The Packard Panther 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 ...

built in 1954 by

Packard 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 ...

and was displayed at

auto show An auto show, also known as a motor show or car show, is a public exhibition of current automobile models, debuts, concept cars, or out-of-production classics. It is attended by automotive industry representatives, dealers, auto journalists a ...

s to showcase some of the ideas the automaker was considering for its production models. This show car was first named the "Grey Wolf" and also called the "Packard Daytona". A total of four Panthers were built.

Design

The Panther is a two-seat "personal luxury" sporting

convertible A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers. A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving expe ...

(in the same vein as the Pan-American), with Packard styling cues, but lower stance. Originally, the cars had 1955

Clipper A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had a large total sail area. "C ...

taillights, but these were subsequently removed and replaced with the Senior Series' "cathedral" style units. The design for the Panther's one-piece fiberglass body is credited to

Dick Teague Richard Arthur Teague (December 26, 1923 – May 5, 1991) was an American industrial designer in the North American automotive industry. He held automotive design positions at General Motors, Packard, and Chrysler before becoming Vice President o ...

. He designed several Packard cars and worked at Mitchell-Bentley Corporation at the time. Teague later joined

American Motors Corporation American Motors Corporation (AMC; commonly referred to as American Motors) was an American automobile manufacturing company formed by the merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company on May 1, 1954. At the time, it was the ...

(AMC). Although it was shown in late 1954 and 1955 (when Packard was already advertising its new, modern

overhead valve An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located be ...

V8), the Panther featured the company's previous

L-head A flathead engine, also known as a sidevalve engine''American Rodder'', 6/94, pp.45 & 93. or valve-in-block engine is an internal combustion engine with its poppet valves contained within the engine block, instead of in the cylinder head, as ...

(flathead)

straight-eight The straight-eight engine (also referred to as an inline-eight engine; abbreviated I8 or L8) is a piston engine with eight cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. The number of cylinders and perfect primary and secondary engi ...

supercharged In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement. The current categorisation is that a supercharger is a form of forced induct ...

to produce , along with

Ultramatic Ultramatic was the trademarked name of the Packard Motor Car Company's automatic transmission introduced in 1949 and produced until 1954, at Packard's Detroit, Michigan East Grand Boulevard factory. It was produced thereafter from late 1954, thru ...

automatic transmission An automatic transmission (sometimes abbreviated to auto or AT) is a multi-speed transmission used in internal combustion engine-based motor vehicles that does not require any input from the driver to change forward gears under normal driving c ...

. Of the four Panthers built, one was owned by Mitchell-Bentley exec William Mitchell, Sr. The Mitchell car is the only Panther that had a removable hardtop (which resembled that of the 1955

Thunderbird Thunderbird, thunder bird or thunderbirds may refer to: * Thunderbird (mythology), a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture * Ford Thunderbird, a car Birds * Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds ...

Footnotes

External links

* *
Packard Panther Daytona Photos
OldConceptCars.com {{Packard Packard vehicles Concept cars

Design

See also

Footnotes

External links