If it wasn’t already painfully obvious that Packard was a dead brand walking by the early ’50s, this “Special Speedster” should convince the most ardent Packard counterfactualist. GM was showing America the future with its extravagant traveling Motorama shows, chock full of low-slung dream cars. Feeling painfully left behind, in 1952 Packard’s Director of Styling Edward Macauley and chief engineer Bill Graves decided to show America that they could spin dreams too. The result is this Special Speedster, essentially a modified 1951 Packard 400 sedan turned into…the world’s biggest and speediest business coupe.
Here’s what the Packard Special Speedster was up against: one year earlier, GM had unveiled Harley Earl’s vision for the post-war years: the 1951 LeSabre. A low-slung roadster with highly advanced styling and an all-aluminum hemi-head 3.5 L V8 under the hood, the LeSabre became the most influential car of the early fifties, and was the opening shot of a whole series of GM two-passenger roadsters to come, including of course the Corvette.
Just to play it safe, Earl also created a second roadster, the Buick XP-300. It shared most of its key mechanical elements with the LeSabre, but its front end was more predictive of actual Buicks to come.
Packard stylist Dick Teague’s budget for the Speedster was probably less than a month of Harley Earl’s business lunch expenses. Still, there’s a lot to like about this Packard Special Speedster—as a quaint period piece with its enormous flathead straight eight engine, predator front grille, big hood scoop and endless tail and all, but in the context of its time, it was hopelessly out of date. Presumably it wasn’t really conceived to be a business coupe, but it does have all the basic attributes—a single bench seat, a very short roof, and an exceptionally long trunk. Those elements were of course also present on classic three-window coupes in the 1930s, but by the 1950s, this body style was only being referred to as a business coupe.
In the 1930’s, the three-passenger coupe format still worked, in fact, rather exceptionally well in the case of the Lincoln Zephyr. A three-window coupe appealed to those very much not into having kids; a dashing single man or woman, say. It was exclusive, stylish and came as close to the exclusive luxury coupes being built on the continent as it got in America.
The last of the line of the high end three-window coupes were the first-series 1949 Chrysler coupes (this is a 1948). It was even available with an inline flathead eight, in the New Yorker line. Yes, it was anachronistic by that time; neither GM nor Ford offered anything like it after the war.
Plymouth and Dodge (above) did still offer a three-window coupe until 1952, but these were business coupes, which is what low end coupes had become some years earlier. They were the cheapest version available in either brand, targeted to traveling salesmen and other commercial travelers. And these too were the last of their kind; Chrysler was very conservative at the time. From then on Plymouth and Dodge business coupes were either club coupes or two-door sedans that had their rear seats removed, like the rest of the market.
I’m not enjoying rubbing the salt in the wound, but calling this coupe a “speedster” alone is a sign of how out of touch Packard was.
Since the earliest days of the automobile, a speedster was always a car that had much of its body stripped, or just a very minimal body, for the obvious purpose of increasing its speed. Think racing car, like this 1910 Wisconsin Speedster.
And if not an actual racing or sports car, then at least a two-passenger roadster, whose name is of course essentially interchangeable with “speedster.”
The Porsche Speedster is what probably comes most readily to mind when hearing that word—to me, at least.
But leave it to Packard to go against convention and apply it to a fix-roof coupe.
Now it the roof retracted like the one in Chrysler’s 1941 Thunderbolt dream car, I’d give Packard a pass. There’s certainly plenty of room for it in the Packard vast bootie.
Speaking, the Thunderbolt still manages to looks more modern than the Packard despite being eleven years older. Maybe Packard could have bought it from Chrysler and put a Packard grille on it?
Another odd feature was the rear-facing spotlight mounted on the roof, which was later (wisely) deleted. A bit of digging suggests that this car, originally called the Panther, was targeted to the well-heeled sportsman hunter, the large trunk presumably to haul home the carcass? And the spotlight to help find the prey? I’m speculating here…
It’s easy to throw cheap shots at the Special Speedster until the hood is opened and everyone stands in awe of the mighty Packard 327 cubic inch inline eight. My understanding is that this mighty engine weighs close to 900 lbs. But all that cast iron helps to make it run so smoothly and quietly. And in order to give the at least some semblance or relevance to the “Speedster” name, this one was bestowed a McCulloch supercharger. No horsepower figure were given, but since the regular version was rated at 155 hp, let’s be generous and say…200. Torque? The NA version was rated at 270 ft.lb., so maybe a bit over 300?
What a stark contrast that 1920’s style straight eight is to the LeSabre’s 215 cubic inch hemi head aluminum V8, which was also supercharged for good measure. It was rated at 335 hp and 382 lb.ft. of torque. The past meets the future.
The Speedster’s interior rather harked to the 1940s than predicting the 1960s, although it certainly was nicely done, right down to the two-tone leather wrap on the mighty tiller.
There’s something menacing about that front end. Aha; it just came to me: this Panther-Special Speedster would have been the perfect basis for a Batmobile if that TV show had appeared a few year earlier than the actual one. I knew I’d be able to end this on a high note, and a counterfactual too, for good measure.
Related CC Reading
Curbside Classic: 1951 Packard 200 (And Abbreviated Packard History) – Falling Down(Market) by me
Rare Classic: 1953 Packard Convertible – Classic Elegance At The Parking Lot by Rich Baron
I’m pretty sure this was styled by independent designer Richard Arbib. Among his many accomplishments, he also dated model Betty Page.
Arbib also did the facelifts on the (Nash-based) 1956 and ’57 Hudsons, though I’ll leave it to the reader to determine whether that constitutes an accomplishment.
Watch collectors know Richard Arbib better as the designer of all those asymmetrical Hamilton wristwatches from the late 50s, including the “Ventura” model, which was a favorite of Elvis Presley’s.
