What a wonderful car, breath taking, my folks had a 56 super clipperthey bought from Wass motors in Mineola NY, that torsion bar suspension was super my old man literally transported a rock garden in the track to watch it come back was so freaking cool...just think the torsion bar system was originally designed by Ferdinand Porsche for the Tiger Tank... Your Car is awesome! I wish l had that 56 my folks had ! THANKS SO MUCH
Great car. My brother had one the same color in 1968. His new wife and he loaded all they owned in it and drove to Oklahoma. When they unloaded everything from it, the load leveling system malfunctioned, never lowered back down to the normal adjustment. He traded for something else. I really liked it. I was 12 years old at the time.
I had some torsion level issues when I first bought the Patrician. Back in the day if you were lucky, you would find a mechanic in the area that could properly diagnose and fix the problem. If not, then you had to get your hands on a service manual to educate and troubleshoot it yourself and if you couldn't do that then I guess like your brother you traded it for something else. Luckily today there are a number of 'Packard' sites online that provide valuable diagnostic, repair and resource information for almost any problem you may have and which is what I used to fix the problem I had with the torsion level.
The transmission on this car is a heavy duty 2 speed automatic in which these mighty V8s would eventually break in 2. Too powerful for this engine. Packard would have been better off using GM's 4 speed Hydramatic or the TURBO DRIVE 3 Speed Automatic Transmission used on the Lincolns & Continentals in which these Packard engines would exhibit their full power potential. I mean the engines have way too much power and torque for Packard's Twin Ultramatic Transmission. If Packard were to survive longer they eventually would have developed their own 3 Speed Automatic Transmission.
