Photos by ReturnoftheYeti at the Cohort
(first posted 2/15/2014) I was tempted to do this with a humorous theme (“Hi, I’m Pauline the Packard. I was living at the Parkview retirement home in Memphis until one night when I had hot toddies with Hank the Holden. Next thing I knew, I was flat on my chassis at Methodist Hospital, and the Doctor was telling me he was going to give me an engine from a Studebaker. A Studebaker!”) But then I thought about the rarity of this species of Hawk, and decided a more sober approach was in order.
One thing that struck me was that while the ’58 Hawk did the signal the end of another chapter of the independents of American auto manufacturing, it was also one of the first obviously badge-engineered cars to be sold in the United States (discounting the North-of-the-border specials).
That being said, I actually like the Packard’s styling better than Studebaker Hawk’s, despite it’s catfish-like maw. It seems to fit in a little better with Raymond Lowey’s and Bob Bourke’s styling than the ‘Classic’ lines that its Hawk brethren had inflicted on them in an attempt to bring it into line with what folks who shopped for cars at Brennecke Chevrolet were expecting to bring home. Even the back was better if you discount the toilet seat that got stuck back there, which leads me to wonder if Virgil Exner was moonlighting again, as he did for the 1947 Studebakers. At least this time, he didn’t get fired for it.
And yes, it does look like someone with a bad toupee or a hair dyed a shade that doesn’t quite jibe with their complexion. This one has lost the gold applique that once highlighted the tacked on tail-fins, as well as one side of the outside armrests, but it’s much more intact than the other 1958 Packard that we found at the curbside previously. It may still have the supercharger that was its claim to fame, as well as the reason for the Pep Boys hood scoop. One could argue that J.C.Whitney was doing a land office business with S-P in 1958 with all the tacked-on gewgaws and doo-dads that the models that came down the line had on them. I’m surprised that they did not have curb feelers as standard equipment.
When I did my research for this, I went over to Packardinfo.com and looked at the list of Packard dealers. I noticed the Millikan Motor company was listed as a dealer for Cape Girardeau, MO. I remember my mother working for the Cape Senior Center in the same block of Broadway as the address given for Millikan motors(207 Broadway) in what used to be an old car dealership. Would the CC Effect be in force?
As it turns out, no. The building she worked in (230 Broadway) used to house Harris motors, the Chrysler dealer. Millikan did eventually morph into Jason’s Dean Taylor Cadillac Olds (although he seems to get it confused with Van Matre Buick, which was where the Cape Police Building is now), however, so maybe it did work. Another little connection – The Missourian’s Jackson Bureau used to be the Prill-Hahs Motor Company, a Ford Dealership, with Mr. Max Prill being a member of the same church as my family as well as mentoring yours truly when I wound up using my bit-twiddling skills to keep track of things like food stamp account balances.
Photo by Ehisforadam on Flickr!
Another thing my research turned up was a listing for what appears to be this car (how many Packard Hawks can be left?) on bringatrailer.com stating it had been sold. Hopefully, Pauline has a new home and enjoying lots of Simoniz and Bleech-Wite and now looks like these two (above and below), but then again, this is Curbside Classic.
Black rear from Wikipedia.com
Jana, you have succeeded in getting my tired brain fired up this morning.
You are correct, there can’t be many of these left; from what I found, only 588 were ever built. So with CC having documented two of them, that is quite a feat in my mind.
Let me get this straight….Van Matre Buick was on Sprigg Street where the police station is….Dean Taylor was around the corner and down the street on Independence (which, incidentally, it was a bar for a while after they moved out to S. Kingshighway)….Ford Groves was up Sprigg from Van Matre Buick and is currently used by Nip Kelly Construction and his cab company….I first remember the Chrysler dealer (around 1983) out on N. Kingshighway near Mt. Auburn Road and then moving to South Kingshighway, where Van Matre wound up building next door with the merger of Van Matre and Dean Taylor sometime after that. I also remember Keele AMC as being on Kingshighway between Independence and Broadway. The only “furr-in” car dealer was Cape Toyota way down on South Kingshighway close to Route 34. It remains in the same place – to my knowledge, unless its moved out to I-55 and Route K with the new Hyandai dealer. There never was a Honda dealer in Cape during my time (having moved away for the second time in 2001) – if you wanted a Honda, you drove to St. Louis.
