Danville Street Sighting - 1949 Packard Standard Eight

This is Independents' Week, a recurring feature here on California Streets around the 4th of July, celebrating cars from independent American manufacturers. That means no Big Three cars from Ford, General Motors or Chrysler. This is a 1949 Packard Standard Eight Touring Sedan.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1929 Packard Model 640 Custom Eight Roadster

I've posted a couple of times previously about a collector in my area with a nice assortment of pre-war classics. His '40 Buick and '32 Cadillac have been featured here, and there are numerous others that end up in his garage from time to time. It should be noted that as of this writing I have never once asked him to pull a car out of the garage for me to shoot as a "street sighting". Sometimes I just get lucky! Today we're looking at what I believe to be a 1929 Packard Model 640 Custom Eight roadster.

Santa Cruz Street Sighting - 1956 Packard Four Hundred

It seems fitting to me that some of the last Packards were named after Roman aristocrats and medieval politicians. The patricians held titles of wealth and power from storied civilizations that rose and fell, much as the great luxury car manufacturer Packard emerged from the horseless carriages of the nineteenth century only to fizzle out as a fish-faced, rebadged Studebaker in a market that had moved on. The latter days of Rome still had some splendor, and Packard's last shining moment was the 1956 lineup with its Patrician, Caribbean and Four Hundred.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1958 Packard Hawk

Today marks the final day of another year. For the last post of a dying year, let's examine the last gasp of a dying brand. This is a 1958 Packard Hawk.

Danville Street Sighting - 1937 Packard 120-C Convertible Coupe

This is the kind of car that makes readers say, "Come on, dude, you took this at a car show, it doesn't count!"

...Well, you'd be close. This lovely yellow 1937 Packard was parked two blocks from the Danville d'Elegance car show last year. I assume it was a spectator's vehicle and was parked in front of the restored Southern Pacific railroad station that now serves as the Museum of the San Ramon Valley. I'm a sucker for classic Packards because they're such classy, beautiful cars. This one appears to be a Model 120-C convertible coupe.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1941 Packard One-Twenty convertible

When I search for cars to feature, my holiest grails are long-defunct nameplates with great histories. One such brand is Packard, known for its luxury cars. Packard was founded in 1899 and lasted until 1958, when a merger with Studebaker went awry and destroyed the brand. Packard was lucky to have made it that far; the Great Depression killed off many storied luxury nameplates such as Auburn, Duesenberg, Cord and Pierce-Arrow. In order to survive, Packard had to create a more affordable product. That product was the One-Twenty.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1956 Packard Patrician

The story of Packard is a long one, but unfortunately it doesn't have a happy ending. The name Packard conjures up images of graceful 1930s luxury cars with tall, distinctive grilles and long hoods. The company itself was a pioneer of automobile design, with their first cars rolling off the line in 1899. The earliest models were true horseless carriages, some resembling the Olds Curved Dash Runabout. As time progressed, Packard became one of the recognized names in luxury, and persisted as a high-end marque even through the Depression. In the mid-thirties, though, Packard saw the need to diversify and offer less expensive "aspirational" cars to attract more buyers. These cars were something of a catch-22; they kept the doors open longer, but they also cheapened Packard's brand image.