaped injury but every thing above was shortened about 2 feet. The hood, fenders and grill in the back were un-repairable as was the generator and water pump. The radiator was missing. I salvaged the bits I could and scraped the rest. The Henny badges were both missing from the fenders, but the un-faded paint showed where they were. I’ve collected all the major pieces needed through friends and junk yards and now I’m deciding where to start. I’ve started on the brakes which, surprise, blew a front wheel cylinder some time back.

I’m trying to identify what I have. The grill and fenders are 53, based on the corner pieces. I don’t have the grill center so I don’t know if it was a Senior or a Clipper. The windshield has the curved corners which I thought was 52 Clipper and most of the pictures of Juniors I saw have the square corners. The dash is 53.
The Henny data plate shows the following;
Engine #; L-200049
Serial #; 2633-2008
Body #; 20124
Factory Order #; 59163
Mound # blank
Leveldraulic # blank

I posted this on the Packard forum and, from their response, it is the 8th 53 production model with the original 288 engine. The rounded windshield stayed though the 13th. .They also suggested I get. "The Professional Car" published by The Professional Car Society, for Thomas McPherson’s article on the Jr. Thanks Packard people for your help. They also wanted the antitheft # from the firewall which I forgot about. It is B55376. I know about the Leveldraulic, but what the heck is a Mound #? It does look kind of rounded and bumpy.

As us lurkers are banned from the technical, I hope this is general enough. Tom
 
Tom McPherson Explains The Junior Story In TPC #145

Issue 145 of TPC answers all your questions.

The text of Mr. McPherson's story:

"In the world we live in, somewhere between 80 and 95 percent of new product introductions fail. Given this fact, it’s not that hard to postulate that a company must do virtually everything right to successfully launch a new product. Every bit as important as the concept, design, pricing and distribution of a product is when a company decides to release it. Timing is everything. Having said that, one must also accept the premise that good ideas arrive in two forms: those that are introduced at the right time and place that go on to enjoy market success and emulation by competitors and those that appear prematurely and seem to fail miserably. The second of these scenarios would, on the surface, seem to apply to the Henney Junior - the ill-fated original wheelbase professional vehicles introduced by the Henney Motor Company in 1952. But, there is more to the story of this innovative professional car than just an introductory timing issue.

The chronicle of The Henney Motor Company is a most compelling one that began, as most of these stories do, in the nineteenth century with the establishment of a small shop for the construction of a variety of hand-crafted wagons, buggies and carriages. In later years, the company would trace its heritage back to a firm initially established in 1854 by Jacob Henney, which eventually became The Henney Buggy Company. With deep roots in the coachbuilding trade, Henney's newly established Cedarville, Illinois-based carriage-building enterprise prospered and then grew in the boom times following the American Civil War. The Henney Buggy Company became an integral part of the giant Moline Plow Company just after the turn of the century and as the motor car gradually began to replace the horse and buggy, Moline expanded its activities by entering America's burgeoning automobile industry. Although he later became disillusioned with Moline and resigned, the growth of the automobile industry and its popularity with Americans afforded John W. Henney Jr. the opportunity to combine his coachbuilding talents with the rapidly rising acceptance of the motor hearse and, while Moline's automotive dreams were dashed on the rocks of the highly competitive marketplace of the early Twenties, Henney's star was just beginning its ascent.
 
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John W. Henney & Company was established in Freeport, Illinois by John W. Henney Jr. (aided by partners that included his father John W. Henney Sr., Preston A. Boyd, Ray Benethum and Charles Franz) on March 21, 1916. The initial products of the new enterprise were elaborately carved hearse bodies that were mounted on extended Dodge chassis. In the early Twenties, the company introduced a range of well-engineered and conservatively styled funeral cars and ambulances based on assembled chassis. These straightforward limousine-style professional cars quickly gained in popularity and soon had amassed a nationwide following. A dynamic concern, Henney was one of the few professional car manufacturers to offer vehicles with Meritas Made body construction and among the first to adopt the three-way loading mechanism. Henney became one of only two firms licensed by William Heise, the patent holder of the mechanical side-servicing device, to incorporate three-way loading into its vehicles. With the announcement of its Nu-3-Way models in late 1927, Henney established itself as one of the nation's pre-eminent professional car builders and, as a result, became firmly established as one of the American professional vehicle industry’s significant “Big Seven” manufacturers. In late 1927, following a corporate reorganization, the firm’s name was changed to The Henney Motor Company.

