Jay Leno’s Garage - 1955 Packard Caribbean

[kscarbel2]

 

[mrsmackpaul]

That is quite the car, pretty sure Packard made a copy of the Rollsroyce Merlin during WW2 for the PT boats and no doubt other things as well 

And it was a lot more reliable than the Rolla I seem to recall reading once

 

Paul

[kscarbel2]

2 hours ago, mrsmackpaul said:

That is quite the car, pretty sure Packard made a copy of the Rolls Royce Merlin during WW2 for the PT boats and no doubt other things as well 

And it was a lot more reliable than the Rolla I seem to recall reading once

Paul

With the exception of the experimental PT boats, all U.S. PT boats were powered by three marine modified derivations of the Packard 3A-2500 V-12 liquid-cooled, gasoline-fueled aircraft engine. Improvements upon Packard's World War I Liberty L-12 2A engine, the successive "M" for "marine" designated 3M-2500, 4M-2500, and 5M-2500 generations all featured slight changes and more power. Their superchargers, intercoolers, dual magnetos, and two spark plugs per cylinder reflected their aircraft origins.

Packard's licensed manufacture of the famed Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine alongside the marine 4M-2500 has long been a source of confusion. Only the British built PT-9 prototype boat brought from England for Elco to examine and copy featured a Merlin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PT_boat

[Dirtymilkman]

My grandfather was actually a Packard dealer. He sold out in the 50's when they started using other engines. I think he said chevrolet engines. He said he thought it cheapened them up to much. 

[h67st]

I watched a video about the torsion bar suspension on these; the front and rear wheels are hooked to the same bar so the car "floats" over bumps instead of pitching and rolling...really interesting.