Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

dretceterini -

Welcome! Glad you found the Registry here and added your car.

Two of the '56 Pats listed are mine, but neither are restored or in roadworthy condition at present. I'm hoing to get one of 'em back on the road next summer (tired of going to the annual Warren, OH meet in a Brand X car), but it's a tall order.

When it comes to the number of Packards registered registered here, know that this site isn't even two years old. It's amazing how much info has been added in that time (with more to come), but the Registry feature was only introduced this year, IIRC.

Yet, even the formal Packard clubs don't have count of all the surviving Packards. These cars keep coming out from under the woodwork, but some owners are rather private about their cars. As such, I'm glad BigKev saw fit to design this Registry to let people decide what info they wanna include.

The problem I've had with Packard clubs collecting data on cars is that the general membership see so little results from it. I knew enough not to give info to people who came across like "snake oil salesmen" and likley collecting it for profit, but I often wonder just what the formal clubs are doing with all the info they have on individual cars.

As membership grows at this open-minded site, more cars will be listed in this Registry, and I think a lot more good will come from just having that info displayed here than in some private club roster that is "hermetically-sealed in a jar of mayonnaise."

Dretcetereini: The picture of the Moretti 750 Zagato you posted is nice. The coach work of the 750 has the general lines of what Zagato offered from the 50's through the early 60's. The coach work by Zagato is very interesting. Having said that I find the car rather uninspiring since the engine is Fiat, and possibly the drive train being Fiat.

John F. Shireman

A question for the good doctor. Why did you choose to buy the '56 Patrician given your interest in '56 Nash Ambassadors and the Italian sports car bent?

Hi, dr,

From 750cc and 1200# to 6200cc and 4600#. Try to find a unifying theory in that!

thnx, jv

I bought the Packard at a good price that made it impossible to pass on. It needs very little.

Some very minor body repair and a good cleaning, and it will be in superb daily driver condition, and almost "show" condition..

I have NO intent to turn it into a garage queen..

The car is at the transmission shop at the moment getting serviced.


Part of the reason I bought the car is because it is the first big American "boat" I've ever had. As far as big American "boats", nothing is going to beat Packard on quality.

The 1952-1956 Nash Ambassadors interest me mainly due to the fact that Pininfarina designed the coachwork. I'm sure they are VASTLY underpowered with the 6, and just adequate with the V8...

As to:
[quote Jack Vines]From 750cc and 1200# to 6200cc and 4600#. Try to find a unifying theory in that![/quote]

As to a unifying theory; The horsepower to weight ratio isn't all that different. 290hp at 4255 pounds=14.67:1
vs 70 hp at 1200 pounds=17.4:1

Dear dr,

as if straight line acceleration was the reason you love eceterini above all other automobili? then we might accept the power-to-weight ratio was the common denominator.

as mentioned in my earlier post, love needs no logic.

thnx, jv.

Cars are in my blood. My father was a panel-beater on the Mercedes pre-WW2 grand prix car team. As he was German Jewish, he moved to Switzerland, where he met my mother (who was Roman-Catholic Italain), and where I was born.

My cousin (we called him uncle as he was much older) was Count Giovanni "Johnny" Lurani, the 1920s-1930s sports car and GP car racer, and journalist, on my mother's side of the family.

I think part of my "thing" about "etceterini" is the underdog factor, plus the fact that these are all hand-crafted cars. Many are one-of-a-kind. They are kind of like American hot rodas, but built for road rather than drag racing or LSR racing at places like Bonneville.

An 1100cc Fiat based "special" actually came in 2nd overall in the 1948 Mille Miglia, just behind a bigger engined Ferrari Tipo 166!

Many times these silly little "specials" with only 750 to 1100cc engines beat cars with much larger engines in the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio, and in other races, including LeMans...

No, the engine isn't Fiat in the Moretti 750 Zagato. It is a special light alloy Moretti twin-overhead camshaft 4 cylinder with two 2bbl sidedraft Weber carbs, and about 70 horsepower in a car that weighs about 1200 pounds. Moretti only built about 40 cars with this engine in the early to mid-1950s. Only 2 had Zagato coachwork. Most of the cars were open spiders.

dr: I stand corrected that the engine wasn't a Fiat unit.
I myself while not a leading authority on Italian races cars like yourself, however I have pretty fair knowledge of the Italian car industry.

The engine powering the Moretti, I am very certain Moretti had help from Fiat in designing and building the engine.
The engine started out life as the 600 which was actually 592cc in displacement, with a bore of 57 mm and a stroke of 56 mm. The compression ratio was 7.0:1. The engine for the 750 I believe was as we say here a hot rodded version
of the 600 engine. The 750 engine was actually 747cc with a bore of 60mm and a stroke of 66mm and a compression ratio of 7:1 or 7.5:1. With a compression ratio of 7.0:1 the engine was rated at 51 to 52 horsepower at 6000 rpm. The engine with a compression ratio of 7.5:1 was rated at 58 horsepower at 7000 rpms with twin carbs. So I am very sure that with more modifications that 70 horsepower rating for racing version of the 750 is a very creditable figure.

Here is a question for you. Moretti was imported into the USA between the years of 1950 and 1960. There were two distributors in the USA. Can you name them?

John F. Shireman

dr: Funny that you should make mention of the 1948 Mille Miglia. I am certain one of the drivers racing a Ferrari in the 1948 MM, was the greatest Italian racing driver of them all, Tazio Giorgio Nuvolari. Whose uncle Giuseppe was a distributor for Biachi automobiles.

John F. Shireman