On October 12, the Society of Motion Picture Art Directors declared the new Packards “the most beautiful car of the year.” A Packard 200 also scored 22.023 mpg in the 1951 Mobil Economy Run, beating 12 cars in its class. Replacing the bulbous 1948-1950 Packards in the 22nd and 23rd Packard Series, Reinhart's "High Pockets" design was more formal than its predecessor, and would serve Packard until the end of the 1956 model year when true Packard production ceased.
Both lines were powered by the 135 bhp 288 cid straight-eight engine with a three-speed manual gearbox, though overdrive was available as a $100 option. That’s a big reason why Rambler did so well in the late-50s and early-60s.
The ZIS 110 was a splendid “replica” of a senior Packard, but the body parts are all somewhat different in key dimensions. In Europe the brand hasn’t slavishly followed the Sloan model, e.g., for years Mercedes has had a heavy presence in the taxi market.
This ended up backfiring badly in a number of ways: The plant was on the small side for what Packard wanted to do, the transfer took a lot longer than expected, the confusion messed up production quality, and Packard sales dropped too low to quickly pay off the upfront costs as Nance had hoped. It came out of the war years as the only debt-free independent car maker. (For those of you who want a closer look, I’ve posted a higher-resolution photo to the flickr cohort.). Why didn’t Packard cast an ALLOY-block straight-8, as that would have been half the weight of their cast iron boat-anchor? Packard’s where always big powerful cars capable of traveling long distances in comfort and quite. Because in the history of this fabled brand, this car played quite a pivotal role: it brought Packard down. That’s a key reason why 1956 sales tanked. It wasn’t just Packard there was a Mercedes Zil and a Cadillac Zil as well, but of course they thought of it first… . A 1951 Packard 24 Series 200 with Ultramatic transmission wasn't Graham's first choice: He searched for a supercharged Auburn Speedster and a shark-nosed Graham (his namesake car), but "they were all a little bit out of my price range. Part of it was that in the 30s, Packard was run by George Christopher, who had come there from Buick. The 1949-1954 Ultramatic was essentially a one-speed; low range was only used for steep ascends or descents. My first car was Plymouth Fury. Find parts for your automobile. I was just going to say, I think there’s a direct parallel with aircraft like the Tupelov Tu-4, which was a reverse-engineered B-29 with Russian engines. I’m less sure of that.
If Packard was to survive it needed to emphasize qualities that turned the company’s smallness to its advantage, e.g., quality of fit and finish. Packard was one of the first victims of this shift.
Very nice article Paul. The Chrysler was built probably just as well, but offered the excellent Firepower V8.
The 200 and 250 models were renamed the Packard Clipper Special and Clipper Deluxe, part of Nance’s plan to ultimately spin the cars off into their own make in 1956 as the Clipper and return the Packard name to a maker of strictly luxury automobiles. Packard was left appealing to older traditionalists, but not too many others. All Packard 200 models came with twin horns, two sun visors, front and rear bumper guards, spare tire and jack set. ’54 and then move to the large Chrysler body – You can see how the Packard yoke grill could set well where the ’55 Imperial had it’s split grills. The 250 model line consisted of the convertible and the Mayfair hardtop. The 200 Junior models were divided into two lines. I cannot understand why Packard stuck with the flattie-straight-8. Packard bet a huge chunk of its remaining cash on a completely new car for 1951, the last all-new Packards ever. Change Location.