The Patrician was the last "Senior Packard", the company's top-of-the-line model, intended to go head to head against Lincolns, Imperials, and Cadillacs on the American market.
For 1955, the Patrician above, with its Agate-over-Topaz Metallic two tone paint job, would have featured Packard's first... and only ...V-8 engine. Displacing 352 cubic inches and topped with a Rochester 4bbl carburetor, the overhead valve V-8 put out 260 SAE gross horsepower in the Patrician.
The Patrician also features a "Twin-Ultramatic" transmission, an improvement on the existing Ultramatic, designed by a young Packard engineer who had been lured away from his job at Chrysler by a $14,000-a-year salary offer. The engineer's name: John DeLorean.
Talk about a different era. You can tell the image the manufacturer wished to project with a vehicle name like "Patrician". Bunches of chrome gingerbread, a two-tone paint job, and sweeping ribbed stainless steel accent panels on the sides. It even says "The Patrician" in script on the fenders behind the front wheel wells.
The photo above was taking in southeastern Colorado in October of 2013 using a Sony Cybershot DSC-W650.
I live in the UK and this era of American car is super interesting to me, because what we had over here in 1955 was basically wartime stuff.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone ever visited the US at that time it must have been really mind-blowing.
The U.S. manufacturers benefited from a rapid transition to a peacetime footing for sure. (Some faster than others.)
ReplyDeleteThere were also interesting things happening as the war was entering its later stages. For instance, there's speculation that GM dragged its heels on the XP-75 long range fighter program to avoid being dragooned into producing B-29 Superfortresses, what with the end of the war being in sight by mid-'44. As it was, GM and Chrysler didn't get their first new postwar styles out until '49, beaten by Studebaker by two years.