Displacement About Packard
Packard was a United States based brand of luxury automobile built by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899 and the brand went off the market in 1958. Packard automobiles are highly sought after by collectors today, and the marque enjoys an active collectors club system.
Packards were advertised with the slogan "Ask the Man Who Owns One".
1899-1929
Packard was founded by brothers James Ward Packard (Lehigh University Class of 1884), William Doud Packard and his partner George Lewis Weiss in the city of Warren, Ohio. James Ward believed that they could build a better horseless carriage than the Winton cars owned by Weiss (An important Winton stockholder) and James Ward, himself a mechanical engineer, had some ideas how to improve on the designs of current automobiles. By 1899, they were building vehicles. The company, which they called the Ohio Automobile Company, quickly introduced a number of innovations in its designs, including the modern steering wheel and years later the first production 12-cylinder engine.
While Henry Ford was producing cars that sold for $440, the Packards concentrated on more upscale cars that started at $2,600. Packard automobiles developed a following not only in the United States, but also abroad, with many heads of state owning them.
