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I was totally unaware of this, but thanks to this eBay auction, I now know that the Packard straight eights that they used in their cars were also used in PT boats!

I know that some of the Chris Craft boats used them. But I though the PT boats used the Merlin engines?

check this link about Packard PT engineshttp://www.ptboats.org/20-01-05-ptboat-008.html
Also this onehttp://www.pt-boat.com/packard/packard.html

The PT boats used three V-12 engines, some times referred to as Gar Wood types. These were derived from the Packard-powered racing boats of the '20s and '30s. They were not Merlins which were developed by Rolls Royce. Packard built about 55,000 of these during WW-II. The Merlins were primarily aircraft engines, but I believe a British tank was powered by one. There may have been other applications too including marine, but I am not sure.

The National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, TX has a nice display of an original PT boat fitted with four Packard engines. I'm not sure what engine it is exactly, but I was able to snap a picture of one that they had removed. Someone on here may be able to tell which engine it actually is.

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The guy conducting the tour procured the boat from a fisherman in New York, who had acquired it from the Navy after WWII. They drove the boat all the way from NY to Texas, and I believe it had all four original engines during that journey.

did any of the episodes of Mchall's Navy ever show the motor on their PT boat???

It should only have 3 engines, I believe.

You might be right Owen. I'm going off of memory here. I do remember him saying the boat itself was the last of it's kind surviving, but I don't remember the name of the manufacturer. I also seem to remember something about this particular build of boat being rare in the first place? I'm not sure if that would make any difference. If I'm up around the museum again, I'll ask and see what info I can find out.

Correction...I just found the info I was looking for and Owen was right. The boat is a Higgins class PT boat with 3 12-cylinder Packard engines. Here's the link with more pictures:http://www.nimitz-museum.org/virtualtours/ptboat/tourfiles/flash/index_fs.html

edit: Apparently the reason why this particular boat is one-of-a-kind is that it is the only known PT boat that survives today to have seen combat in WWII.

my dad knew a guy that owned a pt boat about 25 years ago. it had three packard v-12s, and the book PT 109 also decribes three packard v-12