In the harsh economic climate of the early 1930s, Henney managers rose to the occasion and successfully adapted to the challenge of the times. They brought out new models, changed their manufacturing techniques, temporarily shed their aristocratic identity, and pitched their advertising to a more cost-conscious clientele. It was during this turbulent period that Henney began mounting its high-quality professional vehicle bodies on such standard manufactured chassis as Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Lincoln, Pierce-Arrow, and Packard.

As Packard struggled to survive the economic realities of the Great Depression, it sought sales outside its traditional market segment - luxury cars - in the medium and upper-medium-price class. With the 1935 introduction of the One Twenty Series, Packard began to compete directly with such well-established medium-price entries as Buick, LaSalle, Chrysler, Studebaker, Nash and Lincoln's new Zephyr. Public acceptance of this remarkable new car confirmed Packard's novel policy of building quality vehicles in smaller sizes for other segments of the market. At the same time, realizing the image-enhancing profile funeral cars and ambulances offered, Packard extended the wheelbase of the popular One Twenty to produce the 120-A commercial chassis. The introduction of the Packard 120-A commercial chassis led to a minor revolution in the professional vehicle industry. With Packard's instantly recognizable styling accompanied by all of the prestige and inherent quality levels expected of a Packard, at prices comfortably within the medium price class, the new 120-A quickly became the most popular chassis available to professional car builders. Although Packard sold its complete range of commercial chassis to all of the major American funeral car and ambulance manufacturers, Henney quickly became one of its principal customers for these special chassis. In an inspired marketing move, Henney was able to extract an exclusive agreement from The Packard Motor Car Company which enabled it to become America's sole provider of professional vehicles on the renowned Packard chassis. This agreement, which became effective with the introduction of the 1938 models, also forged an association that would, over time, make the names Packard and Henney inseparable in the minds of many North American funeral service practitioners. The Packard/Henney agreement relegated competitive manufacturers to other, less prestigious, chassis and firmly attached Henney's destiny to that of The Packard Motor Car Company. The Freeport firm would ride the crest of the Packard wave - rising and falling with the popularity of the products of that iconic brand.

By the late Thirties, Henney had displaced Meteor and become the “world’s largest manufacturer of funeral cars and ambulances” but that began to change after John W. Henney Jr. sold the firm to Charles Russell Feldmann in May of 1946. Some of the company's best and worst days were those immediately following the Second World War. Packard's post-war decisions and problems resounded through Henney's Freeport headquarters with unpredictably shattering results. Because Packard's prime directive was getting new passenger cars on the street as fast as possible to take advantage of the seller's market, and it was struggling to obtain enough steel, it had no available production capacity for commercial chassis. In June of 1946 Henney announced that it had "experienced unlooked for delays because of materials and other conditions, and as a result, has decided not to produce any 1946 model funeral cars, ambulances or other specialized vehicles.” The announcement expanded on the company's production plans by informing members of the funeral profession that instead of building 1946 models "the full facilities (of Henney) are being devoted to tooling for an entirely new line of 1948 models, details of which will be available within the next few months. Deliveries of these new models will start early in 1947." Despite this statement, while working diligently toward the new professional car range, the company kept its Freeport manufacturing facilities busy during the intervening period building Packard’s elegant, flagship nine-passenger sedans and limousines.

Henney introduced its first postwar Packard-based professional cars in April of 1947 as 1948 models. These vehicles, based on the new 22nd Series Packard commercial chassis were, at the time, the most modern and popular professional cars the industry had ever witnessed of the small builders were offering even less costly conversions of sedan deliveries - some with small or no alterations to the wheelbases. For example, in addition to the models with a 30-inch extension in the wheelbase, The Economy Coach Company also offered Pontiac professional cars with a 24-inch wheelbase extension starting at $4,100 and others with an 18-inch wheelbase extension for as little as $4,000. Needless to say, at these prices, the converted sedan deliveries by these new makers were attracting the attention of many prospective buyers despite not being based on the chassis of more prestigious brands.
 
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At Henney, Preston Boyd also took the challenge these new builders represented seriously and directed the company to create a new segment within the professional car marketplace with the introduction of a vehicle that reflected a novel concept in professional motor equipment - and one that would ultimately become something of a disaster for his company. Previewed to the firm’s dealer organization on April 14, 1952, and given its public debut at some state conventions that spring and summer, this revolutionary new professional car was called the Henney Junior.

