Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Personally i find it nearly impossible from a sales and customer satisfaction stand point that Packard would not have built at least a few factory equiped stick shift cars in ALL models, overdrive or no overdrive. Ditto for for standard brakes.

Doesn't the Studebaker Museum have the bill of ladings for the 56 Packards? I was able to get the one for my Patrician and it shows that my car originally came with the push button shift. If we can find a 56 that the owner says was not converted to stick, we can send for the "in transit in lieu of bill of lading" that shows the correct codes for the car.

Yes, it's been proven (not just an urban legend) that Packard would deviate from the standard fare to make a sale for a customer that had enough clout (or was sufficiently persistent).

I strongly suspect that such accommodations would have been documented in a special file that was cross-referenced to the production order. Though it doesn't appear that the request files survived the pillaging of 1956, production records for most of the 56th Series models do survive in the hands of the Studebaker Museum. IIRC, Roscoe has the records for the Caribbean and Four Hundred models.

About a year ago, Randy Berger acquired a '56 Patrician with special interior trim and two-tone exterior paint using Tangier Red, which was otherwise only available on the Clipper (and Executive) line. Jump into the middle of the 56 Patrician bought off ebay thread for the full details, and you'll see what I mean.

Meanwhile, if any owner with a '56 Senior model with factory-installed standard and/or overdrive has purchased a copy of the production order, please share a scan, here, for our review.

"if any owner with a '56 Senior model with factory-installed standard and/or overdrive has purchased a copy of the production order, please share a scan, here, for our review."

Of course that would be great!
However i thinking more along the lines of who ever has the collection of documentation mite go thru it and count how many Sr's were built with sticks. Just a number. Not necessarily specific VN's necessary. Get a percentage.

I can't speak for Roscoe, but I don't think you'd get an extract of such info from the museum's files without paying a research fee.

What I was looking for is how the factory coded for manual shift transmission on the Seniors, when Twin Ultra (GS) was standard equipment. Since manual shift was standard equipment on Clippers, their production orders would only show OD and only when the optional ovedrive were ordered.

I suppose there would be an MS in the string of characters - followed immediately by OD, if overdrive was specified. Of course, that doesn't tell us the full story - how they presented and priced it to dealers for ordering.

I looked thru the "build sheets" for 5687 73 are missing 5697 9 are missing and 5699 9 are missing and find no MT listed only PB listed on the 5687's where push button was ordered.
Most of the records consists of 2 copies. Car Production order and the In Transit in lieu of bill of lading. However there are some of the In Transit in lieu of bill of lading's missing. As you can see in these two scans there sometimes is a difference between the car production order and the bill of lading. The color was changed from GM to GMC FD LS RUA and Req 100 was added. At least in this case someone listed what that was "Caribbean hood and side treatment". It seems whenever there is a Req number there is non standard trim or paint

2357 is an interesting export

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Thanks much for taking the time to search thru your records. I'm not surprised that there were no MT-equipped cars among the 5687s and 5697/5699s. It would be nice to have a similar review of the 5682s to complete the picture.

5687-3712 was a re-ordered (B) car, correct?

I do not have any documentation on it being a reordered car

Does this mean with or without Twin Ultramatic on everything but 5697-99

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A question. What is the difference between taxable horsepower and brake or actual or advertised? Is it a displacement thing? I see they are listed as being the same in the second document with same displacement but Packards advertised (brake, I think) was different with the dual carb.