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Owen:Ii know that White did purchase the Packard six cylinder engines dies. They continued use of the Packard six until about 1959 if my memory serves me right. As to the exact date White made the purchase of the Packard dies.

John F. Shireman

Owen;
My last post may have been confusing. The 13 taxis were actually 2320-5. This means that the cars were actually made in 1949 for release as 23rd series cars.
I have actually found the information in two places but the one I can lay my hands on at present is the Kime book on page 809.

Either Mack or White used the (ca. 42 style) Packard front sheet metal on their trucks. Years i do not know. There was one parked several for months about 2 miles from here during the late 1980's.

Trying to wrap this up a bit, I've gone back to pages 197, 198 and 199 of Robert Neal's "Master Motor Builders". If you don't have this book, you really should look for a copy, it has a tremendous wealth of data.

John, it indicates that White ceased using the Packard Six truck engine (then known as the IT-245) in 1962 and all the engines White used, about 7500 in Truck series 3014 and 3015, were manufactured by Packard and later Studebaker-Packard, and no mention is made of any sale of the engine plant or tooling to White. In 1953 White was paying $344 per engine and apparently purchased them well ahead of their actual needs.

Also on page 199 I see noted the 13 23rd series NYC taxicabs; apparently this was not originally planned but resulted from lower-than-expected sales of the 22nd series taxis and export sixes. Thanks 49Packard for bringing this out.

And PackardV8, the White trucks you speak of certainly had a kind of similarity to the 40-42 Packard grille style, but it was just that, a similiairty. BTW, the ones you think of weren't the series that used the Packard engine, though they did use a series of quite large displacement White-produced L-head sixes. EDIT - adding a copy of a typical White spec sheet for the series using the Packard Six engine, courtesy of Robert Neal's "Master Motor Builders".

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Owen: Thanks for the correction that White didn't purchase the six cylinder dies.

I have a source in my library which I haven't been able to find, that I though stated that White did purchase the dies. I would certainly believe the source you refer to over any source that I have.

Now to add to the controversy. Packard sold taxis in 1950
using the six cylinder engines. Granted there were few of them sold, speculation in the source I have states they may have been left over 1949 models.

John F. Shireman

You are right they were indeed holdovers. that's why the chassis number 2320-5 includes the dash 5. It's the system that Packard used to identify the 23rd series cars built in 49 for 1950. Packard had dealers send back the ID plates to be renumbered.
I guess if we are being really accurate, they did not build 6 cylinder cars in 1950. However, they were sold as 50s.
So, it makes sense to use which ever system to identify them that suits the situation best. I personally list these 13 cars as 50s by using the Packard system of listing them as 1950s.
Sorry if this whole thing has been confusing.

The taxi cabs that were sold in 1950 were built on the Super Eight 7 passenger chassis of a 141 inch wheel.

All taxi cabs sold were handled by the independent Packard Federal Corp.

In 1948 Packard sold around 2000 taxi cabs.


John F. Shireman

On May 5, 1948 Albert S. Mathews, the President of Packard Federal Corporation, died. Packard Federal was the distributor for Packard taxis. Do you think his death had anything to do with terminating taxi production/sales?

I'd guess the demise of the taxi business was the result of very rapidly diminishing sales volume. From something like 2000 to 680 to 13 over the 3 years. Not exactly a screaming success. DeSoto in particular was doing extremely well with the NYC taxi business in those years.

Owen: I was looking through Collectible Automobile from August 1991. In that edition they do an article on the 1948 through 1950 Packard.

In the article on page 55 they list production figures for the three years. In 1948 they list Packard building 1316 taxi cabs and exporting 1928 six cylinder Packard's. They listed this as a 2240 series.

Under Twenty Second Series early 1949 they list 25 taxi cabs being produced, along with 682 2240 Packard six cylinder being exported.

I just wonder how accurate the above posted figures are?

John F. Shireman