In early 1952, Henney constructed two prototypes of the new Junior. These were based on standard 127-inch wheelbase 25th Series Packard 400 chassis fitted with Packard 200 Series engines and transmissions. While the “400” was the flagship of the Packard product program for 1952, with retail prices starting at $2,545, the 200 Series was Packard's most economically priced product range. These low-priced Packards were powered by a 288-cubic-inch, in-line, L-head eight-cylinder engine which developed 135 horsepower and was mounted on a one-piece "X" member frame with a wheelbase of 122 inches and an overall length of 223 inches. Juniors with the standard three-speed manual transmission had a 4.54:1 rear axle ratio while those equipped with the Packard’s optional overdrive had a ratio of 4.7:1. The Juniors were equipped with 6.50x16 six-ply tires and, to provide outstanding stopping power, large brakes with a surface area of 292.25 square inches. The body Henney designed and constructed for this chassis reflected the dramatic Arbib styling of its full-size offerings in an abbreviated form. While the dramatic wrap-around rear side windows, “400”-style quarter panels and taillights and overall shape of the long wheelbase vehicles had been retained, due to its shorter wheelbase, the Henney Junior was a stubby-looking car with no rear side doors and huge, unadorned, slab-like panels between the front doors and the rear quarter windows.

Although these prototype cars were designated as 26th Series (1953) vehicles, the first 35 kits the company received from Packard were of the 25th Series. The only practical difference resulting from this was the upper windshield corners, which were sharp-angled on all other 1953 Packards. And so the first two prototypes, actually released belatedly as 1952 models, and the first 33 1953 Juniors, were fitted with the leftover rounded windshield corners.

Despite its diminutive appearance, the Henney Junior, with a rear compartment floor length of 100 inches, a width of 64 inches and height of 47 inches, provided ample capacity for a full-size casket, a standard-size rough box or two full-size ambulance cots placed side by side. As a result, the Henney Junior was the industry's first professionally designed, engineered and constructed original-wheelbase professional car - a concept that would be revived by Flxible in 1959 with considerable success and later copied by both Superior and Cotner/Bevington.

Late in the summer of 1952, The Henney Motor Company began advertising its Junior Packard models in the major funeral trade publications. These ads displayed the new vehicles in both ambulance and funeral car configurations and noted that the basic rear-loading funeral coach could be adapted for first calls or service work and, with the addition of special cots, seats, benches, grilles, etc., could be quickly converted for ambulance duties. A specially designed two-piece, removable casket rack - with five rubber rollers on each half – was considered standard equipment on all Juniors but, when ordered as an ambulance, deleting this rack reduced the vehicle price by $75.
 
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When initially announced, the Henney Junior boasted of being a true professional car with a shorter wheelbase, lighter weight, higher utility and a lower price than those of conventional units. Taking aim directly at the products of the fledgling conversion houses, Henney was quick to point out that the Junior, unlike many of the vehicles on the market, was "not a lengthened, spliced together passenger car" nor was it "an extended, stretched-out, pleasure car or panel delivery body.” With this statement, the competitive set Henney was gunning for with the Junior became obvious to all. In the initial announcement ads, Henney wordsmiths also went on to point out that “The all steel body of this lighter-weight car was engineered for its chassis. The interior dimensions are adequate to accommodate a casket, standard rough box, or two standard ambulance cots or a cot and two attendant’s seats. Ease of handling this shorter-wheelbase, lighter-weight car with its flexibility in traffic is recognized by everyone.”

An addition to its range of full-size Senior professional vehicles, Henney targeted the new Junior toward federal, state, county, town and village agencies along with industrial, Civil Defense and volunteer fire and ambulance departments which required professionally designed and built, highly efficient vehicles at a minimum cost. So aimed, the Henney Junior was displayed and promoted to funeral service professionals in 1952 bearing a widely advertised retail price of only $3,333. Although this audience was interested for the most part in an economical ambulance, Henney promoted the utilitarian virtues of the Junior by pointing out to potential buyers that the vehicle “may be used as a straight funeral car, a combination car, a first call car or a flower car.”

