What is a Clipper? Let's step back in Time!

welcome to budget outlaws my name is andrew and this is my very different budget outlaw this is a 1956 clipper custom hard top with 29 000 original miles and this one is bone stock [Music] well it's a lot different than most other 56 american cars and mainly because there wasn't very many of them built this is actually built by packard and packard separated out the clipper line in 56 only and clipper was a sub-tier of their more senior lines their executive and their caribbean car but it really was a fantastic car now this was going after the mid-tier market in hopes of saving the packard brand but unfortunately that didn't happen and 56 was the last year for the packard it was also the last year for the clipper so how many of these were made well clipper there was about 18 000 clippers made in regards to this particular car which is a custom hard top two-door hardtop there was 1460 made most people when they want to buy a 50s car nowadays they want to get like a tri-five chevy a 55 56 57 chevy bel air nomad 210 or other similar cars and they want that because those are one of the most popular cars of the 50s era to modify due to a lot of different reasons but uh there's a lot of parts for them this car is cool just the way it is and that's for three main reasons the engine the transmission and the suspension and we're going to go into that today so packard spent millions in development of this car the transmission alone they spent seven million dollars in development to be able to build something that was lighter and handled more power than the automatic transmissions of the day this is basically a ultimatic is what packard called it the two-speed transmission and it used lots of different valves and whatnot but the biggest thing that made this transmission important and different was it was the first transmission that was completely made out of aluminum that saved about 90 pounds and on a car this big and heavy that's a lot of weight so was it able to handle the power well that leads us into the next thing that this car was special for and that was the v8 so let's take a look at that motor so packard spent big money developing this v8 engine their iconic straight eight was due for a refresh and they had taken that engine as far as they could and this was their replacement they had a 320 cubic inch v8 a 352 which is in this car right here and a 374. the 320 was put in the junior line and the clipper line the lower end clipper lines the 352 was in the 55 senior line the executive and the caribbean and then also the in 56 they put it in the clipper and then the 374 was put in the senior executive and caribbean 456 only the 320 made 225 horsepower the 352 made 275 horsepower and the big daddy 374 made 310 horsepower making them one of the most powerful engines in detroit now the interesting thing about these engines is that packard built them with a five inch bore spacing between the cylinders making it so that they could build the engines bigger up to 500 inches was planned for this engine so it's interesting that they spent so much time and money in development for making this what could have been essentially a big block very interesting and it goes pretty good this is a very pretty car and i particularly love the color the tail lights and the little things about the car on the body if you look at the front end there's one thing that you notice primarily and that's the ample amount of chrome that packard used the headlights are wrapped in chrome there's a solid piece of chrome all the way from one end to the other end and the entire grille from one indicator to the other is just chrome it is a very good looking front end the other thing that's very good looking about the front end is this bumper and they have these uh dagmars that were called so because of a very famous actress of the time that let's move on uh the other thing that you notice is this hood ornament now packard had a lot of different hood ornaments throughout their entire line of cars but one of the common themes that they had was either a woman or somebody holding out a globe in the front of the car and if you look at this hood ornament you kind of get that sense that there is something holding this globe all the way out to the front of the car we see the clipper insignia here and then the only real logo for clipper which is this lovely ship wheel this is used many times throughout the car and it is a fantastic looking logo let's go ahead and move on one of the things that differentiates the clipper line from the senior line as the senior line had a very masculine hood and it had this almost hood scoop that went all the way across it was non-functional it was entirely made out of lead so it added an unknown i don't know somebody does amount of weight to the front end of the car which was already very very heavy so i like the clipper better let's go ahead and keep moving around if we look down the middle of the car we have this body line that separates us and in this car we have this gorgeous cream on the on the top and then the body line is also of the cream the main portion of the body is this lovely teal now this car was in stock this color this was a factory color combination just not for this particular car somebody painted it and i think they did a good choice so we see on the front these red steel wheels with these lovely hubcaps that again have this clipper logo and also the custom badge up front now if we keep moving back we see this mirror that doesn't really do anything it's almost impossible to see out of that one does something this one almost nothing a lovely curved windshield that whenever you look through the front it kind of warps your perspective a little bit it's very interesting but very cool as we keep going back we see what makes this a hard top and that is there is no b pillar the b pillar is technically back here but instead of there being a post right here it's completely open all the way through as if you're in a convertible but in reality you have this lovely hard top keep going back and we have this lovely lovely body um extension for the rear and it's it's huge it's absolutely huge my arm span is six foot and it's larger than six foot keep going back we see this huge chrome that is absolutely lovely and shows us again the clipper logo and finally we get to the back of the car which is arguably one of the prettiest parts of the car definitely one of my favorites and just look at it it's gorgeous we have again the ship logo on the back there's bumpers that suck into the body and the exhaust completely encapsulated by by the rear bumpers but most importantly we have these tail lights these tail lights are absolutely gorgeous and they are one of the most famous tail lights for hot rodders they would use these tail lights and and put them in some of the coolest projects but by far the taillights are my favorite now we come back to this logo right here and you might wonder how do you get into this car how do you get into the trunk well that logo actually uh actually does something that's steering wheel the center part there's this piece right here that flips around gives us access to the keyhole and then we can also turn this to open up the trunk speaking of trunk with a very healthy