A pic of the engine bay - not bad at all!

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Here's a few pics of the Clipper as she is now. Paintwork worse than it looks in the pics. Will try to get decent shot of the interior tomorrow.

Brian

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I was inspired by the results achieved by Jason on his barn find Packard 200, which superficially looked a lot worse than my recently-acquired Clipper. Having done the rounds of the usual repairers, and being given frightening estimates of A$25K++ to redo the paintwork, I have opted to approach the decrepit paintwork problem differently and will have a go at cleaning up the original interior myself.

The Clipper is a 1956 Deluxe (standard) model with the Twin Ultramatic auto transmission, Torsion ride suspension and LSD. It was imported new in Right Hand Drive into Australia by Kellow-Falconer, the Rolls Royce - and long standing Packard - dealers in Melbourne. When the car was about 30 years old (mid-80s), it was restored cosmetically and repainted dark blue (Packard Blue?). It was originally yellow with a white roof. The dark blue suits it well. I plan to keep it the same colour to simplify paintwork options. It appears that it underwent quite a bit of mechanical work about ten years ago. Everything still works as it should and it drives extremely well. The Torsion ride suspension is a real revelation.

The main cosmetic issue now is the paintwork, which is showing its age with quite a bit of crazing on top of the fenders and some bubbling on the left lower rear guard. The best paint is on the trunk and hood lids (boot and bonnet in our parlance). A couple of the side window glasses are beginning to delaminate, but not bad enough to replace yet, and the interior is pretty tired but fundamentally sound. It's fitted with a local radio which still seems to work and a local Smiths heater of unknown state. It has a modern radio fitted inside the glove compartment.

I will try to get some pics to illustrate the "before" state. Meanwhile, the car is quite usable. It is historic registration here, and being driven regularly.

Brian

Thanks Howard. Yes, that makes sense. I can get the Buck 12V-6V reducers here, but probably won't need if the existing unit on the instrument assembly is serviceable. Will turn my attention now to the part finished 12V conversion on my 1941 120 Club Coupe (started by somebody else - bad idea). Cheers Brian

Hello Howard

Thanks for that. Yes, I'm fairly sure the radio was a local fitment since it has the local AM stations printed on the dial. Ditto the heater, which is a Smiths job.

I seem to recall that many car manufacturers continued to use 5/6V gauges etc when they switched to 12V for ignition, lights etc around 1955. Sounds like that includes Packard.

Here's a pic of the rear of the '55 Clipper gauge assembly, showing what is perhaps the voltage reducer. I'm guessing that the instrument and warning light bulbs were changed to 12V? Maybe the capacitor hanging off this was for the (factory accessory) radio as you say.

We'll see if I can attach the pic successfully!

Cheers Brian

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Thanks Ross.

So the good ones are from a '55 Clipper. Yes, they're quite attractive and they are in far better shape than mine. Looks like some of the decoration etc is actually on the inside surface of the plastic.

I assume they're hooked up the same way. The whole assembly is identical to mine from the front, except the fuel and temp gauges are swapped (maybe for right hand drive)?There's a small rectangular metal box screwed to the back of the speedometer housing which looks like some sort of power supply for the instrument lights. And there is a capacitor attached to that which I have not figured out yet. Maybe I need to look at the wiring diagram.

Anyway, thanks for the identification. Cheers Brian

I should have looked before I piped up about the instrument "glasses". When I rummaged through the mountain of spares which came in the trunk of the car, I found not one but two complete instrument assemblies. One looks about the same as mine with the dreaded cracks in the plastic (see pic) and the other is considerably better (maybe off another model - slightly different but who'd notice). Guess which one I'll use. Anybody recognise the second one?

Cheers Brian

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Thanks for that. The cracks are inside the plastic and not very visible from some angles. Will not polish out, but perhaps not bad enough to go hunting for replacements or trying to dismantle other gauges. Thanks for your response. Sounds like the senior cars used something similar, so would have expected someone to reproduce them by now but looks like not. Yes, it's quite a hard plastic and has not discoloured or gone cloudy.

Cheers

Brian

First request for for my newly acquired 1956 Clipper. It's already destined for a paint job. The original interior will clean up ok, but I also noticed that the plastic "glasses" on the front of the instruments is crazed - looks likely due to age. The plastic is still transparent so they function fine. The reason I think it's age is that I have some spare instruments which have exactly the same problem with the plastic lenses.

Any ideas on how to replace these? Is this a problem on other V8 Packard models?
Or did the more expensive ones use glass?

Cheers

Brian

Hello Everyone

I'll start by saying that the current Packard.info website is by far the most useful and informative of any I've seen for a specific marque.

The suggested additions would no doubt add to that, but they do represent quite a bit of work.

By nature, Packard histories are in the eyes of the beholder. Anybody interested in that can get hold of any number of books on the subject. Most reflecting the author's views and take on history!

A timeline of major models/body styles would be interesting but would not add much to the value of what's already here. When I'm interested in that sort of stuff, the first place I look is the Registry. Admittedly, information is harder to come by for the "brass era" cars, but is well covered in many of the Packard history books. And I hate to say it, but the generation who recall (and treasure) the cars of that period (indeed between the wars) is a shrinking population.

And for information on parts commonality, it's fairly easy to spot in the Parts Lists which are already on the website.

It's obvious that a lot of effort goes into building and maintaining what's already here. These sort of treasure troves are typically maintained by just a handful of hard-working people. Unless volunteers emerge to help assemble the additional content, I'd say keep it as is. After all, it's value is still growing as the existing content grows.

Cheers

Brian Wilson