Tracing history from body serial number?

Posted by Jules On 2008/7/23 11:49:09

Hi all,

A while ago we moved to a new house and I dug up some Packard bits right at the back of our yard (most of a front end, along with one rear fender and some bits of seating). The shape definitely looks to be 1930s-era Packard.

Now, separately, just off the property, there's the body of a Packard (sadly destroyed beyond all hope of salvage). I'm almost certain that the pieces I found belong to it - and it did provide a bodyshell number from the firewall.

Question is, is there any way of tracing the car's history just from the shell number - or would I need a license plate for that? I'd quite like to find out when it was built and what model it is, purely for curiosity!

cheers

Jules