Am I remembering all this correctly? I’m only 26 (or so), so you know some of it is going to be sketchy! 😉
Ford Groves has had an outlet in Jackson since the early ’90s, which is where my grandfather bought the ’92 F-150 I wrote about early last year. It is thriving while Brennecke has gone out of business.
If anyone besides Jana read this far, I applaud you!
R. Dean Taylor. Indiana wants me, lord I can’t go back there.
Yes, you are right. Dean Taylor was at Independence and Louisiana.
Harris moved to Independence and Kingshiway(where Aldi is) before giving the franchise back in the 70’s to concentrate on Heavy trucks. The Pentastar franchise wandered around a bit before going to Mt. Auburn. Keele did sell Chrysler Products before Wieser took and moved to where you remember them.
Cape Toyota used to also sell Volvos and Saabs(back when there down the hill from SE Hospital(being 26 or so 🙂 you may not remember that location as a Pizza Hut), and there was a Volkswagen dealer for a while, too (Kingshiway and William).
Mr. Prill’s dealership was fairly short-lived. I remember that Mom told me he also sold Studebakers. He was the comptroller for Lenco when I got to know him.
Darn it! I had forgotten about Weiser Honda – see it’s my age working against me.
I vividly remember the Pizza Hut down from SE Hospital; I cruised up and down Broadway enough to remember it well.
Another oddity I remember is that the building near Mt. Auburn that had been the Chrysler dealer in ’83 (where my dad purchased a K-car at what was billed as “Town and Country Motors”) would later become the new location for Uncle Ralph’s Furniture. Driving by a couple weeks ago, it is now a loan company of some variety.
The Harris connection makes sense, as I thought of Harris Truck immediately. The father of a high school classmate worked there. It is (was?) located at the I-55 interchange just south of the Diversion Channel, where the Cape/Scott County line is at.
When were you last in that area? Morgan Oak has been extended to I-55 and the entire I-55 / Route K interchange is a throng of business development. The entire downtown of Cape is either bars or antique shops, plus there is quite the casino there now. The old seminary has been converted to university property and uses. I could go on but I don’t want to hijack this thread.
I could too. I was there in October when I took my Mother back for her 86th birthday. My Brother and nephews and their families still live there.
I normally make it back once or twice a year. We moved Mom back to Memphis when It became obvious that she couldn’t live on her own anymore, and could afford nothing in Cape.
Three, actually. I shot this pink one at the 2009 Studebaker Drivers’ Club International Meet in Cedar Rapids. It was shown in my 1958 Packard Hardtop CC.
The other CC Packard Hawk was in Jim Grey’s excellent writeup on the Studebaker Museum.
But how rare to find a street-parked Packard Hawk! Nice find and writeup.
One was found and shown on a FB classic car page here recently have flown the coop from the US at some point so thats three still out there.
Hmmm… Not quite my thing. The front-on shot looks like a mobile DustBuster. As per Jason, you have fired up my brain but for the wrong reasons. I would like to nominate you for most abstract clue image of the year. Anyhoo, a curio like these is better than a red Camry wagon. Cheers.
A classic case of the emperor’s new clothes.Few people were convinced by the “Packardbaker” despite it being the fastest ever Packard and it was dismissed as a tarted up Studebaker.The vacuum cleaner/cat fish snout does it no favours and the toilet seat never looked good on any car.Most people chose a Studebaker,cheaper and better looking,there were some ugly brutes coming out of Detroit in 58 and though no oil painting there were many worse lookers.
