Packard Super Eight

Packard Super Eight

1937 Packard Super Eight
Overview
Manufacturer Packard
Production 1939–1951
Assembly Packard Automotive Plant, Detroit, Michigan, United States
Body and chassis
Body style
Layout Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive
Related Packard Station Sedan
Dimensions
Wheelbase
  • 127 in (3,226 mm) (1939)[1]
  • 120 in (3,048 mm) (1946)[2]
  • 127 in (3,226 mm) (1949)[3]
Length 208 in (5,283 mm) (1946)[2]
Chronology
Predecessor Packard 180
Successor Packard 400 Patrician

Packard Super Eight was the name given to the larger of the two eight-cylinder luxury automobiles produced by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan. It shared frames and some body types with the top model Packard Twelve. Following the discontinuation of the Seventeenth Series Packard Twelve after the 1939 model year, a new Super Eight One-Eighty was derived from the Super Eight as the new top car range. The Super Eight was renamed the Packard Super Eight One-Sixty. These two models shared most mechanical components including the 160 HP straight Eight engine.

After 1942, Packard concentrated on the new Clipper styling that was developed for an upper-class sedan the previous year. There were Super Clippers and Custom Super Clipper in the One-Sixty and One-Eighty tradition until 1947. After a heavy facelift, the name Clipper was dropped. The most senior Super Eight One-Eighty became the Custom Eight, while its slightly lower-priced sibling, the Super Eight One-Sixty, once again became simply the Super Eight. Clipper Custom Super Eights and Custom Eights were very close relatives to their respective Super models, distinguished outside by the lack of an eggcrate grille and small rear chrome trim moulding under t he trunk lid on Supers. In 1949, a new Super Eight Deluxe was added to the line. This car had also the Custom Eight's eggcrate grille, but not the rear trim.

The entire range of Packard's motorcars was renamed for the 1951 model year (twenty-fourth series), when the Super Eight was renamed 400.

A green 1939 Super Eight is the titular vehicle in Anton Myrer's 1978 novel The Last Convertible and its 1979 television miniseries adaptation.

A yellow 1949 convertible was used in the Back to the Future franchise as Doc Brown's car.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Packard vehicles.

References

  1. ↑ "Directory Index: Packard/1939 Packard/album". Oldcarbrochures.com. Retrieved 2012-06-01.
  2. 1 2 "Directory Index: Packard/1946 Packard/album". Oldcarbrochures.com. Retrieved 2012-06-01.
  3. ↑ "Directory Index: Packard/1949_Packard/1949_Packard_Owners_Manual". Oldcarbrochures.com. Retrieved 2012-06-01.
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