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This is my first try at this so I'll make this question simple. My family just shocked me with a 1952 Packard 300 4-door sedan as a birthday present. It needs a good bit of work but I'll hold off on that stuff until I am more familiar with this process. So..... question for today- Is the hood ornament a swan, cormorant or ......... ?


rhlevine

Welcome, Congratulations and Happy Birthday. I think that is one of those questions liable to get many opinions. It has been called a Swan, Cormorant, Pelican & probably others. The Packard Club official publications are The Cormorant and The Cormorant News Bulletin if that helps any.

The Cormorant is a dirty black bird, BUT its name sounds more elegant than a Pelican. On the Packard coat-of-arms the bird is described as "a Pelican in her piety". I personally always thought it was a swan because of the graceful rendering of it as a beautiful hood ornament.
Whatever you want to call it, it remains a signature symbol of Packard. It's your car and your ornament. Use whichever name you like best.

The question of the "bird" ornament hangs more on whether the image is SUPPOSED to be a cormorant or a pelican. They are NOT the same bird. If it is a cormorant, it is this bird here. There are 36 species of these around the world, so shapes and coloring can vary.

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The pelican is a bird of quite a different feather. Pity the poor pelican...

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G'day rhlevine,
and Congratulations too, a Packard as a present, wish my family would do the same for me! Keep asking questions, plenty of experienced and knowledgeable Packard people here who are willing to help. And, I invite you to include your '52 300 Touring Sedan in the Packard Owner's Registry here on PackardInfo.

I would say that the cormorant is a much better looking bird than a pelican. I live in South Florida, and we have both here. As 55PackardGuy said, there are many varieties, and some are fairly good looking. In the lake behind my property, you will often see a cormorant perched on the irrigation intake float, drying it's wings after diving for it's dinner of bluegill.

However, the intake float just happens to be a plastic Canada goose, as is common in these developments down here that use lakes for lawn irrigation.

If you go to the recent thread, "Altered hood ornament, was this popular back then?" you can imagine the possibilities that raced through my mind.

Here it is.

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joeyearl,

Creative solution for Packard hoods everywhere. (BTW Do those two mate and create plastic albatrosses?)

Why don't you float a Pelican decoy down there and get another shot. End the confustion!! It's a Pelican AND a Cormorant! Could change the coat of arms even without a pic. Someone want to photoshop that and send it to "The Cormorant"?

From,

The Society for Putting Things On Top of Other Things.

I think I'll create a float with a pelican sitting on a swan. Then let the cormorant do his thing.

It's a good thing the Packard family wasn't from Florida- we might all have pink flamingoes on our hoods!