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1956 Caribbean with air conditioning
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Home away from home
 
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Were any 1956 Caribbean convertibles mfg. with air conditioning?
Posted on: 2016/3/2 5:18
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Re: 1956 Caribbean with air conditioning
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Home away from home
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Of course there were certainly 1956 Caribbean convertibles with factory air. I had two Caribbean convertibles with factory air... I mean with the little trap doors on top of the instrument panel. And there were indeed more than just those listed in production lists from the factory. How do we know this? Easy. What few seem to know today is that there were two ways one could have had factory air in a 1955-1956 Packard: 1.) Installed on the assembly line 2.) Installed at the Packard dealer Of course nobody kept records on how many factory air kits were installed on V-8 Packards at the dealers. I do know that Earle C. Anthony's service guy once told me they had installed several of the kits in customer's cars, although they found it cheaper, easier and more profitable just to do an aftermarket installation-usually accomplished by sending the customer down the street to ARA or some similar place. They kept a factory A/C kit in stock at the L.A. dealership and one at the Beverly Hills dealership. ECA would never lose a sale because a customer wanted air in hot Los Angeles or Palm Springs (where EC happened to live for several years). They would simply sell the car and then install the air kit. For a 1955-1956 Caribbean convertible, they simply ordered a dealer kit from Detroit and voila! Installed factory air at the dealer. Either way, if you wanted air in your convertible, the quick & dirty aftermarket unit shoved into the trunk was not an option. So I suspect several convertibles ended up with dealer-installed factory air through the instrument panel...all of which is why Packard designed it that way. And it won't matter what the factory records say. There were indeed dealer kits. By the way... there is one very easy way to know if the factory air in your V-8 was line installed... or dealer installed...
Posted on: 2016/3/14 15:34
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Re: 1956 Caribbean with air conditioning
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Forum Ambassador
 
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Quote:
all of which is why Packard designed it that way. Do you know if Packard did all the design and fab work in house or did they do something like they did prewar and farm it out to a refrigeration company and someone else came up with the details. I realize there was not a lot of choices for component placement without serious mods to the dash and car and the fact they did it with only adding the vents and one hole in the stock dash is commendable. The airflow inside the box and blower location in particular seems like an afterthought though. Quote: By the way... there is one very easy way to know if the factory air in your V-8 was line installed... or dealer installed... Would that be the firewall reinforcement around the blower opening?
Posted on: 2016/3/14 15:46
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Howard
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Re: 1956 Caribbean with air conditioning
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Home away from home
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The evaporator core box that mounted under the instrument panel was developed (as I understand it) at the insistence of both James Nance and Earle C. Anthony. But we need to remember that the parameters for the space available, the design of the firewall... and the design layout of the ventilation system were all fixed by the fact that they already existed in the Briggs body design. And after all, the 1955 and 1956 Packards were still just a disguised older Briggs body. So yes, perhaps we can say that the V-8 air conditioning unit underpinnings were somewhat of an afterthought... but what else could they be? They had to work with the bones they were given. And yes... the flange on the firewall was attached differently for dealer-installed factory air units.
Posted on: 2016/3/14 15:56
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Re: 1956 Caribbean with air conditioning
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One deviation between the 54 Briggs body and the 55/56 body firewalls was the indent needed for the length motors. So this left a bit more room under the dash and a flatter firewall for the a/c setup.
Posted on: 2016/3/14 17:39
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-BigKev
1954 Packard Clipper Deluxe Touring Sedan -> Registry | Project Blog 1937 Packard 115-C Convertible Coupe -> Registry | Project Blog |
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