Re: Best of its day?

Posted by Loyd Smith On 2011/3/1 11:06:35

BH wrote: "When it comes to lean or roll. Keep in mind that these cars have only one true stabilizer bar, and that is up front - a carry-over form the previous coil-type suspension. A Watts link was only added to the rear end to positively locate the rear axle - side to side. (In more recent years, other cars like the PT Cruiser also use a Watts link.) As such, handling might benefit from a rear stabilizer similar to what GM bolted up to the lower control arms for rear coil suspensions on its RWD cars back in the '70s, but you would likely need a larger diameter front bar, as well. I'm not sure that's worth the expense for my purposes, but it would have been an interesting factory sport/performance option - along the lines of the F41 suspension package that GM offered, years ago, on their passenger cars."

I am (as has been implied in other posts on this forum) no expert but my experiences, both in "the day" and more recently driving my 55 Pat daily in all uses tend to confirm this. During cornering these cars will lean, much as all cars built during this time period would but, during high speed cornering, one seemed to have much better control and much better recovery control if you temporarily lost it with the T-L than without it - particularly on uneven road surfaces - simply because it would put the affected wheel(s) back on the road faster than other suspensions of the day. Compared, say, to my 55 Buick, my mother's 57 Star Chief, grandmother's 55 Monterrey and a couple of Olds and Caddys that I drove regularly, I always preferred the Packard for "simulated emergency manoeuvres" for this reason. May have been just my perception or prejudice but it seemed that way to me, then, and my experiences since having re-acquired this 55 Pat and having driven it four four or five years, now, seem to confirm this impression. The rear-end rise on hard acceleration is something that all who drive these cars have experienced and come to expect and I quite agree with your observations on the rear Watts link. Have been playing with the idea of adapting some sort of rear stabilizer, myself.