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Owen: Edward Macauley was head of Packard design because of his father. I think that the real person running things until he retired in 1947 was Werner Gubitz. Gubitz came from LeBaron.

The great designer Raymond Dietrich never had a very high opinion of young Macauley. It always seemed that Packard need to hire outside sources for guidance in the design of Packards until the early 50's.

Persons hired by Packard before WWII to guide them in design work.

1. Raymond Dietrich
2. Alexis de Sakhnoffsky
3. Dutch Darrin

After WWII

Brigg's Al Prance did most of the styling work on the bathtub Packard's.

John F. Shireman

Roof and rear window detail photo of Geo. Hamlin's 1954 Henney corporate limo with Derham conversion as taken at the 1985(?) PAC National in Providence RI. Photo by the author.

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The door handle on the Phantom is in the normal Packard location, but I never knew that it had a supercharger!

Here's a very rarely seen postwar limo by Briggs. The 22nd/23rd series Super Eight limos and 8 passenger sedans are reasonably common but the Custom 8s are truly rare with about 280 built. Photo by the author at the PAC National in Providence, RI in 1985(?).

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One design feature on the Phantom II clearly came from the Chrysler Thunderbolt, which the great Alex Tremulis designed. The idea borrowed from Tremulis was the full length bright ribbed rocker panel moulding.

John F. Shireman

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But to be perfectly honest I don't see a huge disparity to the above Henney.

If you examined them side-by-side, you'd see the differences are quite significant. Wheelbase for the Custom 8 is 7 inches longer (148 vs 141), all the difference ahead of the windshield to accomodate the longer hood and engine (internal body volume the same in both). The Super 8 limo was about $3650 versus $4870 for the Custom 8. Of course the Custom had the senior driveline with the 356 ci 9-main bearing engine, and a far more elegant and luxurious interior. These are essentially the same differences you'd see between a Super 8 and Custom 8 5-passenger sedan, the former at about $2800 and the later at about $3750.

Those of you who don't read Hemmings might have missed the pending sale of one the rarest of all postwar Packards, indeed of all Packards. A 1954 Panther-Daytona will be offered for sale at the RM auction at Amelia Island in March. It would appear from the photo which isn't all that great that it might be car #3.

Chart below from The Packard Cormorant Panther Daytona article of some years back.

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Though I subscribe to Hemmings Classic Car, I rarely even glance at Hemmings Motor News anymore - just not shopping (or selling) much these days. However, as a fan of Packard's postwar concept cars, that sure comes as interesting news.

I'm guessing that cars #3 and #4 were the Panthers that had '55 tailights installed. The #3 car must be the "Mitchell Panther"; judging from the color combo and the reference to an Indiana museum, that is probably the Panther that I saw on display at the Stude museum (the former Freeman-Spicer dealership building) about 20 years ago. The #4 car must be the black/white two-tone that I saw in the White field at Hershey almost a decade earlier.

Good chart; someone should bring the chain of ownership and other details up to date.

I am confused. I thought that Briggs built all of the 7-passenger sedans and the limos both the Super Eight Super Eight Deluxe as well as the Custom for the 22nd and 23 series. I seem to remember a statement from Briggs saying that the demand for their hearses and Ambulances had increased to the point that they were unable to continue the production of 7-passenger and limo cars for Packard. I'd love to know your source.

You're correct, Henney built the lwb 8-pass models in 1946-47, of course using bodies supplied by Briggs as a starting point, but declined to build them for the 22nd-23rd series as they were too busy with funeral service vehicles and ambulances. So the 48-50 lwb cars were actually built by Briggs. This is also stated in the Henney section at www.coachbuilt.com. My error in calling that car a Henney.

PS - I've corrected my prior post. I think what I had in mind at the time was to convey the very large differences in quality of appointments and workmanship between the Henney or Briggs built lwb cars and the 41/42 LeBaron lwb cars.