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I saw this on the front cover of the cormorant magazine; did Packard ever build this model even as a one off and did it survive?

Built by Henney on the Packard commercial chassis, and destroyed by vandalism some years ago. Good coverage of the car and its life and unfortunate demise in The Professional Car magazine articles by McPherson.

What a shame! Could you post the article?

Not without permission of the copyright holder which I don't have. Back issues are probably available from PCS.

That would be quite a car to recreate!

For those who are interested Brooklin Models makes a 1/43rd diecast model of the car. Probably available from many diecast model vendors. I have one.

Photo taken in 1963 near the Rye/Port Chester NY border after vandalism and fire.

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I don't remember if it was in photos of the car that was built or a fanciful "what if" interpretation of future possible versions but one of the illustrations I saw had a sort of cabinet built as part of a seat with something similar to the production type 53-4 trunk mounted AC unit contained within it.

Based on where the fender scoops are located, I would suspect that the A/C unit was between the forward-facing rear seat and the rearward-facing seat behind it. This car has always fascinated me so I'm glad to see it being discussed. I understand that it also had jumpseats like a limousine and ads showed a camper version too.

It was built on 1954 commercial chassis #5413-2015. Notes in the PCS article say the AC evaporator was boxed between the rear-facing observation lounge seats and forward-facing rear seats. It was built with maximum seating for 12 (2 of which were occasional seats behind the front seat) but comfortable seating for 10. It was the only one built.

The PCS issue with the article by Tom McPherson is No. 155, July-August 2014 and runs from page 29 thru 33. That entire issue should be a "must have" for a serious Packard student as it's devoted entirely to the 1951-1954 Henney products for Packard. An earlier issue, #145 of 3rd Quarter 2013 covered the Henney Juniors. If you can get a back issue, I think you'll be very pleased with your purchase. I believe the issue of The Packard Club's quarterly that also had an article on the car was Winter 1978, that article written by George Hamlin.