A lot of the reason for the ’57-58 Packardbakers was that back in ’54, planning on the new ’55’s and a hoped-for resurgence of Packard, the company had culled dealers, recruited new ones, and had done everything they could to improve their retail presence. And suddenly it’s mid-1956, the previous two years haven’t been as successful as needed, the company is in dire financial straits, and they gotta have something with Packard on the hood to put into all those newly spiffed-up showrooms. Or potentially face a load of lawsuits.
Most of the accounts I’ve read say that the ’57’s were supposed to be a one-year stopgap until a new ‘real’ ’58 Packard (based on the Predictor, I guess) could enter production. Unfortunately, Studebaker-Packard’s financial situation got worse and worse, the one year stopgap became a two year maybe-its-not-a-stopgap-after-all . . . . . . . . . and the only thing that was selling well was the bare-bones Studebaker Scotsman.
I don’t think there were any serious thoughts of trying to do a ’59 Packard, even if it was going to be a Packardbaker. By the end of the ’58 model year, the company knew they had permanently damaged the Packard name and just decided to let it die, putting everything on the Lark.
Smartest possible move, as it turned out. Unfortunately. And it was an obvious move. I can still remember the 1958 Johnstown auto show, when I’d go down for the weekend to hang out at dad’s display, and collect catalogs and flyers from everybody else. Even to this seven year old kid, looking at Studebaker-Packard against anything GM, Ford or Chrysler, it was obvious that something was very, very wrong. Even if I didn’t understand business in the slightest at that point.
Thanks for that Syke,I read there was going to be a Packard based on the 56 Lincoln but there wasn’t enough money left by then.Packard was a dead man walking for many years.My only memory of Packard is seeing comedienne Hylda Baker being chauffeured in one in the West End of London in the early 60s.
Yes yes yes!!!!….I also fully admit that I truly love the awkward catfish front end much better than any of the Studebaker variants. That said, I would love to see the rear end from the early 60’s redesign of the Studebaker Hawk without the fins on the Packard.
I like it and hope it gets saved .
I really wonder if it has the Paxton puffer under the hood .
-Nate
This is one sorry little fish-faced twin to the Studebaker Hawk. they even gave it little fangs. No wonder no one bought it.
It’s a case of to each his own.
I’ll agree, they probably would have better to kill Packard in 1956 rather than cook up the Packardbakers, but they thought that somehow they would come up with the money to get new tooling, which of course never happened.
Could be worse – We could have had a Packard trimmed variant of the Lark.
Part of the reason for the Packardbakers was that S-P was still scrambling to find some banker crazy enough to lend them money to tool up entirely new cars. Another was that they still had a bunch of Packard dealers, and they needed to give them some product to sell or else they would be faced with litigation from breaking the dealer contracts, and they couldn’t close down the dealer network as long as they held out some hope of reviving the brand. The concept of a Hawk-based Packard luxury sports coupe was not a bad one in theory, if S-P had done it right. Maybe if they had worked on that right after the merger and introduced the car in 1955 or ’56.
Was the pre-Lark Stude based Packard any better? I’ve seen one of those, had to delve into the memory banks to recall it wasn’t a Hawk – similar tacked on front end.
There is an old man down the road from me that owns this, and several other cars, all in various states of dis-repair.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50198110@N00/sets/72157634325369525/with/9139188710/
The Neighbors HATE him and are constantly calling DPT (Parking Enforcement). He always manages to move the cars before they are towed, but I guarantee that one day these are all going to get impounded and then sent to crusher.
Funny thing is, if you look at the Photostream, all these cars run. He has to move them every 72 hours so they do not get impounded. They may not run well, but they run.
Jeremy,
Thank for putting these on the cohort.
I agree, one of the sad things about the old car hobby is we do get our fair share of hoarders. I remember back in the 80’s, I was selling nursing home insurance via leads we would get from senior-oriented magazines. I was driving through Sainte Genevieve, MO, and my lead was in house that the front yard was chok-a-bloc with Kasiers, Willys, and other things that hadn’t moved since I came into this world down the road at St. Francis Hospital. I figured it would be a ‘get off my lawn’ deal and drove on. When I related how my day went to my boss, he commended me, as the time he went on the property, he found himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
The cars are long gone. I Think I can remember doing a search and verified that they had been cut up for scrap once he passed on, as they were too far gone for anything else by that time.
