I find it interesting that you had a nightmare. 55 and 56 were virtually identical. We had troublle with the transmission on our 55 Caribbean convertible, as did everyone, but other than that, it was a wonderful and reliable car. Maintenance was rather routine with a water pump that was easy to change, brake shoes and wheel cylinder kits and an occasional OZ4 tube in that wonderful Delco Radio. I did pretty much all of the maintenance myself as a teen-ager, which made dad pretty happy!

Oh! It did manage to throw the harmonic balancer once, but so did my 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee...

I do recall that those unfortunate enough to have the push button transmission had LOTS of problems.

I was lucky enough to have obtained the factory service manual. I think part of the problems people experienced was that with the failure of the company, and no more dealerships, there were few shops that knew what they were doing when it came to maintenance.

A 55 Patrician and a 56 Clipper Deluxe were later added to the family fleet.
These were out daily drivers in the 60's and early 70's.

The last two photos in the link to the start of the article are Lincoln Mark bodies. Just before the last coffin nail Packard was working with Ford for their bodies. (ehw:freak:) The new Fordard or is it Packford.

I love how back in the day American built the best cars in the world. A pre war Packard was just as good if not better than anything Europe made.

Cadillac and Duesenburg were just as good as anything Rolls Royce or Mercedes made before WW2. They certianly were more advanced than Mercedes.

Remember even the big blown 540k's only had a bit more than 1/3 the power a blown Duesenburg had. Mercedes also didn't have a V12 or V16, GM and Packard did.

540k 1/3 the power of a duesie? That seems unlikely.

The Lowey coupes were the best looking the first year...53. My dad had one back when it was a couple of years old. Great styling, not equalled until decades later. Lousey brakes and nose heavy with the v8 though.

At the Hershey AACA Fall meet a few years ago, I saw a Dusenberg rolling chassis. What caught my eye were the rag joints in the driveline--just like used on my 300SD.

Ok maybe not quite, I think it was 320 vs 180.:D

I tried to find more info about the power and performance of the two cars and found hard facts hard to come by.

Most 540s were big sedans or cabrios made more for touring than high speed, but there were short wheelbase 2 seaters which were raced extensively, the fastest being the 540sskl which was supercharged, lightweight and short wheelbase. I read one place where they were capable of over 130 mph.

Most Duesies were also road cars but there were a small number that were more performance oreinted as well, though the racing was more likely to be done by pure open wheel racing cars with Duesie engines like at Indy where a number of different configurations of engines were built.

I believe the performance of the fastest Mercedes and Duesies was very similar. In fact there was a very famous Mercedes owned by Zeppo Marx (one of the Marx brothers comedy team) which participated in a match race at Muroc dry lake against a Duesie. The Duesie won but the driver and mechanic of Zeppo's 540k swore that it was because he could not get the right spark plugs for the Mercedes and that the Mercedes was the better car.

I think the 540sskl was probably a lot lighter than a ssj Duesie. The merecedes was raced on road courses at a time when in the US circle track racing was the dominant form of racing and non existant in Europe so they had different empahsis in their design.

Both superb cars, both the best at what they were built for.

A little general history on Duesenburg. Fred and Augie just wanted to race. They had their own high end car make to fund their race ventures, but the company was failing although the cars were great. For example at the museum there is a 1926 model A Duesenburg. It has 4 wheel hydraulic brakes and 88HP from only 289cu in. Back then that was a lot of power and made even more impressive that it came from such small displacement. But, then realize that this is a make from two men absorbed with racing. The price on this car was $6500 which is roughly $76,000 today. For comparison at the same time you could get a Model T for $300.

Both the Model A and Model J Duesenburg I8 engines have one feature in common. The valve covers are held on my large threaded knobs for quick access to the valve train.

Here is a puzzler for you to figure out. Next time you see a Model J look for the brake line that supplys the front brake cylinders.....you woun't find any......:D

As advanced as Duesenburgs were Packards were slow to change.....don't fix what ain't broke...
To me the best example of this is Packard's approach to 4 wheel brakes. At the time when companies started going to 4 wheel mechanical brakes Packard resisted. The primary arguments were first, most driving that is done is not at speeds that necessitate the addition of brakes at the front wheels and second, many of the 4 wheel brake systems that were available were troublesome resulting not not providing much benefit.

This resistance did not make the dealers happy because sales were being lost. Finally, after complaints from the dealers the company decided to develop a 4 wheel brake system, but the car was it had to be perfect. By the time Packard introduced 4 wheel mechanical brakes it was not much time until Chrysler (at a much lower price) introduced 4 wheel hydraulic brakes. Now Packard at least by appearance is behind the next technology wave. Everything that I have read on Packard states that their 4 wheel mechanical brakes were so much better than other makes.

Check out this video from Jay Leno
http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/video_player.shtml?vid=188063
Pay attention to his comments about the mechanical brakes on this 1932 Packard. And automatic clutch, too.:D
I would love to have a Packard.