Well... Latest update,

The past few days we have spent a great deal of time working on the 55. Front uppers & lower and all rubber suspension is bow comoplete, along with other jobs required to make the vehicle registrable. Once we had all the exhaust manifolds off I slid under the car to examine the stamped engine number and... no number, what a surprise It looks like the number may have been shaven off. It's a bit off a disappointment. So hopefully I can register the vehicle using the engine number 167 which has been the only number I have found stamped on the entire engine.

I know of 2 Australian movies which have Packards featured in them. The first is an old movie called careful he might be watching. Note: there is an adult rated video with a simillar name. This one doesn't have the Packard in it. Also, the latest movie due to be released in cinemas next month "The Australian" features a 1939 Packard.

I have been looking into the ultra torque kit from Sierra Packards. This allows you to use a chrysler toqueflite 727 and bolt it onto the engine. I was wondering if anyone has used this adapter kit and what there experiences with the unit are?

many thanks,
Mathew Rattray

At the moment the car has the 3-speed without overdrive. I would prefer to change it to an automatic. I have been looking into the ultra torque kit from Sierra Packards. This allows you to use a chrysler toqueflite 727 and bolt it onto the engine.

Also,

In regards to the Utica engine number: I remember reading that the engines were built at Utica, and as at the time they were built they didn't know what car the engine was going into. I suspect this was a method used to keep better recording of the engines built rather than send them to the assembly line with no number designated they designed the utica number system.

I'm sure there was mention of this in the Beverly Rae Kimes Packard book

Thats right, the image was taken back in 2002 before they did some work in restoring the car. The car is supposed to be a Californian car. The owner lived around Marina Del Ray - not sure if it snows there?

The transmission is only a 3-speed manual as stated by Eric. I hope to change this back to auto in the future.

Thank you everyone for your help. I now have a better idea of where to look. The car is down at my mechanics (3hrs away) but i will be down there next thursday and i'll be able to check the numbers and get the check tandem exhaust port of each head and get those numbers aswell. I have attached some images of the engine there not the best images and I know she looks a bit rough but its all a work in progress.

Also, Owen_dyneto you mentioned a car at the 1999 centennial. I have also attached an early picture of the car and another with the position of the gear stick lever. The image of the car was taken in 2002 when it was owned by Russ Carrington.

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Eric, Thanks for your reply. The car sure has had a few mods, such as the manual transmission. It would be interesting to know what possessed them to change the car to a manual transmission as it looks like they basically cut a hole in the floor and stuck the gearshift in there, not professional done/ nicely finished off. Wouldn't that be nice if it had a 56 374. I somehow doubt this very much.

I'll take another look, but, it doesn't look promising, I was under there for about 30mins searching for a number. If not we can always make up a number

I have recently been examining my 55 for an engine number with no success. Originally i checked the front of the engine head and I could only find the numbers 167. After doing further research I found out that the engine number known also as the Utica engine number (I think it is) was stamped near the right rear exhaust flange. Unfortunately again I was unable to find any numbers. So far the only number i can locate refers to no: 167. The vehicle's VIN = 55881006. Would the engine number possibly be stamped elsewhere or would 167 indicate the engine number though to me it seems to short.

Many thanks,
Mathew Rattray

G'day all,

Well down here in Aus we have had s long weekend which has been a very busy one, spending most of the weekend in the kitchen at the hotel. A packard friend of mine Russ James (Russpackaus) came up for the weekend. Though I couldn't convince him to bring his baby girl up for the weekend (Thats his 56 400 ) Instead he brought up his Subaru Forester, he also spent a lot of time helping in the kitchen he thought he was coming up for a holiday, ended up more a working holiday. Preparing food, collecting used plates and washing dishes.

He must have enjoyed his holiday well his modern car did, it didn't want to go .. I thought this only happened to Packards, so I gave him one of my cars to get back home and we would work something out with the modern. Though about 5hrs after his departure I recieved a phone call, "Mat, I'm coming back up see you in an hour." He made it back for dinner and now were are both sitting in the office on the Packardinfo site, do you think were obsessed? So as Russell states in his post (note: were comparing notes as we type the plan is to try and get the modern back to Russ's place. So for all those who are also having Packard problems just remember these modern vehicles still break down too

Speaking of audio sounds I had an audio sound of my 34 packard starting up. At one stage I had it linked to the packardaustralia website, but since removed it from the home page... I should really put it back on. The link to the car sound is:http://hillendnsw.com.au/packard/packard1.wav