Equipment and luxury amenities were pared to the bone with only essential items incorporated in the Junior's standard specification. As a result, Henney offered Junior buyers a lengthy list of available extra-cost features so that they could tailor their selection to fill their specific desires, needs and requirements. This listing included such items as a Packard heater and defroster ($75), rear fender skirts ($25), removable ambulance grilles for the rear quarter windows ($35), a rear compartment heater mounted flush with the floor ($45), Bomgardner or Washington cots complete with side rails, footrests and Kapok mattresses ($150), trigger-type cot fasteners ($30), outside rear-view mirrors ($5 each), a Packard push-button radio with an electric antenna ($120), windshield washers ($15), Ultramatic automatic transmission ($185), and stainless steel moldings around the windows (rear quarter windows ($25), back door window ($12.50) and front door windows ($25). Henney finished all of its vehicles in a special Dulux synthetic enamel paint. All standard Dulux colors were available; however, extremely light colors were supplied only at extra cost and the finish on cars painted white, ivory, maroon or cream was not guaranteed. As standard equipment, each Junior was equipped with one pair of nameplates (of open block letter type) which were installed on the side panels above the belt molding or on the front doors. Available company documentation indicate that the majority of the Juniors were ordered with an average of $352.65 worth of optional features or equipment. Early Henney advertisements pointed out that Junior interiors were upholstered throughout with a vinyl plastic material called “Tolex” but a luxurious, high-pile Boucle fabric or mohair upholstering was available at extra cost. Many Juniors were fitted with optional “coach windows” incorporated into the rear body side panels behind the front doors, and some early promotional materials claimed that the Junior was available as a landau, although no Juniors with this styling affectation have been documented. As orders began to pour in, it appeared that not only was the new Junior going to create an all-new market segment, it quite possibly could become the savior of the Henney Motor Company just as the One-Twenty had been for Packard in the Thirties. To capitalize on the demand the promotional activities had created, Boyd urged the project to move ahead as quickly as possible. Everything looked good....for a while. Production schedules were drawn up which had the company constructing between 40 and 60 Juniors each month, but the advertised $3,333 retail price for these cars had been unrealistic. Despite its market niche and its diminutive size, the Junior was not an inexpensive vehicle to build. In fact, it was a relatively complicated and expensive construction job. For instance, the rear quarter panels were stamped in two distinct sections - front and back. During body assembly, these quarter panels required extensive hand fitting, and copious amounts of lead were applied to conceal the seams where the two panels joined forming the sides of the car. And, this was only one of the many labor-intensive items on the Junior. But, according to Robert Geiser, Henney's Plant Manager, Mr. Boyd, could understand none of this. "He (Boyd) was out in the shop constantly demanding that the problems be quickly eliminated and production of Juniors begun," recalled Geiser. Boyd took his complaints directly to Feldmann. Writing his boss in July of 1952 Boyd said “the most unfortunate part of the whole handling is that we haven’t been able to produce and deliver any of the Junior models after having created the interest that we did by trade-paper and direct mail advertising, as well as by word of mouth and the showings at a few conventions.”

However, even before the first vehicles had been delivered -- and deliveries were uncommonly delayed, thus, as Boyd correctly pointed out, spoiling the momentum created by advertising -- company managers knew that they were in trouble. The company had figured its costs for producing the Junior on a projected production run of 500 units, and committed itself to Packard for that many chassis and body kits. Production was to commence in September of 1952 with the vehicles designated as 1953 models. The initial public response was overwhelming. On July 1, 1952, Henney was awarded an order from the U.S. Defense Department for 156 Junior ambulances for the United States Air Force and an additional 100 units for the Medical Department of the U.S. Navy. This large government contract was immediately followed by 84 additional orders for Juniors from civilian agencies and individuals. Henney appeared to have had a real winner with the new Junior. But, even before the initial euphoria of success had worn off, before the end of the calendar year, Henney's managers discovered that they had made a horrendous mistake. At the advertised price of $3,333, Henney lost $615.26 on each of the Juniors it built for the government and $229.75 on each of the first 84 built for civilian customers. On September 10, 1952, the company raised the suggested retail price to $3,533, and discovered after 39 had been sold at that price that they were still losing $82.81 on each unit. Seeking assistance from Packard, Henney managed to secure a reduction in the overall cost of the Packard-supplied chassis and body kits which amounted to $181.40 for each civilian model and $179.20 for each military model. But, it was not enough. Finally, effective January 1, 1953 the price was increased to $3,883. Following this price hike, Henney promotional material stated that the Junior was “the only vehicle of this type (with both chassis and body engineered especially for funeral car and ambulance service) ever to have been offered at this low price.” They may well have been right. Unit profit at that price was $224.33 but Junior sales took an immediate nosedive. In fact, in a January 15, 1953 letter, Boyd informed Mr. Feldmann that “orders for the Junior have stopped cold since the last price increase. Numerous distributors had many deals working but now have had to go back and requote and refigure and as a result there as not been much progress in orders booked since the first of the year.”

