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What years did Packard build trucks. I am working on an article on the Packard truck and have not found much data on them.

thanks

Steve

Here's one of my favorites:

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With the exception of that oddity above, Packard ceased truck production in 1923, starting in 1902 according to Packard's records though subsequent study suggests the first truck was 1903. The generally accepted figure is that 43,538 Packard trucks were built. Though they are not often discussed here, information on them is actually quite plentiful. There is a very considerable amount of info and photos on them in the Kimes-edited book and you might also want to contact the Packard Truck Organization via Dave Lockard in York Springs, PA., he is the acknowledged authority on the subject.

The Packard Truck Organization is a region of The Packard Club (PAC).

As always, Owen Dyneto (Hey, my father used to work there in the early 1950s) has the correct and complete information. Packard truck production did indeed wind down by 1923. I only offer the obvious Studebaker-based unit above as a conversation piece. It was exported to Argentina in 1958. There is a lot of conjencture about this truck . . . Supposedly the Argentinian vendor could not sell trucks if they were branded as Studebakers, but could do so if they were branded as Packards. One story was that the vendor was a former Packard dealer who still held the rights to sell vehicles under that name, but had no license to sell Studebaker cars or trucks. So, Studebaker-Packard simply grafted Packard labels onto the existing Studebaker truck, et voila. Whether any of this is true or not, who knows? There is also some dispute over how many of these Packard 3/4-ton units were sold. Some say as many as 50 or more, others say only 2. Not a lot of hard facts out there on these units, however many there actually were. Sure would be neat to have one, though.

The front name looks like recycled letters but one thing I'd be curious about is the tail gate. I can't tell if the letters are just painted on or embossed. It almost looks like the letters are stamped in the panel. If so, given S-P's condition at the time that seems like it would be a significant expense to make tooling for something that was a one or two deal.

I completely agree. While I'm no authority on the Studebaker Transtar trucks of this era, I believe that the "Studebaker" tailgate lettering was, in fact, stamped and not just painted. I suppose it would be easy enough to pull a few tailgates from the stack before they were so stamped, but setting up a separate stamping operation to impress them with the "Packard" name certainly seems wasteful and unnecessary. Let's hope the Packard units were simply painted with the name. It's the only thing that makes sense at that late date in the S-P operation, but making sense wasn't always their long suit in those last desperate days.