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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.