The beltline/roof proportions are as unsettling as a then contemporary Cadillac flower car. Henney did make some Packard flower cars prior to and after this car. How were they related?
Henney was a body builder who took Packard and Cadillac cars and converted them to ambulances, flower cars, hearses, etc. Richard Arbib worked for Henney. Packard commissioned Henney to build show cars and limited production cars.
From some angles – those where you can’t see the top of the huge decklid – it looks like Packard’s take on the (future) El Camino. I do like the partially body-colored grille.
Don’t see rear wipers on many cars of this vintage.
You beat me to it! 😀
I said Ranchero since it was first to Market. It reminds me of the El Camino, tho.
Based on the first picture it looks like Packard beat Ford’s Ranchero to the coupe utility market; the Packard Picaro perhaps?
It has incredible underhood appeal. Beautiful.
My friend’s father would nearly tear up when talking about Packard’s demise.
The unintentional tie-in with Aaron65’s Mark VII post via Dick Teague and Jeff Teague is appreciated.
Thanks for this, it is the first time I have really considered this car on its own merits, and not as a photo that spices up a piece on early 1950s Packards. I agree that there is very little about this car’s styling that says “Speedster” to me, A convertible or retractable roof might have been more speedster-like, but even then this screams funeral flower car to me.
I am curious about your use of the term “close-coupled”. I have always understood that term to refer to a body with seating for four, in which the rear seat is snuggled fairly close to the front seat, thus the “close coupling”. Some sources from early in the 20th Century support this idea (like a 1913 Motor Age article on “Uses and Abuses of the Motor Vocabulary” available on Google Books.) But I see that you have used a meaning that derives from the distance from the seat to the rear wheels. Even then, this car (which has an extraordinarily long stretch from the front seat to the rear axle) would not seem to me to be close-coupled. Clearly these terms have become a little mushy through the decades (and perhaps used differently on different sides of the Atlantic), but I have always thought of a car like this as more of a 3-window or 3 passenger coupe than something that is close-coupled.
Yes, the term “close-coupled coupe” is not the right one in this case, so I’ve replaced it with “three window coupe”.
Seen this show car many times over the years, and it always appears hideously disproportionate with that short roof. I can understand the low budget the designer(s) had to work with; it shows here. And of course, business coupes were on their way out by the time this car was displayed. Most show attendees might think, “Why did Packard even bother?”
Packard styling only got worse IMHO by `56, when they built the ugly, out-of-touch Predictor show car. Thank God it never became a `57 model as planned! That mess was a final visual nail in Packard’s coffin.
It would have been interesting if they had shortened the wheelbase appropriately, then maybe it would have been worthy of the speedster name. Hard to do it with the X-frame underneath, would have had to completely rethink that. The 327 with a 4 barrel was rated to 185 hp in 1953, without a Supercharger, so maybe 215 or 220?.
Thanks for the article!
Can’t remember ever seeing one of these. I think it’s beautiful.
When Mechanics Illustrated’s Tom McCahill tested the new 1959 Chevy Impala, he noted “The trunk lid is big enough to land a Piper Cub on!”
Uncle Tom obviously hadn’t seen this Packard.
It looks like it’s built on the Senior 127″ wb Patrician 400 chassis (as I assumed for many years), but it’s basically a Mayfair (on the Junior 122″ chassis) with a shortened roof and Senior quarter panel ends. The short distance from the door opening to the quarter panel bulge confirms it.
I saw it years ago parked in the Hershey field lot, modified with ’55 Chrysler taillights and I suppose a hemi. So nice to see it brought back to original. Very cool Packard. Painting-out the inner grille bar but not the teeth was genius, too.
Agree that it cries for a retractable hardtop. Comparing it to the contemporary Buick drea cars shows how out of touch or oujt of funds Packard was. Truly the only niuce thing you can ay about it is that the Panther follow ups were worse.
It was the earlier 356 9 bearing 8 that weighed over 900lbs, the crank alone weighed over 100! The 327 came in 2 versions: 5 and 9 bearing, developed from the previous 288 cu in 8 from the Jr. cars, and later stretched to a 359 cu in 9 bearing, not to be confused with the 356-9 from the former Senior cars, both of the Junior derived engines weighed somewhat less. A 356 at idle is so smooth and silent it may as well be not running!
The ’55/56 V8s were also extremely heavy as they were designed to be bored to 500 cu in! A shame that they never got that chance.
Wonder what it was supposed to look like? It did turn out “memorable”.
Just, _WOW_ .
I agree this would have been better with an open trunk for flower car or DeLuxe coupe utility function…..
I doubt many would have ever sold but it’s certainly eye catching .
I remember a pair of similar vintage Packard Hennesy hearses brought up from Mexico in the late 1970’s, they looked so regal but also overstuffed as did all Packards in this body style .
I do admit I _LOVE_ the tiny cabin =8-) .
-Nate
The proportions look more like a pickup than a coupe, This style really needs a shorter rear deck to not look awkward, I love the line “Dick Teague’s budget for the Speedster was probably less than a month of Harley Earl’s business lunch expenses”. Packard was at least trying, although this goes some way to explaining why the merger with Studebaker happened.
Hey! That’s it. Could store a “Stude”, back there!
I would love to own and drive a 1951 Packard 400 Patrician four door sedan, though I probably would not appreciate its thirsty attraction to filling stations. I very much liked the 1951 dashboard (all it needed was 1930s-1940s style wood-graining), and especially kudos for that fabulous radio! The Borg clock always kept “Perfect” time. I never saw the grille as “menacing”. And I agree, that the body-colour on parts of the grille in this example improves it. But just TRY to find a 75-year-old car in this condition, and available!