Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

I can say with certainty that there was never such a brace on my car....and it also did not have the hood support.

Are you saying your 55 Caribbean hood will safely stay open without a support rod? If so, has it perhaps been replaced with a 56 hood which did not have nor require the support?

My Caribbean is the same color as the one being discussed. My sun vis0r is white and the lower color being dark green or I believe "Emerald" Is it possible that it was color code dependent on what color was used.

Owen- My car did not have the hood support when I bought it. There was not a lot of the original car worth saving, but the radiator support was in place and original to the car and there was no indication of the car having had the support rod nor any opening in the bottom of the hood for the rod.
For the sake of safety, I purchased a hood rod assembly from Merritt and installed it.
The springs will hold the hood open without the rod, but I would not trust it to stay up there particularly if exposed to a gust of wind . The hood is a 55 unit with the leaded scoops.

That is interesting. If Leeedy comes along and sees this he should be able to tell us if either or both of those features were on the Jean Peters/Howard Hughes 55 Carib, as I recall that car is #108 and has been quite thoroughly photo-documented and pretty much untouched since the day it was delivered, still less than 1000 miles as I recall. I'm going to shoot him off an email and ask him directly.

UPDATE: Just had a email from Leeedy. The Jean Peters 55 Carib (#108) does not have a hood prop rod. Leeedy's belief is that (my assumption -up until the running change was made to include them) they were not factory installed but rather done so at the request of the dealer or owner. A bit curious perhaps that no notice was made of the hood prop in either the TSBs or Service Counselors (or was there one that I have forgotten?).

Ewrecks,
I own 5588-1035, and my car does have a hood prop.
However,
1035 was serverly damaged and repaired. The entire right side of the car was replaced, the cowl was damaged and leaded back. A 56 Caribbean engine was put in replacing the original 55 Caribbean engine.
So,
Maybe it did or did not start off with the prop. There was not a trunk brace in this car.

I have never seen a hole for the hood pro prop either.

The sun visor was the lighter green, jade, not the darker emeral metallic. Maybe that was the color used on 56 Caribbean trim codes 93 and 293?

Correcting my prior error which is in more than 1 post of this thread.

The Jean Peters/Howard Hughes 55 Carib is car #8 (5588-1008), not #108 as previously posted.

I pulled two photos from my archives which I will try to download in the hope that they will answer some questions. The one shot shows the sunvisors at the time I acquired the car. I assume that they were original to the car. The colors were the white with the darker ( Jade) secondary color rather than the lighter middle color.
The second shot is a shot of the spare tire well. There is no indication that there was ever a brace.
I am still looking for photos of the front of the engine compartment showing no hood support.

Owen or Big Kev-.Please provide quick primer for adding photos to photo,archives or attaching photo to Forum reply.
I pulled some shots to post regarding this issue but cannot figure out how to download. I have a number of shots of the Howard Hughes/Peters car for the archives.
I am familiar with your sizing policy.
Thanks
RJR

Check the FAQs section to the left ( <-- ). It gives instruction on how to Post photos and the requirements for those Photos.