Re: Packard Bikes

Posted by Leeedy On 2022/8/18 8:17:22
With someone in this thread bringing up the subject of pedal cars and claiming Packard dealers were selling them or giving them away (neither claim has ever been proven in all these years) here is something to verify we know just a little bit about this subject too.

I mentioned that I have original images of pedal car design and development. Here is my friend, the late Viktor Schreckengost in a photo he sent to me many years ago.

In addition to being a top-notch industrial designer, Vik was also a tremendously talented artist and famous sculptor. All of which naturally fit into doing sculptures of pedal cars in clay. Just like they did for future models of automobiles in Detroit.

Vik replaced Murray-Ohio's chief stylist, Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky for the 1939 model year. Packard automobile fans will note that Sakhnoffsky did extensive design and consulting work for Packard Motor Car Company (some of which is credited to "Le Baron"). The Count (yes, he was a real Russian count who survived the Czar purge and escaped to America) also designed Murray-Ohio "Mercury" bicycles and "Steelcraft" pedal cars. He did so from 1936 to the end of 1938.

Sakhnoffsky's last known work for Packard was a beautiful specially-issued sales/art portfolio done on 1955 Packards. Yes. I have this portfolio in mint condition.

Yours truly was the first to seriously collect and restore both Sakhnoffsky and Schreckengost-designed "Mercury" bicycles and pedal cars. I began doing so in the 1960s. My authentically-restored 1938 Sakhnoffsky Mercury Deluxe (so-called "pod bike" today) was first shown in public at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum (California) in the 1980s.

My Schreckengost-designed 1939 "Mercury" bicycle is a near-mint unmolested original . It first appeared at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Our 1939 Mercury has also appeared at various prestigious museums and at our own exhibits at the early versions of the massive "Interbike" industry trade shows in Long Beach, California, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Las Vegas, Nevada.

In this photo, Vik is styling and sculpting a new Steelcraft pedal car. Steelcraft was a division and brand name of Murray-Ohio Manufacturing Company. M-O was an offshoot relative of the old Murray Auto Body Company that sometimes made bodies and components for Packard Motor Car Company and other car makers. We first introduced this information in articles we wrote and published in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Of course, people today (including both bicycle and automotive historians) don't know all of these connections and the history.

Yes, Steelcraft made SOME pedal cars that were labeled "Packard" (as well as other automotive names). However these where primarily whimsy and were NOT officially involved with Packard Motor Car Company.

"Mercury" bicycles and "Steelcraft" pedal cars years later became branded simply as "Murray."

Yours truly and National Bicycle History Archive of America (NBHAA.com) have saved the entire paper histories of Murray-Ohio including almost every catalogue from beginning to end of the company. And yours truly once served as a historical consultant to the company.


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