Barnfinds.com have featured some amazing hoard finds of late. There should be an entire DSM just on these people
Ahhh fuck those neighbors… I wish I could see such interesting sights on a daily basis. And aside from the Deadly Sin Corvette, he has awesome taste. Corvairs, StudePackards, a Breezeway Mercury, Chrysler 300… really cool stuff!
Sheesh… am I the only one that likes C4 Vettes?
Maybe 😉
Speaking of Vettes, I’ve got a friend who rescues C2 project vettes. You know, the ones all torn down and busted up in a million pieces where the owner runs out of cash and will power. He’s a body shop guy and molds his own bodies. He just found a trashed body without the engine. He’s looking for a 427/435 hp engine. If anyone knows of a project sitting around, give a shout and if a deal is consummated there will be a finder’s fee. hausdok@msn.com
It would be interesting to know which transmission that 300K has. They built about eighty eight with a four speed.
To me the Packard name should have been allowed to die with dignity. These Packardbakers never lived up to the high quality and elegant Packards they replaced.
I can just imagine the turned up noses of previous Packard owners,the lofty Packard is now a mere Studebaker in drag.To add insult to injury it’s now the lovely Hawk’s ugly sister.I agree it was a sad end to what was once a serious rival to Rolls Royce,if the 55 and 56 cars had been more successful it could have bought a bit more time and the story could have been very different.
They were really only the beginning of the end, after this came several rounds of Bayliff Packards, each one being more blatantly a modified Big Three production car than the last, culminating with one last Lincoln Town Car in 2006;
https://www.generationhighoutput.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/lincoln-town-car-packard.jpg
A bad ending. I thought sharing the Neon name was questionable for Dodge and Plymouth, but it was honest as there was no attempt to differentiate the cars. Sharing Hawk between cars that were somewhat differentiated and supposed to have different market positioning was terrible. And the styling was backward between the brands, but of course the Stude was already well established.
What a mess. At least the Packard didn’t suffer the indignity of going 2 door sedan only as the Studebaker Hawk did.
A Loewy with toilet seat, I prefer them without cant say Ive ever seen a Packardbaker coupe Studes yep plenty it always fascinated me seeing the pop rivets holding the fins on, there used to be several floating about Windsor NSW when I worked around there, why? who knows but somebody on the old stock route has quite a collection and always seemed to have a runner to drive.
Wow! I was alive in 1957 and remember seeing lots of of Stuebakers and quite a few Packards, but I never even new these existed (just like front-engined Coopers) … if it weren’t for CC my education would have ended years ago.
I to this day find the death of Packard as one of the most unfortunate outcomes of the shake-out of the remaining independent North American automakers in the fifties. Packard was far more solvent than Studebaker at the time of their merger but were misled about this. Would there have been a better partner? Could they have been capitalized by some other industrial partner and developed a new Packard? Who knows, but wouldn’t you like to see modern Packards plying the streets today?
There was a strange looking new Packard revealed a few years ago which the disappeared.
I think Packard is one of those brands that inspire folks to ‘revive’ it from time to time. I would think their IP (logos etc.) would be in the public domain by now. I feel a QOTD coming on, let’s see if Paul will approve it.
I feel like Packard exists in a weird space where it was too well-remembered among certain now-elderly Americans to have been allowed to die in peace, but not well-remembered enough in China to allow for a proper, well-funded revival that would inevitably focus on crossovers and NOT be slathered with neoclassic design cues thus looking a bit generic.
