Packard three speed were used in mid to late 50s for drag racing. A google search will find you some old HRM articles on the subject. You an adapter for it and they were also available with BW OD. Packard had their own trans thru about 54 and then they used BW trans. Some of which were T85s which were also pretty tough with R11 OD, don't know if they would bolt up to a straight 8 bell housing or not.
