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The Thunderbird Business I work for ( 1958-1966) has a catalog/mailing list of over 42,000+ names. Of those maybe 10% are auto shops who are working on somebody's car. Another 5-7% of the names are deceased or have sold their T-bird to someone else. 18% of our customers have 2 T-birds. 8% of our customers have 3 or more T-Birds.

When we get a new customer, or a new catalog request we ask for the previous owners name so we can delete them from the system.

It took Ford from 1955-1972 to make the 1,000,000th Thunderbird.

Whenever we put an add in the paper for "Parts cars wanted" we are surprised with the number of calls we get. Some of the cars we recognize as cars we have dealt with in the past while others are totally unfamiliar to us. 1 out of ever 10 cars is actually something special, like a convertible or a special landau, or limited option car.

We have over 530 vin tags in a filing cabinet for all the cars we have parted out since 1978 or so.

I think there are alot more cars out there than people realize. Of course the older the production date, the fewer survivors there will be.

I also think the more prized a car is, the greater chance of it's survival. Packard owners seemed to have held on to their cars, or were less likely to scrap them because....the were a Packard! The person I got my '55 400 from held onto it because the car was his mother's. She parked it in the early 70's because of a failed treadle-vac. She kept it "because it was a Packard, and they don't make them anymore" she would always tell him.

Once Packard went out of business, don't you think people would be less likely to send them to the scrapper?

Don

Survival rate of Packards is higher than Studebaker or Hudson, both of which made more cars, so you are right.

Still, I'm going with 15,-16,000. Packard made about 1.6 million cars in 59 years, almost exactly the same number as all the Corvairs made in 9 years.


Most Packards were next to worthless as used cars before the end came. Not even the Packard dealers wanted them. Practical, non sentimental types like my grandfather got out from under them. These cars found their way to the $65.00 row in the back of the used car lot . They have had a long time to be recycled.

What percentage of Packard owners were more loyal I do not know.

I think we might agree to not count the pink and grey "Clipper" on *bay as a complete Packard automobile.




Regards


John Harley

Around here in northeast PA, I've only seen 2 in my lifetime and one of them's mine. The other one is in Carbondale. There's got to be more just still in hiding. Around my place in Georgia, Packards from 30's to the 50's can still be seen in driveways and yards regularly. Right behind my house, there's a scrapyard that specializes in 30's to 50's cars and parts for movies. He's got over 100 cars just outside let alone what may be in storage.