The Packard Pan-American is a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or ...

produced for the

Packard Motor Car Company Packard or Packard Motor Car Company was an American luxury automobile company located in Detroit, Michigan. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last Packards were built in South Bend, Indiana in 1958. One of the "Thr ...

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Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

in 1952. Conceived as a moderate-performance two-seater by Hugh Ferry, president of Packard, it was built by Henney, which was responsible for fitting custom

hearse A hearse is a large vehicle, originally a horse carriage but later with the introduction of motor vehicles, a car, used to carry the body of a deceased person in a coffin at a funeral, wake, or memorial service. They range from deliberately a ...

and

ambulance An ambulance is a medically equipped vehicle which transports patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport. Ambulances are used to respond to medi ...

bodies on Packard chassis.Flory, J. "Kelly", Jr. "Packard Pan-American", in ''American Cars 1946-1959'' (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Coy, 2008), p.1022. A status symbol for a carmaker at the time, this sort of car was a very unlikely project for Packard. With styling by Henney, it was based on the 1951 Series 250 convertible, and ready in time for the 1952

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and channelled, in a fashion reminiscent of the 1953 Skylark, and wearing the trademark Packard grille, it "was elegantly trimmed throughout". Packard spent US$10,000 building the Pan-American, and management tried in vain to imagine, let alone develop, a market for a roadster projected to cost at least US$18,000, at a time when the top-line

Lincoln Capri The Lincoln Capri is an automobile that was sold by the Lincoln division of Ford Motor Company from 1952 until 1959. A full-size luxury car, the Lincoln Capri derives its name from an Italian island in the Gulf of Naples. Introduced as a pre ...

six-passenger convertible went for US$3,665,Flory, p.440. the premier eight-place Cadillac Series 75 Fleetwood US$5643,Flory, p.456. and even Packard's Patrician 400, their most expensive production model, was only US$3,767, and a six-seater. As many as six examples were built. The Pan-American did inspire a successful six-place model, the Caribbean, which debuted in 1953.

Notes

Sources

* Flory, J. "Kelly", Jr. "Packard Pan-American", in ''American Cars 1946-1959'', p. 1022. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Coy, 2008. {{Packard Pan-American Cars introduced in 1952 Concept cars

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