While spending the day “picking” clocks and radios, without much success, in our local salvage yard south of Antigo, Wi., my pitbull, Shasta, and I, late in the afternoon “stumbled” onto a vintage 1956 Packard Patrician which Shasta pointed out had been “rusticating” since 1959. Despite having resided in the yard for 53 years, many good parts remain. The Packard Patricain was a high-dollar automobile which was competitively priced with the Cadillac 62. It was powered by a big-block 352 cu. in. V8 (introduced one year earlier in the 1955 Patrician) coupled to Packard’s Ultramatic transmission. Both are still intact. The interior is pretty much dilapidated, and we were about to pass it by when on the seat I noticed the radio. Standard equipment was the signal-seeking “wonderbar” radio manufactured by Delco. With the exception of slight cosmetic and electronic variations, it is essentially the same radio as installed in the 1956 Cadillacs.
Someone had apparently forgotten or had opted to leave the radio receiver and it’s companion speaker/power supply chassis. Two more finds were the front/rear speaker control and power antenna control both with corresponding cables.
The receiver and power supply have both been fully restored and are available for sale on this website.
Directly below is the fully-restored 1956 Packard Patrician “wonderbar” radio and thumbnails depicting aspects of the restoration process.
