Another very special thing was the gas door on the 5570 Executive series, which was a late introduction. Lower side trim passes through the filler opening, so the door got its own small piece of trim.

Thank you for your answers. They are indeed helpful, as I've learned for sure that this is the correct engine for my car, and is just painted inapprpriately. Why it is painted completely in turquoise remains a mystery. Looks kind of strange in this car, anyway. I think, I'll have it repainted in the correct green, black, and silver color scheme during the planned restoration.

literature indicates that the original engine color for the 1956 Executive is green metallic.

My car was a very late production model (5677-1990), and has an engine (No B 7129) that is completely painted in turqouise, including valve covers. There is no embossing in the covers, and if there were stickers, they were gone without a trace.

The engine looks as if it always was with this car.

I wonder if it is a replacement engine (at least 1955s were painted turquoise), or if Packard just ran out of grren engines in the final production time.

Thank you, Randy. That was really useful. They have what I need, and I got a very quick answer to my inquiry.

By the way, is there a vendor of upholstery cloth fitting our cars?

John and Owen, you're both right. Official Switzerland - and people in the country - were generally hostile to automobiles. In fact, their use under own power was prohibited in the canton of Graub?nden (where St. Moritz or Davos are) until 1928 or 29; one had to put horses in front when entering this state!

On the other side, there were many more manufacturers than the mentioned, among the very early also Henriod, Popp, SAG (became Pic-Pic; both used engine patents from Mark Birkigt of Hispano-Suiza fame), SIGMA, Turicum or Weber, to mention a few. Fischer used a valveless engine with oscillating feeders of their own design; it was used under licencend by Delaug?re & Clayette in France and, for prototypes only, by the Aristo Co. of New York for their Mondex-Magic Six, and by Palmer-Singer for similar purposes.

Automobile manufacture seized to be a nameable industry in the 1930s due to high wages, the lack of a sufficient home market, and bad economics. Trucks were built here much longer. MOWAG in Kreuzlingen started as a coachbuilder, switchedto mail musses, and then to community and military vehicles. It belongs to General Dynamics since 2003; one of it's development was the Piranha wheeled tank.

Probably best known Swiss post-war ventures are the MBM and Monteverdi GT cars with Chrysler V-8s and Frua or Fissore coachwork. GM cars were mounted in Biel/Bienne from 1936 until ca. 1976 (labeled "Montage Suisse"), and MOPAR importers AMAG did similar with Chrysler, Dodge an Plymouth models until 1967 in Schinznach. My brother owns a '64 Polara 500 convertible mounted here in Switzerland.

Saurer trucks were also built in the USA under licence; from 1911, at first by the Saurer Motor Company in Plainfield (New Jersey), and then by the International Motor Truck Co. It ended as a part of Mack Trucks in 1922.

Denzel was not Swiss but Austrian; but there was the Enzmann with a very similar concept. Albar and Beach Buggy also built Buggy cars based on the VW Beetle.

Known Swiss coachbuilders were Graber, Beutler (who built the very first Porsches), Ghia-Aigle (started by Italians Mario Boano and Giovanni Michelotti), Langenthal, Ramseier, Worblaufen, and T?scher (who did much work for Werner Risch on Packard chassis). All of them did occasional Packard bodies (Graber, of course, quite a lot of), as did Gangloff of Geneva and Berne, mother house of the impotant French coachbuilder of the same name in Colmar.

I have yet to find out when Risch started importing Packards to Switzerland.

Recently, I stumbled over some unusual pics of some Packard Twin Six touring cars with a half track device.

It is known that tsar Nicolaus II used cars from several manufacturers with such devices, AFAIN of French K?gresse design, among them a Rolls-Royce 40/50 "Silver Ghost" and the enclosed Packard Twin Six.

The other pictures are taken from 13x18 cm silver bromide negative plates, and show at least three more Twin Six half tracks with front wheels supported by skis. These pictures were recently released by Swiss federal archives, and show some testing of the vehicles by the Swiss army motor car service. They are dated "1914-1918". Further information is lacking, but there were more pictures from other makes without half track application (Swiss-built Pic-Pics).

It is surprising that Switzerland used cars from overseas for their testing. My explanaton is, that they were delivered before U.S. entered in the war, and that Switzerland, which was not directly involved in the war, wished to avoid to use a make from one of the nations in war. But this is pure speculation.

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Agree. I'm collecting scale model cars for nearly 40 years now. Seems, I'm not very successful in being a good boy, too...


Among the ca. 50 Packards is a similar green Tootsie.


Did you realize that Packard released some pre-production pictures of '55 Patricians that are lacking the bright side trim panels? IRC, such a car participated at the annual Mobile Gas economy run. Perhaps, Tootsie had that in mind when doing the mold of their toy...

Wheels were always with the car, at least for the 20 years I'm owning it. They always held tires. Leads me to the long storage time the car went through... Yes, I will check all of them, and consider to replace them all with new ones.

Pure luck that no bigger damage occured.

Tire is Remington G78-15.

It happened at walking speed when detouring into a small road which recently got a new pavement. Although there was a very small passage from old to new pavement causing a very slight bump. I can't imagine that this could cause the wheel to crack.

Most likely, there was already a hair thin crack in the wheel, as nearer inspection showed that a part of the crack emerged earlier.

We are not sure but believe that this wheel was the spare wheel until until the tire puncture we faced last year.

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