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Hi Everyone,

I'm a new member, love classic Packards and have a teenage son who has my passion for cars and I do everything I can to transfer this passion to the next generation of 20's to 40's car lovers.

My son is doing a project on 1940's Army Staff Cars and I persuaded him to focus on the Packards. I'm familiar with Clippers being purchased by the Military (I think close to 500 of them) for WWII but my son fell in love with a 1941 Packard 180 Limousine and he is researching whether the Military used any of these cars and if they did for what purpose. I heard stories that some 160's were used but even jumping in and helping him, we could not find any information on the 180's let alone a 180 Limousine. My guess is that they might have picked up a few of these for top brass but I'm not certain. Does anyone have any additional information if the 180's were used in the Military? Thanks so much for your help!

All the best!

concrete information, no - but I can say for certain the Armed Forces used plenty of 160's, easily documented. Unlikely that the Military would Order a 180. GSA/Diplomat, maybe. In fact, my friend Bob had a 160 Limo that was "assigned" to Admiral Nimitz when in California. That is to say a staff car is a staff car - just another item of government property. 1942 180's - maybe - as new 1942 inventory was "frozen" when auto production stopped. Would be an interesting part of his research to understand the allocation process of new cars during WWII. There was a 42-160 Conv.Coupe another friend of mine had with supporting documentation of its release from "bonded inventory" during this period, etc.
There is also an interesting article (SIA, 1974ish)regarding McArthur's 41 Clipper and Jim Hollingsworth's tribute car as such, etc...but not a 180 limo...

Thanks for the reply and all of the useful information. The GSA/Ambassador Cars are an interesting research offshoot so we'll look into that. I like your theory on 1942 Packards - as they were frozen, the could have found their ways into the military but my guess is with spotty and no at least public records they would be hard to track down. Love the story on Nimitz's 160 Limousine - my guess is there may be other ones like that that may not have been documented or still haven't found the light of day. And thanks also for the recommendation to research generally cars allocated for WWII - I think that will help put everything into perspective.


If anyone else has any leads or any particular Packard "Civilian" Military car stories you would like to share, we would love to hear about them!

Thanks so much!

G'day Stingray317,
to PackardInfo and good luck in your information search.

I also invite you to include any Packards you have in PackardInfo's Packard Vehicle Registry.

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Stingray317, this way please. And please be kind enough to pass on greetings from the PackardInfo.com forum to your son.

On the 1941 Henney-Packard ambulance, I would be very much surprised if it were a 180 of which, as far as I know, none were built. Although there were some Super Eight 160s, the majority were the 1901A which was a 120 but they all sported 160/180 trim other than having junior tailights. Likely the seller was mistaken and confused the trim with the model.