Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Two more.

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The Maya '56

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Thanks everybody for a fantastic topic with personal anecdotes and pictures. I am constantly impressed with the quality of the topics, and the huge amount of information...some information is someone's recall that will now be exhibited on this forum and not lost to history. The Packard car is very, very fortunate to be represented by the aficionados
of this forum.

There are several photos of the Maya's beautiful '56 Carribbean Convertible and many more Caribbean Convertibles and Hardtops on this website in the "Packard Photo Archive". Including all models, there are 261 photos of 1955 and 296 photos of 1956 cars in the Archive. If you have not made the time to browse, enjoy the photos sometime.

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Great to know. Thanks.

But as I stated, how does one see such things? And for the uninitiated who want to learn about the cars (or do restorations), how does one get to know such information? I'm talking about the tops, of course.

Certainly a few of us know where originals may be... and whether these truly are originals (I've seen lots of tops claimed to be original on Caribbeans that absolutely were not...and this includes 1953 and 1954 too!).

Let's see the top on this Caribbean??

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Yes, I'm aware. But I'm specifically talking about the original OEM Caribbean convertible tops here rather than pics of whole cars. I've been watching and photographing Caribbeans since they were new. So I have a lot of photos and a very good set of records and a roster of information.

In the 1970s I created a thing I called "The Caribbean Roster" and it was advertised in many of the major old car publications. Via the Roster (my own thing, not a club operation) I collected a very large amount of information on Caribbeans that existed back then and as many records as I could on when they were new, etc. The Roster even had its own logo. Of course a huge amount of these cars have been sold, sold, and re-sold since those days. Some have been scrapped or just plain disappeared.

However, I was surprised to see a 1956 Caribbean at Pebble Beach. Somehow I missed that one... as I have missed attending Pebble or keeping up with the show for several years now.

Thanks.

mlgrimes,

Do you have the url for that Packard Photo Archive website? I couldn't find it.

thanks,
joe

Joe, I took Mike to mean the Packard Photo Archive that is part of this website. Just select it from the menu bar on the left, and then select the year you are interested in.

The wife & I were at the annual meeting of Packard International (Feb. 2019) and Bill & Kim Maya were there. He told the story about his experience with their '56 Caribbean at Pebble Beach. He had the car detailed and given the once over at Custom Auto Services (CAS) in Santa Ann prior to the show. Because he didn't want the car to get dirty he had a car hauler move it from Santa Ana to his home. He had the car trailered to Pebble Beach. Once it arrived several days in advance of the 17 mile drive, the car would not go into reverse and there it sat in the hauler's trailer as a multitude of mechanics tried to get it to back up. Robert Escalante at CSA had a part FedEx to him in Monterey. The part partially worked. From a fresh start it would go into reverse, but once you went forward, reverse would not work until the car was turned off. He missed being able to make the 17 Mile Drive, but did manage to get to the grounds for staging. However, on the short drive there, the brakes on the car quit working. Now he is in line waiting to be directed as to where the car is to be displayed knowing the brakes on the car don't work and reverse is very questionable. He is faced with driving down a inclining grassy hill knowing very well that if he misses the spot that he might not be able to stop there or backup to re-position may be impossible or worse yet hitting another car.

Bottom Line: The car, with help from a friend, was positioned correctly without over shooting the spot and both Bill & Kim had a great time.

Good Morning Marston...Do you think that the poor Packard spent too much time being carried around and not enough time under its own power? I know if Miss Prudence sits for more than a week...she is most definitely grumpy! Ernie in Arizona