Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

While sitting at dinner tonight at the PI Meet, I was talking to a gentleman that was the former National Directory/President of PI, and also writes many of the articles that are in the PI publications. He has a '53 Clipper and proceeds to tell me about his car. It has factory A/C and a few other rare factory options. He has owned the car for over 30 years. About 8 years ago, the Ultramatic went out, and he took it to a Packard repair shop on Oceanside, CA (the shop is now closed, gentleman retired). The repair shop gave him two options. Rebuild the Ultra with the NOS parts they had in stock, or use a '98 Mercedes 3 speed automatic. So I am thinking that they cobbled together some kind of adapter kit. The the story gets more interesting. From what this gentleman told me, (confirmed by another gentleman that knows of 2 or 3 more of these conversions). It still uses the Ultramatic case but uses Mercedes inards. Now he was not sure what they did to the inside of Ultra with the 96ish Mercedes parts. But all he know is that now he has a 3 speed automatic (with a passing gear as he descibed it), and it is entirely done inside the original Ultramatic case. He said when he got the '53 car back it was night at day on the highway. He descibed it was just like driving a car with a modern automatic.

So as unbelieveable as this all sounds.... I am going to try to get to see this car and see exactly what was done to it.

Has anyone else heard of such a thing?

News to me, but it sounds like an expensive proposition if it is even possible. I suppose it IS possible, but whomever figured this out if true has to be a mechanical genius.

I've never heard of that mod but sounds interesting & sure hope you or someone familiar with the other drivers with the mod can find more out about it. What little research so far indicated all 98 trans were 5 speed so curious about the year as a start.

The shop almost had to be Bryan Packard Repair & was unaware & sorry they closed. A decent shop. The last PI meet I attended they exhibited a late 30's Packard with a nicely done 56 V8 & I think Ultra conversion installed. Talk about shoehorn, tight quarters & limited engine room.

I spoke to a couple other folks about it, and they think it may not be as dramatic a conversion as I was first told. Something about perhaps just using the mercedes Torque converter and clutch disks,and perhaps a couple of other internal replacement parts. I will try to get to the bottom of this either way. The gentleman that told me the story admitted that he was not a nuts and bolts type, and farmed out his all of his repair work. So all he knows us what the shop told him, but that was several years ago. So he doesnt know exactly what they did. He remebers the mechanic saying that he used parts from a '96ish (or somehwere in the surronding years) Mercedes automatic.

Howard, you are correct. That was the name of the shop in Oceanside.

Don't see how this could be possible. If you study a 2 speed auto like an Ultramatic, and compare it to any 3 speed, you will see the case of the 3 speed is much longer. The guts of the transmission contains two planetary gear sets instead of 1. There just isn't room in an Ultramatic case for more gears.

Plus you are talking about using metric parts in an inch case. They are designed with 2 completely different measuring systems. The chance of parts interchanging from one to the other without machine work is practically nil.

I would love to be proven wrong. I get a kick out of wild ideas. But until I hear more details my guess is that it's just a pipe dream.

I know some machine work had to be done, and there was some kind of spline adapter made. Thats is all the gentleman could tell me.

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Very interesting. I have been trying to locate the shop that did a rebuild on my '53 Caribbean when it was with the previous owner. Cal over at Custom Auto thought it was someone named John over in Oceanside. Could the name of the shop owner been John Bryan? If so, does anyone have his contact info?

I'm with Rusty on this one, the more I think about it, there's no way to squeeze more gears into the trans case. This is the reason why I was thinking of adding an overdrive unit to the back of the Ultramatic, no room to put it inside. HOWEVER, if the Mercedes gears are smaller and thinner than the Packard gears, then it's possible. But I think if that's the case, then the trans would be really weak, and the gears couldn't handle the torque of the Packard V8.

Thoughts?

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When I was trying to find out more information on this Mercedes transmission, I heard that Bryan closed the shop (confirmed) and now lives in Hawaii (unconfirmed).

Because the gentleman that told me the story was not a 'Nut and Bolts" guy as he told me, I am thinking more and more that perhaps that only the torque convertor and something with the clutch discs were changed. Perhaps his preception of "3-speeds" was incorrect. He did mention that nothing changes on the gear selector, so if that is the case, then I dont see how the internal gear arrangement would have changed. So what difference would a Mid 90s Merceds torque convertor made to the Ultramatic? The fact a spline adapter was made makes he thing this is what happened.

It sounded like fantasy when I first heard the story, but the fact a couple other guys said they know of similar conversions out of the Oceanside shop before it closed makes believe it did happen. Just wondering how much or little was done or changed out.

I anyone knows John Bryan, I would like to discuss this with him as it would be interesting to see if there are performance gains from this.

Thoughts?