Re: Great Packards at Auction, PLEASE READ

Posted by Owen_Dyneto On 2022/3/27 7:31:37

The letter(s) between the two segments of the vehicle number represent the paint code(s), in some factory documentation this was a practice of Packard going back at least until the early 1930s, perhaps earlier. The delivery record cards gave paint code information in this manner.

The alpha character at the end is believed to indicate the number of revisions to the original production order before the car was actually built. An "A" would indicate the car was built in agreement with the original production order. There is a nice explanation of this in that older Cormorant article with production details of all the 5699 cars. As I recall at least one "C" car exists, originally designated for export with the metric speedo and low compression equipment, and reconfigured twice.