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And somewhere I read that Packard limited stick production to 5% so as to amortize the costs of the Ultra development and tooling.

Anyway, a 51-54 with stick and over is fast and fun and flexible. At least I have enjoyed all seven or eight that I have had.

The automotive press really didn't have much bad to say about the Ultramatic and the dealers supposedly didn't complain about it either. I don't have a time machine to go to a dealer in 1953 and demand a stick shift Patrician, but I see all kinds of goings on here in Detroit and, except for the fact that Packard was building two distinct blocks (which makes no sense), wouldn't be surprised if you could get that built as an OSM (on site modification). The long wait for ordered cars has me thinking that some of those manual orders started out as automatics with the parts shipped to an OSM facility where the conversions were made (thus the long wait). Production lines sometimes are cheaper to run that way.

Another interesting result is that the 59 Caddy with Hydramamtic will beat the 59 Imperial 413 with Torqueflite. I would never think that without seeing the test results, but that is what I found out.

Curious (since I have only driven ultramatics): How can you tell if a 48-54 manual shift has overdrive? Switch? body scrpit? soundtrack?

thanks.
Mike

Relay on the cowl or control knob under dash just to the right of the steering column are the easiest ways, short of crawling under the car.

trying to post a picture... like this?

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Like that.

The old cars with manual transmissions were designed to do the minimum amount of gear changing. High gear pulling from slow speed meant back then the car had a lot of power. Old slow turning high torque at low rpm engines with overdrive in town need very few gear changes 2nd gear and second gear overdrive are great. The over drive cars came with even lower axle ratios. Great fun to drive with overdrive.

Packard is very different from any modern car or English car with manual trans. Unlimited torque at all engine speeds, you can easily idle down in high gear to below 10 miles per hour, and accelerate to 100 without a buck.

Very little shifting required in normal driving. Once the car is warmed up you can easily start off in second and shift to high as soon as you are moving.

Tom McCahill, ace car tester at Mechanix Illustrated, reported in 1952 that Cadillac refused to sell cars with manual trans, then said their customers "demanded" automatics. He regarded this as an arrogant move on their part. He felt that a manual trans was better than automatic in many ways as it offered better control of the car, better mileage and better performance.

Packard's response was that they would continue to offer manual trans on all models as long as their customers wanted them.

McCahill applauded Packard for treating their customers like "free thinking Americans" not "prestige buying stooges".

So, if Packard sold a lot of manual trans cars it was because their customers bought manual trans cars, even though automatic was available on all models, and standard equipment on the most expensive.

Tom McCahill's own car was a 1950 Cadillac model 61 hardtop coupe with manual trans. This was Cadillac's smallest model, based on the B body usually seen on Oldsmobiles and Buicks. It was the last year for this model, and they only made 4 hardtops with manual trans. McCahill's and 3 they sold to sportsman Briggs Cunningham.

Cunningham entered 2 of them in the LeMans 24 hour race that year (yes, really). One with stock hardtop body, the other with a vast "streamlined" racing body designed by a Grumman engineer. They finished 10th and 11th.

The next year Cunningham came back with a sports car of his own manufacture, the first Cunningham racing cars.

So, Cadillac would build a manual trans car as late as 1950 if the customer wanted one. I believe they made Hydramatics only from 1951 on, and ceased to make manual trans cars.

Not sure, but I think Hydramatic had been standard equipment on Cadillac for several years, with manual trans an available option.

only about 50% of the 1954 regular Packard Convertibles had power windows. No 1954 Caribbeans were delivered with standard shift