I believe there have been a few attempts to revive the Packard brand, the latest being in 1999
That’s the one I read about,it disappeared shortly after.I don’t think there would be many takers with that unusual styling and no doubt colossal price tag
I agree, not very exciting or inspiring. Turns out that this is little more then a rebodied Ford Crown Vic
What a find! If there were only 588 of these built, it’s really amazing that any survive at all. It seems they were one of the worst received cars of the 1950s. I doubt this is the same car as the one seen on Bringatrailer.com, though. Too many differences in paint wear. If that car had been repainted, even with Rustoleum, it wouldn’t look like this. So there are actually two all-white ’58 Packard Hawks in running but beaten condition out there. Being in southern California, this car makes me think that some old Hollywood grand dame, Norma Desmond type, had originally owned it, against the advice of all those around her. “Nonsense! I’ve driven white Packards since my first picture, Birth of a Nation!” (cuz it’s white).
The styling is total insanity, but the Studebaker Hawk of this vintage was almost just as bad. Those got much, MUCH better looking once they lost their fins later on, but in ’58 there was still too much visibly left over from the gorgeous ’53 coupe. Once you make the (very easy) connection between the two, your mind can’t un-see it and these seem like an atrocity. IMO, the late-era Packard styling themes worked best on the regular (non-Hawk) ’58 Packard hardtop coupe. Not that it was a beauty queen either, but I think they managed to set it apart from the Stude sedans at least slightly more convincingly. The twin-fin wagon is wild as well.
At this point, all of them are really cool despite their flaws – which are many. They’re the height of ’50s hallucination, the final chapter to Packard’s sad story, and they’ve got factory supercharged V8s… all good stuff.
The Packardbaker’s catfish grille might not have been so bad if Studebaker had left off the tacked-on tailfins. Studebaker really screwed the pooch from 1955 on, with both the non-stop use of the upright, Mercedes-style grille and the tailfins.
That’s a nice P.H.
If he wanted to sell it and I had room for it, I’d buy it in a second. If he ever wants a buyer, all he needs to do is advertise it in Turning Wheels, the Studebaker Driver’s Club monthly and I guaranty it will sell quickly regardless of condition.
The others are correct, there were only 588 P.H.s produced. Over 250 have survived the crusher so far. How many other brands/models from the 50’s can boast a 42% survival rate after 55 years? It seems that despite all of the negative comments they receive about the grill and the exterior arm rests, people sense there is something special about them and they keep them – usually tucked away and dry.
I’d wanted a P.H. since I was a 7-year old and my father took me with him when he went looking for a new car. “Dad, look at that neat car! Can we buy that one? Please!.” His response was kind of like some of those on here, “No, I’m not buying that piece of crap. It’s not even a real Packard.” I pouted and said, “Well, someday I’m going to own one.” He laughed, “Not likely. By the time you’re old enough to drive these will all be long gone and melted down into charm bracelets.” We spent the rest of the day going from dealership to dealership and he eventually found a car. The funny thing is, I can’t for the life of me remember what it was he bought. I can remember them all from 1960 on and from about 54 to 56 but I can’t remember that car.
I bought the one that was featured on B.A.T. back in 2011. I was flat on my back in a body cast after having fallen and broken my spine. It was a near miss and I’d decided it was time to get started on my bucket list before something else happened or I keeled over. It was advertised as a “Rust free southern California car.” Yeah, right. The old guy who’d owned it had run a tractor repair business and had used it like a pickup truck. It had so much hidden rust that I’ve named it Rusty. I’m currently doing a frame-off restoration and it will probably be at least another year before it’s completed. Not sure whether Mr. Rusty Hawk will get a name change after that or not. I kind of like Rusty as a name.
After Mr. Rusty Hawk and I met and I brought him home, I managed to locate at least two dozen more P.H.’s that had heretofore not been recorded in the P.H. registry.
By the way, as heavy as they are, a P.H. could beat a Corvette in the quarter mile. The McCulloch supercharger was standard equipment.
If anyone is interested, SDC member Michael Williams maintains the P.H. registry.
Great story and it’s amazing that so many have survived, especially yours being used as, essentially, a TRUCK for most of it’s life! You have to take the negative comments about the styling and pedigree in context. I think most here would agree this is a very cool and unique car, even those who say Packard would have been better off ceasing to exist a few years earlier. Good luck with it, I’d love to see it when it’s done!
