Re: V8 hardtop Seat Belts

Posted by Leeedy On 2012/3/14 20:53:52

Ahhh. Interesting questions.

RE: the mounting of factory rear speaker in a 1955-56 Caribbean convertible... yes, I have seen a few. I seem to remember that Earle C. Anthony's personal Caribbean was so equipped. Somewhere buried in my records I used to have a list of convertibles that I ran across over the years with factory rear speaker. There certainly were not many, but there were a few. The location of the speaker was either to the right or left in the bottom of the top well where it faced straight up. Of course, not useful when the top was down, but yes, I have seen this more than once and yes, with factory controls.

AND... since someone brought it up, the only factory air Caribbean V-8 convertibles I have ever seen (and should ever see) had the A/C coming through the instrument panel. Think about this. Packard (with not a huge budget at the time) spent a pile of cash developing factory air where it rightly belonged: in the IP. It would make no financial or functional sense to develop a whole second system to be mounted in the trunk (and Packard factory air indeed was installable at the dealer and there are ways to determine this). Anyone who has ever inspected the area UNDER the top well in the convertible (which has a welded grid crossmember) would have to conclude the folly of mounting trunk air in this position...even if such a unit existed in the 1950s.

I have a 1956 Four Hundred that the original owner had an aftermarket trunk-mounted unit installed. Believe me, the thing barely-just barely fits. And that's with no top well to deal with! I can't imagine how it would be done unless someone, somehow had the creativity and resource and finance to dig up an ultra-rare Cadillac convertible rear unit (from the same time period) that they managed to shoehorn into the trunk. One of the few times when Cadillac really blew it (in more ways than one) in the 1950s. Of course such a unit would have to have to have an evaporator so small and a blower so big as to be useless. Especially in the Caribbean.

Now... for all of the controls? I have seen at least one Caribbean that used to run around SoCal that had both factory air and rear seat speaker! The line of knobs across the instrument panel was almost mind-boggling... if not impressive! Somewhere, someplace in my bins of records I have a set of photos I took of this car back in the early 1970s. No idea where it is today.

Finally... as for owners changing their Caribbeans over... modifying them... That would be a rather obvious thing, but absolutely not what I was referring to at all. For instance... there was a 1956 Caribbean convertible in SoCal that was originally ordered on the east coast... possibly in Philly. Anyway, the original owner swore that he ordered the car with the ribbed stainless in the middle stripe and back to the tail lights. I saw this car up close and personal in the 1970s and it indeed had the so-called "Reynolds wrap" on the car... going back to the tail lights and up to the antennae. ANd these pieces appeared to be specially bent and shaped. But I assure you, there was no mention of this in the factory record, nor of other special things the car had.

I also knew of several 1955 and 1956 Caribbeans that were local to Detroit (and I knew these cars from when they were new) and they certainly did not match what the records say they were supposed to be. One of these cars was at a big engineering firm... another was owned by a man I knew who did work for Packard. And another was at Creative Industries. ANd there were more that I discovered over the years-sometimes verified by the actual VIN plate and codes-that differed from the factory records. Believe me, I've been over this a few times over the years. Anyway... for what it's worth.