Packard Forum Index » General

From the "This day in history" feature at the History.com website:

June 25, 1956

Last Packard rolls off line
The last 1956 Packard was produced, marking the end of production at Packard's Connor Avenue plant in Detroit, Michigan. Packard would continue to manufacture cars in South Bend, Indiana, until 1958, but for those familiar with Packard the last 1956 is considered the last true Packard car.

On October 13, 1902 the Packard Motor Car company was incorporated in West Virgina. The name of the Ohio Automobile Company was discontinued as of that date.

The new company issued 2500 share of stock, which was bought up by Henry Joy and his friends. James Ward Packard was the largest private stock holder at the time with 62 percent of Packard stock.


In May 1903 plans were submitted to Henry Joy and by September 1903 then transfer of equipment and machines was underway.

John F. Shireman

now here's an interesting "trivia" question..

as many of you know who know the TRUTH about those last horrible years (when Packard's "build quality" got so increasingly bad, and so well-known thru-out the industry they were practically un-saleable....) anyone know how long the un-sold '56 production remained in storage before they finally got rid of them ?

No info on that, but apparently there was a backlog of 54 models as well. I have a friend with a relatively early 1954 Cavalier that wasn't sold until well into 1955. Selling dealer was McGuire in Ridgewood, New Jersey.

yeah - just THINKING about how Packard management worked so hard to commit corporate suicide in the 1950's, is enough to make any Packard lover's blood boil !

I remember sitting on a curb outside of Beverly Hills Packard ( So. Calif ) "shooting the breeze" with some of their mechanics, and a big transporter rolled up with more brand new Packards. Believe it was the shop foreman who muttered some profanities and said "here come another $(#(#)$##)( of "do it yourself kits"....!

That was the old guy who told me that in earlier and better times, when they went down to the rail yards ( Packards USED to be shipped out to the coast in box cars ) to pick up their allotment of new ones, all they had to do, is they'd have to wash them, get the hub-caps & cig. lighters out of their wrappers in the trunks, more gas in them, make sure the batteries were up, and they were good to go.

Sad how Packard led the auto industry - first, to heights of quality control, (who has seen those Packard ads bragging about "REPUTATION"....then, years later, into the toilet with each year, ever more shoddily built cars - could that be where GM got its ideas on how to commit corporate suicide?

In the 1980's we went over to pick up my mom's new Buick. Dealer wouldnt let us see it. For good reason. It came off the transporter with a collapsed spring, so was listing to one side. On door was half painted. Electrical system was screwed up. Dealer had it for a week before they could sell it to us !

Yeah, the stories about the 1955 build quality are legion. 1954 models seemed to be up to snuff, but the 1955s were really awful due no doubt to many factors including a car rushed into production and the move to Conner Ave. The 1956 cars were much better than 1955, and with many mechanical improvements as well. I don't think I'd own a 1955 even now.

Your Buick story reminded me, I bought my first new GM car (after several new Chrysler and AMC products), a 1972 Buick Centurion. On the 5 mile trip home the transmission went, and within 15 miles it spun a rod. It ate power window and windshield wiper motors regularly, but paintwork and interior, quality and fit and finish, were really good. Just as my Dad vowed when his new late 1920s Chevrolet which broke an axle a week, it was the last GM car I ever owned.

Owen -

Here's a few amusing anecdotes you may enjoy.

In my travels as a D.M. (aka - "factory rep") for Chrysler back in the 1980s, I had the luck of meeting a former Service Manager from a Packard agency in the Charleston, WV area. He told me how that dealer stuck with Packard for many months after 56th Series production ended, due to their customers demand for those cars - going around to other dealers trying to buy up any unsold inventory they could find. When that well ran dry, they took up with Edsel. Well, a 56th Series Packard owner traded for an Edsel and took his friends out for a drive to show off this new car; travelling at speed, the owner sez "watch this" and hits the "P" button. Unbeknownst to him, the Edsel Teletouch transmission control did NOT include a failsafe disconnect for "P", "R" or "N" buttons. You can imagine what the result of that little demonstration was!

Meanwhile, the white/heather/gray '56 Caribbean convertible that's sitting in the museum in Warren, formerly owned by the late Ted Hirt, was purchased new, late in the summer of 1956, from Bell Motor Sales - the dealership my father worked for. Yet, when the dealer saw what was coming for '57, they dropped the Packard franchise and and signed with DeSoto. My dad went to school for those cars (he still has the TorqueFlite training manuals and diangostic wheel), but hated them. Yet, would you believe that Chrysler was shipping cars to an area of PA that was just south of the "snow belt", with NO heater whatsoever? My dad got stuck installing them from dealer accessory kits. It wasn't long afterward that he left that mess behind for GM products.

Years later when I was in college, the local Chevy-Cadillac dealer was taking delivery of a brand-new Seville from GM with the all-new V8-6-4 motor. Although it had to be pushed off the truck, that wasn't an uncomon occurence back then. However, it wasn't because of a weak battery or fouled spark plugs. Turns out they had to order a complete motor,and I heard plenty of other dealers had similar experience with that design.

All of these examples go to show that ALL car makers occasionally make lemons. I worked at Chrysler in the summer of 1963 and I know that we created some pretty dismal cars. The 4.1 liter Cadillac engine was a poor one as was the GM 350 Diesel and ask me about the Vega if you want to hear a tale of woe about a poorly designed and built automobile. Ford certainly has had it's share of lemons (late V-12 engined Lincolns, Granada?) as has Chrysler (Volare-Aspen anyone?) It is no surprise that the 1955 Packard was a poorly constructed car given the fact that the cars were built at the infamous Connor Ave. plant. What is remarkable about Packard is that in it's long history was there any other model year where it can be said it was not as good or better than the competition in any given price range? Few if any car makers can make that claim and certainly not any of the Big 3. I haven't even got to Europe or Japan yet.

I talked to an Edsel owner who stated that they had a hydraulic switch to disconnect P and R (not sure about N) but the switch didn't function properly and would fail at inopportune moments. Any 58 Edsel owners want to comment??

The first car that I can remember my father having was 1953 Chevy. My father purchased a new GM car about every three to four years until his death seven years ago. Not a dam one of those GM made cars ever gave him much trouble. Not one engine failure or transmission problem NON OF THEM WERE LEMONS.

Don't let anyone BS you fellows about one thing. The JAPS have produced their share of crap over the years.

Funny thing the Chevy Vega gets a bad rap. My brother purchased a new Chevy Vega in 1976 and ran the car for 10 years. Over that ten years he had very few problems with the car.

John F. Shiremam