There are few things better than pulling tractors that use monster vintage engines to put the power to the ground and haul the sled. In this case we are talking about a tractor using a WWII Packard PT boat engine to drag the sled all the way home. While some people will say that the PT boats used Merlin engines, they would be wrong. While Packard had a deal to make the Merlins for airplanes, the engines used in the boats had nothing to do with those.
This is a 1,500hp (stock) Packard 4M-2500 which was largely based off of the Liberty airplane engine that had been modified for racing boats in the 1920s and 30s. Taking some of those ideas and the basic platform as inspiration, Packard built upon it. Starting out with an 1100hp rating, it was eventually raised with better performing parts through the war.
Running on gasoline, weighing about 2,900lbs, and using all 12-cylinders to their maximum potential, this mill is one of the neatest we have ever seen in a puller and we have seen a few. Redline was 2,400 rpm and it was OK to run the thing at 2,000 RPM sustained on the water. It would suck down 474 gallons of fuel an hour and propel a PT boat to the blazing speed of 40 knots while working with another identical engine. Bad ass.
Dump some 100 octant gas in it, let it get warm, and then give it hell! That’s apparently what this puller did and did so successfully. This rules.
