Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

An interesting question - on the '39 Super 8's and 12's the grill bars are chrome and painted. I see many Packards of that year and the grill bars are painted the same as the body color, but mine are painted black for some reason. Btw, my car is painted a reddish brown metallic. Was it possible this was a choice when ordering a Packard.

Thanks,

Steve

I'm not an expert by any means of prewar senior Packards but the few I've seen had the bars black also. The first one I saw in the '60s was in a car show at the Seattle Center and at that time it wasn't even yet an antique but I was told that black chrome was used.

Black chrome, heh. Does anyone else have a black and chrome grill, or is it body color and chrome......again this is only for the 1939 Super 8 and 12.

I didn't bother with this as I figured it would be resolved by now, but the answer is body color is specified even though the parts book is silent. That doesn't mean that cars didn't leave the plant with black, but I would carefully look over the car to ascertain if the color has been changed. Who knows, it may have been replaced after a collision with a standard black unit.

As far as leaving them black that is certainly less fictional than some of the other things going on in made up Packard history. When I see what these so called historians are doing to some of these cars I'm led to believe they got their diploma in history from Trump University.