Without any major styling alterations or new additions to its Senior line of professional cars, Preston Boyd's baby, the new "compact" Junior, was the big news from Henney for 1953. The 1953 Juniors were mounted on a Packard Series 2633 Clipper (a new model line that had replaced the previous 200 Series) chassis with a frame that had not been lengthened or altered in any way. Packard did, however, make some changes under the hood. The reliable 288-cubic-inch straight eight fitted to the Henney’s Junior models received a horsepower boost - to 150 - via an increase in the compression ratio to 7.7:1. Although given its public debut in 1952, only two examples had been produced during that model year while the company amassed volumes of orders.
 
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The 1953 Henney Junior was officially designated as a Model 2633 and, when shown on the display floor of the Minneapolis, Minnesota N.F.D.A. convention for the first time on October 13, 1952, was accorded a most gratifying reception, particularly with reference to its appearance, performance, utility, ease of handling and last, but not least, the value it represented. Or so Mr. Boyd claimed in a bulletin sent to all Henney dealers in December of 1952: "In this unit you have a vehicle that not only meets but exceeds anything offered on the American market in its price class. There is no unit comparable to this one and in its price range that will take two cots and has 47" of headroom to provide the necessary height for combination or straight ambulance work," Boyd declared.

Bowing to numerous dealer suggestions and customer requests, Henney refined the original specifications of the Junior prior to its introduction for the 1953 model year. The changes incorporated into the production cars included revising the position of the spare tire and tools from under the front of the right side of the rear compartment floor to a similar location on the left side. This modification created space for the installation of an optional, single Fold-A-Floor attendant seat ($43.75). Provisions were made for the installation of an optional rear compartment heater ($45) in the left side wall of the rear compartment - directly behind the driver's seat - as well as for a small medicine cabinet to be installed on the right rear side wall directly behind the front seat. When combined with the Fold-A-Floor seat, this medicine cabinet was in easy reach of the attendant. Available as an extra-cost option, the medicine cabinet listed for $75.

Following the January increase, the delivered price of a 1953 Henney Junior, including a 10% federal tax and a selection of essential options, topped $4,700, at which point it was competing directly with converted five-door vehicles from such manufacturers as Barnette, Economy, National, Meteor, Superior and even Siebert that customers perceived as being larger and more spacious than the stubby-looking Junior. (As an example of this precarious pricing position, Nuell Steinmetz - who less than a month later succeeded Preston Boyd as Henney’s Sales Manager - delivered a new Junior bearing body number 20607 to the Seals-Campbell Funeral Home of Marseilles, Illinois on April 24, 1953. This vehicle, with optional equipment as ordered by the customer, delivered for $4,778.76, less the trade-in value allowed for a 1937 Henney-Packard Model 872 three-way funeral car and a 1940 Packard seven-passenger sedan which amounted to a whopping $678.76! And, this was a deal in which the customer purchased and accepted delivery of the vehicle directly from the factory in Freeport.

But this superficial assessment of spaciousness was, in many cases, incorrect. Those who did their homework, studied and compared the specifications, found that, dimensionally, the Henney Junior was extremely competitive with rival offerings mounted on less prestigious chassis. Although more compact in some exterior dimensions, the Henney Junior was a professionally designed and engineered vehicle as opposed to a cut-and-stretch conversion of a sedan delivery or a passenger car and, as a result, offered more interior room in areas where it really counted. This fact is amply illustrated by the charts in the appendices which compare selected specifications of seven significant Junior competitors. Although substantially shorter, the Henney Junior offered prospects a rear compartment with more headroom and width between the wheelhouses than all competitive marques. In addition, the Junior offered a higher, wider rear loading door than most rival offerings. The length of the Junior's rear compartment floor was only six inches shorter than that of the Superior Pontiac, which was also a professionally designed, engineered and coach-built vehicle.

