Packard Motor Car Company

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Packard’s story started in Warren, Ohio, where brothers James Ward and William Doud Packard made their first car in 1899. The business became the Packard Motor Car Company in 1902, then moved to Detroit in 1903. There, Albert Kahn’s East Grand Boulevard works expanded into a 40-building complex, and Packard became one of America’s great luxury names.

The company mixed chauffeur-driven splendor with unapologetically serious engineering. Packard popularized the 12-cylinder automobile with the 1915 Twin Six, built Liberty aircraft engines during World War I, and produced roughly 55,000 Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engines during World War II. It also supplied naval engines for PT boats. Silk gloves, machine oil, and a surprisingly large amount of horsepower.

Packard formally merged with Studebaker in October 1954, creating Studebaker-Packard Corporation. Falling sales and mounting losses followed; Packard’s Detroit plant closed in spring 1956. Production of Packard-badged cars continued at South Bend, Indiana, through 1958, when the final model year arrived with the quiet thud of a luxury-car door closing.

Our Packard Motor Car Company collection celebrates Detroit ambition, Warren beginnings, long hoods, aircraft-grade muscle, and the glorious excess of an era when a proper motorcar could be both elegant and mildly ridiculous.