Thanks,
I’ll try to remember to post some photos here when I’m finished.
When I was in the 7th grade I had a math teacher who one day showed up to school in a 1953 Packard Caribbean. Identical to this picture. Most of the kids had never seen a Packard before and asked a lot of questions. Mr. Leadbetter decided to give a little talk about his car. He had inherited it from his father and at one time they were like the Cadillacs and Lincolns of today (1967) That was all he ever said about the car. Drove it to school on nice days. I remember looking out the class window at it thinking.” I don’t know much about Packard, but it must of been some car”
It’s nice to know your car is receiving the TLC its rarity demands, Mike. I like Rusty as a name for a car, but then I drive Spumoni, the Italian Pony. He thinks I should get him some Pirelli snow tires lately.
Found the guy’s hoard.
It took about twenty minutes to figure out which street that P.H. was on and another five or ten to figure out that he’s rotating his stash onto the street. Switch to google satellite view and there was the P.H. looking up at me from a VERY crowded courtyard. If I’m ever down SanFran way (I live near Seattle), I’m going to run up to Glen Park, knock on the door and say hi. When I do, I’ll blame you guys. 😉
How did you find the street? I don’t think there are any clues in the pictures. But yeah, Chenery St in San Francisco. Stop by and say hello if you are in town.
Hi Jeremy,
Your photo blog showed a subway station entrance and you called it your neighborhood and Glen Park was mentioned. In the back of one of those photos is a street sign – Kendall street.
Google maps, Kendall Street, Glen Park, CA. Boom.
I followed Kendall street till I found the building on the corner and turned left. Found the public building with the purple poles and then circled the block using street view. Figured out that most were on Chenery street by comparing the house addresses and facades with your photos.
Guessed he was rotating them onto the street (It’s what I might do if I didn’t have room in my place for all of ’em), went to satellite view of Chenery to see if there were any back yards or courtyards full of cars and there was the P.H. identifiable even from a long way up., tucked in there with it’s nose facing the street and other cars around it.
Put the cursor on the building and Google told me what the house number was.
Nice. PS… the Subway sign if from NYC.
As the Hawk runs, I wish someone here could try to buy it. The front now has a bigger crack and duct tape on it. looks like the catfish was punched in the nose.
Ha!
Well, it helped anyway because I focused on areas close to that rapid transit station and then I spotted the street sign in the photo and went to the map to see if there were any rapid transit stations nearby.
Talk about dumb luck.
By the way, That front bumper is a 5 piece bumper and the two outer portions are missing in the photo. Those are going to be virtually impossible to find and will probably have to be hand made.
What a sorry end to a proud name….
Oh, I dunno,
Studebaker was the oldest vehicle manufacturer in the United States at the time. Compared to Studebaker, Packard was still a pup. Studebaker was making electric cars before they made cars with gas engines. The entire automotive history owed a lot to Studebaker for being first to test the waters on a mountain of innovations. Heck, they even had the first test track. They built the Garford which was a luxury sedan and they owned and built Pierce Arrow’s for five years. If you study Studebaker’s history you’ll find that their list of automotive innovations is one of the longest in history.
Packard could have done worse; before they hooked up with Studebaker they were feeling out American Motors which was formed when Nash bought Hudson. George Romney, Mitt’s dad, was so miffed at Packard for choosing to go with Studebaker that when he had a chance to help S-P pull out of their nosedive he wouldn’t.
Studebaker was the loaded chamber in a game of Russian Roulette for Packard.
Jana, your writing has a voice that is unique at the same time that it complements Paul’s writings. I look forward to more.
I could not miss adding my two cents to this miraculous find. A Packard Hawk parked on the street? Wow. As a Packard it was a huge fail. But as a Hawk, it is the coolest of them all and probably my favorite Packardbaker.
Thanks all,
BTW, I went to the Northeast Classic Car Museum in Norwich, NY today:
Ooh, ooh! ’58 Packard Wagon CC! ’58 Packard Wagon CC!