By August 17, 1953, Henney had managed to sell and deliver 331 of the original 500 Juniors for which it had made componentry commitments with Packard. The model year would see 378 of them sold - 196 to the military, 182 to civilian customers. By contrast, Superior, which had launched its medium-priced offerings during the 1953 model year, managed to sell and deliver only 34 examples of its Kosciusko-built, Pontiac-based professional cars.

But Henney was in trouble and it was becoming obvious. A number of the firm’s dealers as well as long-time employees had departed, with many defecting to competitive brands such as Superior. By the middle of 1953 competitors were circulating rumors that there would be no Henney-Packard professional vehicles for 1954. A definite sign that Henney was not healthy was the May, 1953 departure of Preston Boyd, who had been long associated with the company and had risen to the post of Vice President and General Manager. It was called a resignation but everyone noticed that Mr. Boyd had no plans and no offers (however, by the autumn of 1954, he had joined many of his former associates at Superior Coach where he was employed as a consultant to the funeral car and ambulance division). Under Feldmann’s ownership, all of Boyd's contributions to the company and 38 years of loyalty availed him nothing when things began to turn sour, and the Junior fiasco was the rock upon which his career foundered.

To quash industry rumors that there would be no new Henney professional cars, the company felt compelled to stage a spectacular new display at the Washington, D.C. N.F.D.A. convention to launch the company's 1954 model range. There, on October 12, 1953, Henney unveiled its new models by displaying no less than seven funeral cars and ambulances as well as an example of its luxurious Packard eight-passenger limousines. These new vehicles were carefully arranged around a magnificent, white horse-drawn hearse (that appears to have been a Cunningham) pulled by highly detailed wooden horses all displayed under a large arch emblazoned with a sign proclaiming the exhibit as the "Henney Parade of Progress." It is interesting to note that this massive new vehicle display included only one example of the Junior - an ambulance - consigned to an obscure corner of the sprawling Henney display.
Internally, the Junior had taken on a pariah status and, at that point, all the company wanted to do was to fulfill its obligations by constructing the vehicles for which it had orders and get out of the “compact” professional car business as quickly as possible. Such was the production imperative that many of the 1954 Juniors left the factory in a strange mix: some had details which differed from others; some had visible seams along the back fender tops; some did not; and a few had a body-side seam on the one side and not the other. With these Juniors, Henney’s legendary attention to detail and commitment to quality had seemingly vanished.
 
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Aside from the incorporation of a powerful new straight-eight engine in the Senior models and the addition of some new chrome moldings, dazzling new interior designs (and stylishly frenched tunnel lights for the ambulance), Henney’s long-wheelbase Series 5413 commercial chassis-based offerings entered their final year of production unchanged. The Clipper chassis and engine had also received modifications for the 1954 model year; however, these changes were not reflected in the Henney Junior because the company was still selling off the last 120 of the 500 Clipper (200 Series) parts kits it had purchased from Packard in 1952. These were now designated Series 5433 chassis and marketed as 1954 models complete with Packard's restyled grilles, moldings and ornamentation, but purists would technically classify them as modestly updated 1953 models. The 1954 Henney Juniors were powered by the same 150-horsepower, 288-cubic-inch "Thunderbolt" straight-eight engine that motivated these offerings in 1953. The Junior made its final appearance as a single model bearing the designation 2733 (note that, although Packard went from the 26th Series straight to the 54th Series, at Henney there was a 27th Series - the leftover Juniors) and priced at $4,350. As in previous years, both the full-size and the Junior models were offered with optional equipment selected from a lengthy list of available extra-cost features.

Henney continued to extol the virtues of its Packard chassis and proudly proclaimed "The body is Henney - The chassis is Packard - The combination is exclusive." But, because rival professional vehicles on the Cadillac commercial chassis were completely new and powered by an even more potent rendition of Cadillac's excellent V-8 engine - Packards with four-year-old body designs and straight-eight engines were beginning to look passé by comparison. As a result, sales of the 1954 Henney-Packards were sluggish. For that matter, sales of Packard's 1954 passenger cars were sluggish squared. What sales Henney did manage to obtain were won on the basis of the company's renowned craftsmanship rather than its Packard chassis or its now stodgy, antiquated styling. To be honest, many of the setbacks Henney encountered in the early 1950s stemmed from the fact that, at the time, the Packard chassis itself was something of a liability in that, unlike the competition, Packard did not have a V-8 engine. Unlike Cadillac, with the resources of General Motors Corporation, Packard, as an independent, was also handicapped by its inability to completely restyle its cars every two or three years.

