Trip to America's Packard Museum, Dayton, Ohio

[scotrace]

I drove to Dayton recently as my roommate had meetings there. Having a few hours to kill, I went to the Citizen's Motorcar Copany, a preserved Packard dealership begun in 1912. The manager's office is still there, the fixtures, service department, all of it. Now it houses a considerable collection of Packards and associated parts and documents, including a dedicated library. A remarkable $5 day.
http://www.americaspackardmuseum.com

Inside a Station Sedan

Limosine with a V-12

The '50 Henny Hearse which carried Vito Corleone to his grave in The Godfather.

Details

Owned by the DuPont family. They had considerable stock in GM, but refused to drive Cadillacs.

'48 convertible like that used in the film "Carol."

Packard built PT boat engines, like this one. (And a lot of aircraft engines. There are several on display)

A 30's V-12 coupe

The engine for the V-12 limo

 

[Frunobulax]

And you didn't let me know you were in town? For shame!

It's a great place. Very popular for dinners, events, fundraisers and the like.


Sent directly from my mind to yours.

 

[GHT]

That art deco showroom, I could live there. Packard built the Rolls Royce Merlin engine in WW2, they took the hand built V12 and mass produced it. Once mated to the P51, you had an aircraft like no other. Add an underbelly fuel pod and you had a long range fighter escort. What a machine.


Did you know that Packard were exporting R/H/D cars before the war?

 

[3fingers]

Thank you for sharing this. I somehow had missed it before. There was a fellow in my little hometown who had a few old Packards. Unfortunately be did not have sufficient funds to fully restore them, but they were fun to ride around in. My personal favorite of his collection was a Caribbean, I believe it was a 1954 model. Good memories of cruising around with the top down.

 

[1930artdeco]

Where is the drooling emoji?