Bob's Resource Website (2007)
The Novi was used from 1955-57 in the sedans and only 1957 in the Hawks.
It was a trunk mounted evaporator with clear plastic tubes in the rear
window.It did not have an electric clutch and the compressor runs all
the time.
Some of these ended up in Packard Hawks but are not correct.
The Jones family in Nederland Texas is in the air conditioning business
and have posted here several times. Maybe they can help.
Classic Auto Air in Tampa has a setup for the C cabs.813 251 4994.
Dean Kessler in Munster Indiana installed one in a 1955 truck and is
happy.
58 Golden Hawk Air Conditioning
The Packard Hawk and 58 Golden Hawk used the Sutton air conditioning
This was a under dash unit.Sutton used the same huge two cylinder
compressor as did the Novi units but only on the Packard Hawk and 1958
Golden Hawk.This time it had an electric clutch.
On the sedans they used a York style compressor in 1958 up.
If no cold was needed the freon would be bypassed back to the
compressor.
They use a small Sanden compressor and have the brackets for it.
These use R135 Freon and are much cheaper to refill.
They do not have a web page but there are testamonials on the web.
Just search for Classic Auto Air on the web.
I have the blue copy of the parts book Studebaker put out and that
shows all the parts needed on the original systems but that will be
hard to find all the pats for the original setups and since it will be
non stock anyway go with the Classic Air unit.
R.Kapteyn