Patrician: The Last Great Packard Luxury Sedan

Anyone who saw the new 1955 Packard in a dealer’s showroom would have had a hard time imagining that the ne, old name would disappear from the automotive scene less than four years later. The body appeared to be all new, stylish and modern. Fullwidth chrome grilles were designed separately: one for the mid-priced Clipper, and another for the “senior” Packards. Both Clippers and Packards had hooded headlamp housings and bumpers with integral “bullet” guards and lower sections that rolled under. The Clippers carried over the rearward-jutting taillamps, while the “senior” Packard Four-Hundred, Patrician and Caribbean models had tall, cathedral-style lamps above bumper ends that incorporated exhaust outlets.

Wrap-around windshields and revised side trim also provided enough new style to mask the fact that the new Packards were actually a very thorough updating of the body shell that had debuted with the 1951 models. New suspension incorporating torsion bars front and rear, with an automatic leveling system, supported the chassis with the same 122- and 127inch wheelbase, respectively, for the Clipper and Packard. Except for the windshield, the greenhouse design was the same, and the quarter panels continued a subtle rear fender bump.

However, under the lightly sculptured hood of the new Packards was a long-awaited V-8 engine in place of the previous L-head straight-eight that had long resided there. At 352 cubic inches, the V-8 was marginally smaller in displacement, but pumped out 260 hp in the larger Packards, a 23 percent boost over the previous straight-eight.

The “Patrician” name had been attached to the most prestigious sedan since the 1951 models. Along with the FourHundred two-door hardtop and the Caribbean convertible, it made up the 1955 Packard line and sold 9,127 copies. With the new styling, V-8 engines and Torsion-Level suspension, overall Packard sales for 1955 topped 55,000, a 77 percent increase over 1954.

But the bubble was not to last

The V-8 in the Patrician, Four-Hundred and Caribbean was bored out to 374 cubic inches for 1956, boosting the power rating to 290 hp. Headlamp hoods were extended, and the grille was slightly restyled. The uted chrome trim band was extended the full length of the body, from behind the front wheel opening to the taillamp.

Patrician production slid to only 3,775 cars, while total Packard sales fell to 28,835, just over half of the 1955 output. The Packard name, a proud marque dating from the very earliest years of the U.S. auto industry, would continue for two more years, but the Patrician model name was retired after 1956.

Desperately attempting to keep both companies going, Packard and Studebaker had merged in 1954. Finances would not allow the complete redesigns that both cars needed, and the existing Packard bodies were too wide for the Studebaker assembly lines upon which they would be built, so the 1957 and 1958 Packards, reduced to four models, were built using the Studebaker body shell, chassis and drive train.