Although Henney had produced and delivered 325 funeral cars and ambulances during the 1954 model year and accounted for approximately 11.3% of total industry output, the company had experienced a dramatic 40% reduction in its professional vehicle sales. Meanwhile, in Lima, Superior sold, produced and delivered 758 professional cars (of which 195 were medium-priced Pontiacs) in 1954, accounting for 26.32% of total industry output for the model year. While, by industry standards, Henney’s 1954 production and sales numbers were still respectable, it must be remembered that of the 325 funeral cars and ambulances the company delivered during the model year, 120 were Juniors which were essentially leftover 1953 models. Furthermore, of these 120 Juniors, 60 were already spoken for on the original government contract for 256 cars - because only 196 had been shipped in 1953. That means that these 60 cars were sold at a loss of $615.26 (approximately $5,200.26 in 2012 dollars) each while the other 60 (civilian) units were sold at the higher price and made a profit of $224.33 each ($2,065.11 in 2012 dollars). Net loss on these 120 vehicles: $23,455.80 ($198,251.58 in 2012 dollars). Total loss on the Henney Junior: $152,961.22 - the equivalent of $1,292,848.86 in 2012 dollars. For a small company, this represented a truly astounding loss and one from which Henney would not recover. Between its announcement in 1952 and its demise at the end of the 1954 model year, Henney sold, built and delivered 500 Junior professional cars - 256 to the military and 244 for “commercial” or civilian use. This means that, on average, Henney lost $305.92 (the equivalent of $2,585.68 in 2012 dollars) on each and every Junior they sold.

Although it did not last long, Henney’s Junior had a huge impact on the professional car landscape and remains to this day as an example of the very first professionally designed, engineered and built original-wheelbase professional vehicles.

As stated earlier, a company must do virtually everything right to successfully launch a new product. The compact dimensions of the Junior were not its undoing. It was poor planning coupled with monumental accounting and pricing miscues by Henney management figures, specifically Preston Boyd, which led to the Junior becoming a star-crossed product. If there is a lesson that can be taken away from the Junior fiasco, it is that even when things seem to be going well they can be going bad at the same time. Sometimes the apparent success of an individual product, or even an entire company, can mask problems that may come to a head later on, the two opposing forces coexisting – for a time, at least – in stasis. At the end of the 1954 model year, the Junior, like Henney itself, was consigned to history."

Now get a copy of the issue from the club store and you can see all the fancy charts and photos to answer all your questions.
 
Thanks for an amazing font of Henney history.

Where do I find the club store for price and availability? I would very much like a copy. I vaguely recall a conversation my father and I had with an automotive journalist a few years, middle – late 70’s, ago, on the symbiotic relationship and subsequent demise of Henney and Packard. Both companies were suffering severe money drought and Packard had a new body style in 55. I recall him saying there was quite a bit of dissension between the two over the late release of the new plans to Henney and the decision by Packard not to build a commercial chasses with the new load leveler suspension. I do not recall if they offered one on the conventional chasses or dropped them all together. I do not believe any 55 prototypes were made, but I wonder if any drawings or design models exist anywhere. President Eisenhower was reported to be upset by the announcement by Packard they were discontinuing production and said had he known, he would have offered more defense contracts as assistance. Hindsight indicates there was a bit of ill-considered decision and magical thinking on the part of both managements. One would wonder, what would happen If Henney had diversified a little after the war and Packard had invested its Ultramatic development money in production facility improvements?
Thanks again for a fascinating article, Tom
 
The store keeper is Matt Taylor. Not sure of the exact price but he can tell you, I think its around $5-6. You can send him an email or PM from this link and clicking on contact info.
http://www.professionalcarsociety.org/forums/member.php?u=66


The price for individual copies of the magazine is $10 and up depending on the issue, plus shipping. Shipping is determined by the number of magazines ordered, and the delivery location. The USPS has changed a lot of the rates recently, and shipping costs have risen sharply. The best deal is the USPS Flat Rate Envelope, but it has its limitations as to the number of magazines that can be inserted into it.
 
I haven't been able to track down a copy of #145. Would anyone be willing to scan that diagram for me? PM me please!
 
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