More Cylinders: Jessie Vincent and the Packard Twin Six engine
“The greatest piece of machinery that ever went upon the highways,” proclaimed Henry B. Joy, Packard president in 1915, extoling the virtues of the recent release of his company’s new engineering marvel, the Twin Six. Jessie Vincent, the brainchild of the Packard Twin Six, came to the Packard Motor Car Company in July of 1912 after a highly successful tenure at the Burroughs Adding Machine Company making his mark building “a thick portfolio of patents.” He was interested in automobiles and made himself foreman of the company’s garage, where he made all the repairs and adjustments to the Burroughs fleet of executive cars in Detroit before moving on to become acting chief engineer for the Hudson Motor Car Company. He was not with Hudson long before Alvan Macauley, who earlier worked with Vincent at Burroughs, got him to join Packard, in July of 1912. (Packard president Henry B. Joy hired Macauley to be Packard General Manager in 1910). Macauley named Vincent Chief Engineer of the Packard Motor Company, a position he would maintain for the next 40 years.
