Re: Random questions about 51-56's, Ultramatics and A/C

Posted by HH56 On 2018/3/7 13:03:52

Was this issue because of the lack of multiple gears to allow the engine to operate at its greatest torque?

Packard was all about smoothness and refined operation so I suspect that is one of the reasons they chose to do the torque converter multiplication rather than a discreet gear change. When you think about it the Ultra was quite an accomplishment since it was developed by the comparatively tiny Packard company engineers and built entirely in house. Buick's Dynaflow was another that worked in a similar fashion although theirs did not have the direct drive. The joint Borg-Warner and Studebaker developed Automatic Drive was the only other that had a direct drive but I don't remember if it had a shift or was also a "single" speed operation.. Dynaflow stuck around until the early 60s with all kinds of refinements such as multiple stage turbines and variable reactor vanes developed to better utilize the torque converter multiplication but they too finally went away in favor of the Hydramatic and discreet gear changes.

Hydramatics were the first successful automatics and had the gear change but not the same torque converter operation. They were more like a fluid drive application and I remember some ad material comparing the Ultra to Hydramatics. There was a chart showing distinct "jumps" in speed for the Hydramatic car as it went thru the gears vs the Ultramatic's smooth steady curve. Copy was something to the effect that the Ultramatic would never subject the occupants to "harsh" and noticeable changes in speed when pulling away from a stop as other cars did. Of course the later Ultras kind of made a joke of that ad because some of the teething problems meant rides were not that smooth. By 53 with Chrysler and Ford also getting automatics which started in a lower gear and automatically shifted for better acceleration Packard realized they needed to do something so the rush to get the Twin Ultra operational came into action.