Re: 1952 Patrician - Derham or Henney?

Posted by Owen_Dyneto On 2012/4/23 8:17:08

Owen - the comment you made about Packard rejecting Henney's appeals, do you think this might have been Henney's way of convincing them?

I had that same thought early on when first seeing the early B&W photo, and I think that's a reasonable theory. What might firm it up a bit would be to know if there was some relationship between Feldman (Henney's owner) and the then President of Champion Spark Plug (assuming that bit of speculation is true).

I should have the wheelbase measurement today or tomorrow, and perhaps some photos of the underside frame. The Derham archive search is being looked into by Robert J. Neal as part of his research on the 51-54 Packards for his latest book project.

I'm not inclined to think the car was built on a modified early pre-production 1953 149" wheelbase chassis; the thief-proof or body dash number is the lowest 1952 number known, and the vehicle # is VERY low, pretty much assuring the Patrician starting point was built in late 1951.