Re: 1951 300 Race Car

Posted by Fish'n Jim On 2021/6/5 20:45:14

If I'm not mistaken, Packard cars participated in the Pan American road race('50-'54)(aka carrera Panamericana) and that became the inspiration for the panamerican model. Porsche participated/won and that's the basis for the "carrera" Hagerty reported some Packards won, but must be a class because the winners had average speeds that were unobtainable by a Packard, supercharged or not. Those cars were reported "stock" which would not allow supercharging.
There were very few Packards running races in '51. I'm not aware of seeing any Packard sponsored cars. Weren't that many sold.
Hank Salat, later in NASCAR, owned a few and Don"digger" Odell drove for him. Not much else is showing up. You'd have to be a stock car race guru to research this. I mostly followed drag racing since the '60s, so out of my view. Not many straight 8s drag racing. DeSoto hemi after '52 yes, L8 no. So the chances of this '51 300 being a "race car" based on a couple longer head bolts is stretching that stud a bit.
Hudson's were the hot circle race car of that period. Souped up '40 Fords were noted to spawn the stock car racing effort from their shine running days. Driver's like Jr Johnson, etc. started out that way. Many of those become first stock/race cars/drivers. After, GM's and V8s ruled the day about time Packard folded it's tent.