Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

I have come across a large (11.5"x15.5") advertising book for the 1949 Packards. It includes artist pictures of all the models plus paint color chips and upholstery samples. The book has 70 pages.

In the back cover are three small spiral bound notebooks with facts about the 1949 Packards and comparisons to other brands. Also an order book.

I assume that this is a dealer's showroom book but I have never seen any like it.

Pictures of some of the pages are attached.

Maybe someone can shed some light on exactly what this is.

Attach file:

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  cover.jpg (149.27 KB)


  custom convertible.jpg (183.56 KB)


  page 2.jpg (193.03 KB)


  interior-paint chips.jpg (234.81 KB)


  interior 1.jpg (163.71 KB)


  back inside cover.jpg (220.89 KB)

A nice find. Never seen before.

Appears to be a very nice dealer/sales book. I wonder if the spirals in the back slot into it in any way for storage.

Packard was not alone in having the dealer showroom albums. You will sometimes see them on ebay for other brands as well.

Apparently back in the days when a salesman would come to your house bringing along a car to take the potential customer out for a leisurely drive or the customer would visit a showroom and a salesman would actually take the time to sit down with a customer and explain the features of the new models in detail books like these were equivalent to todays video presentations.

There is a 55 dealer album in the literature archive. On that book some of the pages are interactive although the actions cannot be seen in single photos of the pages. One page has a color wheel that you can turn and watch the various color and upholstery combinations available for the Caribbean rotate into view. Other pages have a portion you pull out to demonstrate what happens with the Torsion Level system, others have a cutaway that rotates showing internal features of the new V8 or how the Twin Ultramatic works with the new ability to use low range for faster acceleration.packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/archi ... tent.php?op=&catID=13&ContentID=174

It would really be nice if you could take some decent photos or scans of your book and send them to BigKev to add to the archive.

The three little spiral bound notebooks fit into a slot in the rear cover. These each contain about 30 pages.

This book is way too big for my scanner but I hope to get my real camera and tripod out and see if I can get some decent photos. There are a lot of pages so this is going to be a fairly large project.

Howard (HH56) has one of those stand-type scanners that are made specifically for this purpose. Maybe you could commission him to scan it is he's willing and has the time.

From car depictions, looks 23rd series, so would be the golden anniversary year book, as the cover suggests.
As a class, they often come with upholstery samples, but this appears not so here(?).
They are highly valued books generally.
Contact an archivist on best way to store and preserve.
I've seen the 23 series artists depicts elsewhere, maybe on this site in the model info?

I like the model comparisons with other popular makes as seen in the last image (the small book in the back). Packard obviously wasn't afraid to be compared.

Yeah that part is interesting for the context of the automotive market in the day. They continued adding those sections in the later books too.