Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Build slip postwar is most often glued to the top of the glove box. And I believe the Packard brothers were long gone from the scene by the time the "bird" came into being.

This debate over Pelican or Cormorant has gone on for more 80+ years, no reason why it should subside now even though no information has come forward in decades. But you must admit that anatomicaly it's not an accurate likeness of a pelican. Cormorants were (are?) indigenous to the West Coast, look much more like the Packard "bird", and I like the story (apocryphal or not) that Earle Anthony, whose sway with the company was probably second-most only to the President, was a proponent of upgrading the lowly pelican which his Hollywood set found find a bit too down-scale for their haughty tastes.

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Here on the Great lakes the cormorant is only a recent arrival. I recall first seeing the birds in the early 1970's when I worked on Lake Erie. It is commonly held by anglers (but as yet unproven)that they are responsible for depleting sportfish stocks so they are not a popular species and not likely one that Packard would claim to use as a model for a hood ornament in these times.

I'll swap you some geese for your cormorants. The geese have overrun every place with grass and water, golf courses, small town parks, ball fields, etc. We are UP TO OUR ASSES in geese!!! And of course we're not allowed to hunt anymore so the population just keeps swelling. Curses!

And geese are a great danger to aircraft as well as fouling the water and land.

When I was a lad I thought the Packard mascot was a swan. It looked so graceful with that curved neck and I could see swans at Kennywood park so I knew what a real one looked like. They didn't have any cormorants or pelicans. I thought of a pelican as a rather ungainly bird and what I read concerning cormorants about 20 years ago put me off those birds.
I still like the swans.

So Randy, do I take it that you think this thread needs a swan song?

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Not sure what's worse-geese or crows. Don't have a goose problem but the blasted crows here travel by the hundreds, find a tree they all like, land and then sound off for hours. No predators either it appears, a big noise makes them all fly to the next tree and get louder and any bait that gets (illegally) put out, just makes them fatter..Maybe if Packard had chosen a crow for the ornament, they'd still be around because nothing slows them down.

I don't mean to crow about it, but when I was a very small child and this town I live in was wide open and as rural as could be, my father taught me to shoot the crows out of the trees with a 22. Now with old eyesight, a good dose of #9 shot seems more appropriate but alas, I'd be in jail in minutes if I tried.

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Does that mean the buzzards are circling? Gee, I hope not. This is just getting interesting. THANKS Owen, for including that bit of info on the build sheet on top of the glove box! I remembered reading it was somewhere in that area, and I can't wait to hear what AL finds out about his "hotrod." Somebody who worked at Packard may have been able to order all kinds of stuff... or he took it home piece by piece in his lunchbox like Johnny Cash.

Back on topic:

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Now, to me, that kind of settles the argument. I always wondered what inscription that coat of arms would have had, were it not taken off of all depictions I have ever seen. See below.

Here's what Kimes has to say:

1928: Packard family crest was adopted as the company's emblem, a pelican being the central figure in that crest.
1932: Packard introduced its new pelican hood ornament which was the result of the design department's efforts to symbolize and stylize the bird, which appeared in the crest.
Late 1930's: Advertising first referred to it as a cormorant.
1949: Hugh Ferry sent interoffice memo dated November 17, 1949, "I have always been under the impression that our ornament was intended to carry on the tradition of the Packard family whose escutcheon carries the pious pelican."

Packard, A History of the Motor Car and the Company, 1978, Automobile Quarterly, Beverley Rae Kimes, Ed. pp 764-765. [paraphrased to follow dates]

So, blame the advertising department for shying away from waxing eloquent about a pelican. They probably feared the competition would seize upon it to ridicule them with "Pity the poor pelican, its beak... etc. etc.

So were any of the Packard family alive in 1928? I'm too tired to look it up.

I'd like to contribute with a stork...

...wish it was mine, although it is neither Packard nor 55/56. And it even wouldn't be street legal in my home country

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