Packard Forum Index » General

Before WWII most Packard imported to England were shipped to England partially or completely knocked down, to avoid paying high English tariffs.

Imported chassis, body panels and partially assembled kits of parts and final assembly were carried out in West London. This was done by the Leonard Williams Packard dealership. The William's dealership was the distributor for Packard for all of England.

During WWII the William's assembly building located on the Great West Road was bombed twice. In the first air raids carried out on London in 1940 a 1000lb fell on the assembly building. Then again in March 1945 a V2 Long Range Rocket fell on the building. The building was completely destroyed
32 people killed 102 injured, and 662 house were destroyed.
After the second bombing King George V and Queen Mary visited the site.

During WWII the William's assembly building was used to assemble marine engines.

John F. Shireman

John, Thanks for the information on the British Packard Leonard Williams dealership. I was unaware that it had been bombed during the Blitz. Do you have any information (pictures, address etc.) of the Packard assembly plant located in Windsor Ontario across the river from Detroit. I grew up in Windsor and didn't realize that Packard had an assembly plant located in Canada until about 15 years ago. Any information greatly appreciated.

Somewhere in the mountains of Packard data I have an article from a Canadian newspaper written some years ago by a Studebaker employee in Canada who previously worked at the Packard facility. In this article he relates a bit of history of that facility (opened about 1933?). I have many photos of RHD Packards built in Canada with RHD, and have also seen one 1936 120 coupe with LHD with a Packard-Canada VN plate. I also have an article somewhere that details the Commonwealth rules for "Canadian content" to quality the cars for duty-free export to the UK. As I remember, a very large amount of the car was Canadian based; tires and glass were Canadian as were electrical components, bodies were assembled, painted and trimmed in Canada; engines were built up from parts, upholstery and other soft materials were entirely of Canadian content. I'll no doubt find these articles someday and will try to remember to post them here when that happens. I believe the Canadian Packard facility closed just prior to WW II, and RHD cars were then assembled in Detroit thru 1954 (the RHD parts are listed in the parts books). Leonard Williams did the RHD conversions for 1955/1956, though they were very few in number. A few 1956 Packards were also built from knock-down kits by the D'Iterian Bros. in Belgium who were doing the same for Studebaker and VW. Elsewhere in this website you'll find a roadtest on one such 56 Clipper converted by Leonard Williams.

John,

I am intrigued by the picture of the Leonard Williams dealership building in "Packard Dealers" in relationship to your comments. Is this the building which was demolished? And was their assembly building elsewhere and the one hit by the V2?

"owen" Thanks for all that information. I look forward to whatever other information you might have about the Windsor, Ontario operation.

Mal: The assembly building that was hit twice by the Huns in WWII was located in a different part of London. I believe the picture in the dealers section was just the showroom William's.

The assembly building was located in West London at Great West Road.

john F. Shireman

Clipper47. I am sorry that it took me so long to get the answer to your question. I had to go through alot of books that I have, before coming up with an anwer for you.

The information that I have states the assembly plant was located in Walkerville. The plant was opened in 1931 at Chatham and Church streets. In 1933 the plant was relocated
to St. Luke Road. Packard closed the operation in 1939.


John F. Shireman

John, Thanks for the information. The next time I am in Windsor I will go and look and see if there are any remnants of building and take some photos. I know the neighbourhoods where the plants were located and grew up less than a mile from them.. Great information, many thanks to you and "Owen".

Eureka! I have located the newspaper article (1937) detailing the operations of the Packard Canada plant and more or less itemizing the Canadian content. Unfortunately the article was scanned into a Word document and I'm not confident how to post it, so I'm going to email it to our multi-talented webmaster and let him figure out how to post it. I'm sure many of you will enjoy reading it.

Clipper47: Packard open the Walkerville operation October 1, 1931..

Owen; I will be looking forward to reading your article. i hope it is posted real soon.

John F. Shireman