trunk that can fit [Music] a lot of stuff but in reality today it's a nice little picnic basket spare tire some tools and some nice chairs we can see that it's carpeted and it has this lovely houndstooth pattern one of the things i don't like about it is this side they're made out of cardboard most of this is fabric but this side piece is made out of cardboard so it just doesn't stand the test of time that's all right that still is nice to lock it we turn this back give it a healthy clothes that's the body of a 56 clipper so absolutely one of the coolest things about this car is the suspension and the reason why it's cool is because instead of coil springs and leaf springs it has torsion bars okay and those torsion bars run the entire length of the car from back there all the way to roughly here and from the front to roughly right about here and they're connected and then they're connected to the middle of the car via what's called a compensator motor an electronic motor that you just heard and what that does is it rises and lowers the suspension depending on how much weight is in it so that make sure that it's always riding perfectly level the other thing that it does is it makes sure that the front and the rear are connected so whenever it goes over bumps everything stays level it is one of the best riding 50s cars i have ever been in and it rivals cars of today too i really really love this suspension so enough talk about this car between the powerful v8 the very light transmission and this very very interesting suspension let's get in and go for a drive come on i'm actually going to interrupt myself and we're going to go over the interior real quick so we have the very first thing we notice is this dashboard it's a gorgeous dashboard that's got a metal encasing this is black painted depending on what color the car was it had a complimentary color for the interior and we see this lovely mesh backdrop for the dash and comes encapsulated by chrome everything in here is chrome and with the sun i don't really notice this there's a little bit of glare from the dashboard but nothing crazy it's it actually works really well we see these gorgeous instruments that have a green backdrop with white stripe right little uh details and the lettering and the numbers are gold it's it's absolutely gorgeous and then finally we have these little knobs that are used for either lights or antenna wiper this is for the lighter we have a speaker uh in the radio here the radio works pretty good for time frame we have a clock and finally on the dash we have this lovely clipper logo with our wheel and our custom custom design we have this lovely felt lined glove box with the light and we can't forget what are these well it's an ashtray they're two ashtrays you might think oh maybe they're the vents for the defroster or the air conditioning well this is the air conditioning here it's aftermarket the defroster vents um are either under the dash or in this little area right here they work pretty good they keep keep the car pretty warm and there are four little um four little levers here that uh designate where everything goes and how much and they still work to this day 29 000 original miles it's amazing the seats are really comfortable they're this gorgeous design and this they split in the front and the rears are solid there's lots of room in here there's absolutely lots of room and fits six people in here comfortably finally if we look up we see my one of my favorite features of this car and that's the headliner it's got this perforated leather and these chrome bars that just hold it in place and it just looks really classy i absolutely love it all right i've taken enough of our time let's go for that drive all right let's go for a drive so how does it drive it drives really nice the suspension the v8 transmission's okay but in reality this is such a lovely cruising car it just glides over small undulations on the road and bumps in fact it does some of the most interesting things i've ever seen a car do when it goes over a speed bump the car will bounce like go over the speed bump and then as it's coming off the speed lump it'll just kind of stay level and then slowly it'll drop down as the rear just kind of goes and it is just gorgeous out here [Music] so what about the handling let's not talk about the handling actually the handling is pretty good for a big american car the the torsion bars do a really good job of keeping the car relatively level um and the limits are low that's that's just the way it is with uh old style bias flies and a really heavy car with soft suspension right we're gonna go around a 25 mile an hour turn at 25 miles an hour let's see what it's like bad what's it like to drive on the road it's it's really nice at least for a 50s car it uh it really glides over over the road and bumps undulations and we're going over a pretty holy patched road right now and [Music] it's rather nice there's not a lot to be said this wouldn't be any worse of a ride in fact it's probably a better ride than most modern cars the seats are a little bit bouncy but aside from that it's nice uh it's it's amazing what a car this time period is like in comparison to a modern car a water car is relatively stiff and it it just doesn't float all the cars floated i've heard that the term flow like a cadillac and this is this is that time period and granted there's a little bit of dead spot in the steering but in reality it's just cruises and drives so nicely you might be curious about what that 275 horsepower actually feels like well it's pretty slow look let's see what it does zero to 60. here we go all right there's 20 30 40 50. and 60. so by today's standards it's relatively slow but in reality this was one of the quickest cars on the road in 56 the interesting thing about the power band is that after 60 it doesn't just slowly creep up to 70 80 90 100 it actually continues on that same pace and kind of picks up pace when it gets to about 75 or 80. it's interesting the power bound is definitely a little bit higher up there but because of the transmission it it really doesn't do a very good job of utilizing that power band but is it enough yes as rolls-royce would say it's sufficient well i hope you've enjoyed this because i've really enjoyed making this and this car has been a dream of mine for quite some time and i didn't know it until i found it but this is so much what i wanted from a 50s classic car now granted i would love a hot rod but that's a completely different kind of car it's not something that you can really take everywhere it's not something you can take a family with i bought this so that i can make memories with my family and we've had it for a little bit of time and we've made some memories this has been a fantastic car absolutely love it and i can't wait to share all those memories with you and i hope you guys enjoy all the future content we're going to build with this car but if you want to see that please like and subscribe and we'll catch you guys on the next one thanks again [Music] do [Music]

Channel: Budget Outlaws

Views: 32,962

Keywords: Packard, Clipper, Packard Clipper, 1956, Original Packard, Original Clipper

Id: AK7j_qPqcSk

Length: 25min 42sec (1542 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 11 2022