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Interesting piece of new information today courtesy of Mr. Ole Book's recent trip to Sweden and his examination of a 1955 Patrician originally purchased by the Swedish Air Force as a courtesy car for dignitaries.

This car, 5582-1012, has the highest known thief-proof number for any V8 (both 1955 & 1956) vehicle, coupled with a very low vehicle number. Curiously, the now next-highest number is also found on a 1955 Patrician, #1003, also a very early car. Note that these thief-proof numbers are FAR higher (by about 10,000) than any found on any 1956 vehicle.

We can ponder the interpretation of this; one would be that all the 4-door sedan senior bodies were built in 1955, stored and retrieved for final assembly in a last-in, first out sequence. Other intrepretations are possible of course - any thoughts? For example, the cowl stampings rather than body tubs might have been stamped/numbered and inventoried last-in, first-out. You might want to read the two articles in TPC on the research of these numbers for background first. I'd certainly appreciate any speculation.

Maybe 1955 stampings were started with a higher number sequence and later went back to the earlier numbers.
It would seem logical to assume that the numbers were stamped in sequence, but this may not have been the case, especially in 1955 with the change back to Packard produced bodies rather than Briggs.

Thanks for the thought and for taking the time - certainly anything is possible. It's a shame so few V8 owners have been willing to share their BDN and VN data - having a lot more might help our understanding.

Has the thief proof numbers been analyzed against any new car oreder numbers???? Order numbers that would appeared on the actual order that was filled out for the car or the MSO. Original orders and MSO's are probably very rare to obtain.

At this point i'm more inclined to believe that the thief proof numbers must have some corelation to the VN. PMCC porbably used somekind of translation formulae to generate the theif proof number from the VN or engine number.

A variation on FIFO or LIFO of the numbers could have been an establishment of upper and lower bound for a sequence of numbers alternating from lowest to highest toward the center.

e.g.: Consider a ONE digit TP numnber and ONE digit VN.
A range is picked from 1 to 10. 1 the lowest, 10 the highest.

Then as the cars come sequentialy off of the line they have TP numbers 10,1,9,2,8,3,7,4,6,5. But have VN's as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.

VN 1 has TP 10
VN 2 has TP 1
VN 3 has TP 9
VN 4 has TP 2
Vn 5 has TP 8 and so on.

It is also possible that the range of TP numbers was picked excessively high. That would eleminate the use of any mode interval numbers near the center of the sequence.

In the above example TP numbers 4,5 and 6 may have never occured if only 6 or 7 cars were produced.

Has the thief proof numbers been analyzed against any new car oreder numbers????

No. No data on "new car order numbers", whatever that is.

At this point i'm more inclined to believe that the thief proof numbers must have some corelation to the VN. PMCC porbably used somekind of translation formulae to generate the theif proof number from the VN or engine number.

Apparently not. Thief-proof numbers were probably stamped when the cowl was stamped, or when the panels were assembled to manufacture the body tub. The VN was most likely assigned as the vehicle production order was placed.

I'll send you some raw data if you want to play around with it.

Analyzing any identification numbering system especialy those before the standardized VIN was adopted can generate many ambiguities.

Manufacturers mite have started out VN's or ANY identifiction number excessively high or skipped large intervals of numbers for the sole purpose of fooling the competition, dealers, investors, et-al into thinking they had produced/sold a great many more units than actual.

It's called keeping two sets of books. EVERY business does it. Legal or not.

"The VN was assigned as the vehicles were manufactured."

True. But the VN's were sequentialy matched to each car as they came sequentialy off of the line??? No??

SO VN 1 would have been the first car off of the line followed by VN 2 as the second car followed by VN 3 and so on.

55/56 are the only years in which this randomness is observed. All others years have data which is generally predictable and logical.

The suggestion that Packard played games to fool competitors or the public or investors by playing with a number that was essentially little understood and generally ignored seems dubious at best. There was no mystery within the industry about how many cars Packard was producing.

True. But the VN's were sequentialy matched to each car as they came sequentialy off of the line??? No??

Seems to be true though not with absolute precision with the exception of RHD and commercial vehicles like Henneys, etc. though a "B" or "C" car that was reordered with changes might be out of sequence.

Again, if you want the raw data, PM me with your email and you can take a shot at it. We could go own for a hundred posts this way.

Owen writes:

"55/56 are the only years in which this randomness is observed."

Thank you. I was not aware that the randomness applied only to 55/56.

Also thanks for the offer of some numbers to look at. Unfortunatly my jack legged computer does not open or download attachments or data with any reliability. I even have trouble with disks loading.

Thanks for thinking about it. I'm guessing you didn't read either of the two articles in TPC about it, so let me give you a super-brief background.

Body dash numbers began in 1929, perhaps with 000001 but the lowest we know of is 000050. They progressed, more or less in order but with special blocks of #s reserved in some years, for example early juniors. There are some overlaps, for example when they produced the 21st and 22nd series concurrently. They reached 990,621 in 1950, and perhaps 999,999. Then rather than go to 7 digits, they retained 6 characters but substituted an alpha prefix for the first digit, starting with A. The A series ("A" followed by 5 digits) was completed and the B series began in 1951. The B series continued into 1953 which also began the C series. All 1954s are C series. The V8 era began with the C series and ended with the D series. South Bend-built Packards did not use thief-proof numbers.

Where we have data for consecutively vehicle-numbered cars of the same chassis and body style, there is not a precise 1-to-1 correspondence of vehicle number, body dash number, and motor number, though they are normally VERY close to each other, with the exception as I noted before of RHD cars, customs like Dietrichs, etc., commercial cars like Henneys, etc.

If you'd like a copy of the two articles, PM me your mailing address and I'll xerox for you.

PS - But I do believe the randomness of the 55/56 data may very well be attributed to difficulties and chaos Packard encountered taking back the body business from Briggs. There are also a few strange anomolies in late 1940 when Packard apparently started transfering the body-building business to Briggs.