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I suggest that it's only speculation what Packard did with the body dies but they were of little value to them other than as scrap metal as the styling was dated even for 1941. I don't believe we even know if Briggs ever returned them to Packard when production ceased, most likely they went into the WW II scrap drives. If the Russians did obtain them, you'd think they would have used them but little if anything on the nose clip of the ZIS 110 appears to be directly produced from the Packard dies, though I suppose they could have been modified. Just by example, the hood panels, grille shell and front fenders show minor differences from the Packard parts, and the rear sheet metal is very different.

You seem to have a keen interest in this topic; there are quite a few articles (and photographs) on the ZIS 110 in various publications including The Packard Cormorant and perhaps you'd like to research it a bit yourself, and of course contacting the current owners and closely inspecting the cars could reveal new information. Any new information on them would be most interesting.

Quite frankly i have no proof or strong evidence one way or the other about the Russian procurement of the dies. BUT then neither does any one else that i know of. This issue was discussed rather indepth several years ago at AACA Packard forum. The only negations seem to be in the form of vehement refusal to believe Russians got the dies. OR to put it another way, the nay-sayers seemed more emotional about it than objective.

In any event, i have another twist to it. Based on a BREIF and rather loose encounter some 20 years ago (i had no Packard involvement at that time) it was relayed to me by a very credable man of that era that either White or Mack used the ca. 1940 Packard front sheet metal during production some time during the immediate post war period or during the war.

Based on other practices i've seen thru out AMC, GM, Indian and other corporations that i've had either direct or close indirect involvement with i find it difficult to dismss the Russia owning the dies.

HOWEVER, YOU are so right in saying that the real test would be to compare the Zis and the Packard SIDE-by-side and inspecting the inner hidden areas with a flashlite. Certainly a task that would require at least 3 or 4 hours of inspection.

Not aware of any use of Packard sheet metal by Mack or White; are you sure you're not thinking of the use of the Packard six (the 245 ci) engine by White in their small line of trucks after the war and up into the early 50s?

The great time to make comparisons of a side-by-side ZIS 110 and 41/42 180 would have been at the Centennial in 1999 where we would have had a solid week to do so. Perhaps the opportunity will present itself again some time.

The Russkies are notorious copy cats. During the Korean War when a B-50 made an emergency landing in Russia the bomber was flat out copied by Tupolev and became the TU-4. They were so anal about it they copied a patch that covered some minor battle damage!

Someone already did that comparison and the location of screws, and the dimensions when measured accurately was solid proof that the russians did make some good copies. I'm reasonably sure it was a PAC publication, but may have been in some other venue. It was a while ago that I read the article.