That’s as good of shot of it I could get. Don’t worry, they’ve got more good stuff.
Yeah,
The 58 Packard wagon is as scarce as hen’s teeth. I believe there were only 159 of those produced.
Surprisingly, twenty survivors have been accounted for, an incredibly high percentage for such a low production car.
I’d like to see more of this wagon.
Go here.
https://www.google.com/search?q=1958+Packard+Station+Wagon&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=GB4DU4nPAsHYoATNtoL4Bw&ved=0CCcQsAQ&biw=1649&bih=848#imgdii=_
Click on any photo and then visit the page.
Thanks Mike.
…then compare it against its in-house polar opposite. The short-arm long-pocket Scotsman.
You wouldn’t dare name a range of cars like that today!I’m half Scottish and think it’s pretty funny
My maternal grandfather was a Scot. A generous and great man.
I don’t think ‘Studebaker Tightarse’ was registerable.
+!
.. and they have a Playboy, as well.
A sad ending for a once proud automaker. That poor Packardbaker is really a hideous piece of work, the catfish front end and the toilet seat on the trunk lid certainly don’t do it any favors. The Studebaker version was certainly a much more attractive vehicle.
I recall occasionally hearing about a “Packard Hawk” years ago and assumed it was a reference to the 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk, the top of the line model with a Packard 352 V8, but then I learned about this thing. I find it odd that they didn’t even bother giving the Packard a different name to better disguise that it was almost the same car as a Studebaker.
The Packard Hawk was only the second-weirdest badge-engineering job going on at S-P. The first-weirdest was this 1958 Packard pickup truck that was exported to Argentina, apparently because the years-old dealer contract allowed selling Packards but not Studebakers. I’ve read conflicting things online as to whether a few of these carried into 1959, meaning there might actually have been some ’59 Packards built.
The Packard Hawk began as a project to make a semi-custom for Curtis-Wright’s Roy Hurley who was running (or siphoning assets from) the company. The decision was made to put it into low-volume production. It was basically the addition of some trim to the 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk 400, a really luxuriously trimmed model.
Interestingly, the Packard Hawk did not use a Packard engine because that one was packed up at the end of the 1956 model year when the company shut down all of the former Packard production facilities. The Packard Hawk got the same supercharged 289 that the Studebaker Golden Hawk got.
Studebaker ‘could’ have easily resolved the catfish grille of the Packard Hawk by simply using a version of the quasi-Mercedes grille from the Studebaker Hawk, modifying it to mimic the classic, upright Packard grille. And instead of the Studebaker retaining the Mercedes grille, returned it to the much cleaner ‘mustache’ grille and domed hood of the classic, original 1953 Loewy coupe.
But it was obvious the heart of Studebaker management wasn’t in keeping Packard going. So, they just tossed out the catfish grille for the final, one-year-only Packard without caring what it looked like.
Interestingly, a ’58 Hawk has shown up a short walk away, Color scheme is the same as that of the car shown in first few photos illustrating the article. Given the CA plates and small number produced, it could be the same car.
The infamous ‘Hurley Hawk’! Roy Hurley, president of C-W, then essentially in control of S-P’s future all while helping his company to the S-P assets useful to his company, had seen while on a European trip both a Ferrari and a Mercedes sport models with the low-wide grille that he was taken with. What was left of the S-P Styling Department under Duncan McRae was given the task of designing a custom Hawk especially for their new chief incorporating the design features of the Ferrari and Mercedes.
No one in styling was pleased with the resulting design, but expected it to be a one-off custom. It was for the boss so how could they refuse. Being the man of discerning taste that he was, Hurley loved the resulting monstrosity so much he ordered it into production as an addition to the Packard line.
They weren’t cheap either at $3,995, amazing 588 were sold. Other than the hood and grille surrounds which are fiberglass, little else was special tooling. The interior was a continuation of what the ultra-luxury ’57 Studebaker Golden Hawk 400 had featured, though the padded outside arm-rest were new.