Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Good Morning!
I was under the hood of my Packard, and decided to find the numbers.
I hope someone can make sense of them.
N335526 CAL
?
Thanks in advance

That's not a number assigned by Packard; probably some sort of alternative vehicle number assigned by California.

Your 55 engine should have two numbers; one on the front just behind the water pump on the flat that also has the oil filler tube and it should match the vehicle number on your door jamb. The other is rather difficult to see but is the number assigned by the Packard Utica engine plant and is on the passenger side, far at the rear, just below the cylinder head. Four digits preceeded by a letter.

There are photos on this site showing the location of these numbers, I'm sure someone will lead you to them.

As O_D said, there is strong suspicion that is a service engine and the number was assigned -- but it appears there is no documentation anyone has found yet to back that theory up.

Calif was one of the states that registered by motor number. When an engine had to change, the motor number was no longer present so the speculation is Calif DMV had rules on how replacement engines were numbered and vehicles re-registered.

I will say that is the first V8 engine I recall in that situation. Several examples of inline engines with the N xxxxx CAL designation but vehicle and engine numbers were different on those cars. The fact that a V8 with the completely different factory numbering system where the engine was the same as the vehicle number now has a N xxx designation lends a lot more credence to the theory.

It would be interesting to know if the car was originally from Calif and what years it might have been here.

In addition to what has already been said, behind the distributor on the block is a cast block number and date.

If you can get the Utica number and the cast numbers and date it would be interesting to see them.