As a Packard collector for 55+ years, and having owned a couple of Henney-Packard hearses, I can say this with confidence; The only “Packard” in this monstrosity is a modified 1941-42 grill assembly from the 110 and 120 series cars, and possibly some Packard emblems.
The Packard Club [PAC] owns all the Packard copyrights to the name, logo, crest, emblems, red hexagon hubs, etc. I’m not sure 100%, but I don’t think Bayliff ever licensed the rights to use the Packard items in their cars.
I would be curious as to how they were able to change the front bumper, while still maintaining the 5mph bumper impact regs.
FWIW, Other Bayliff “Packards” were based on Pontiac vehicles.
Thank you peter ! the answer is _OBVIOUS_ once you mentioned it =8-) .
Marc/Kyle ;
THANK YOU ! I’ve not seen this movie since it was new, I didn’t remember the 1964 Ford station wagon in the garage, at that time I had a nice if well worn 1962 Ford Ranch Wagon (cheapo stripper) with a V8 and AM radio as the only options.
The grille and the cormorant are nice. The little arrow at the front of the chrome strip was seen on some postwar Packards. Everything else is horrible. The quad lights suggest Pierce, not Packard.
I attended the 1973 Packard Club national meet in Detroit. I had the opportunity to talk with a former Packard factory employee who said his father was one of the first employees in the Detroit location.
We were standing near a very early Packard that displayed that little arrow at the front of the hood. He said his father would joke among the other employees that the arrows on both sides of the hood were there to remind the chauffeur of the direction to drive the car forward!
Let this serve as formal notice: if someone will one day try to give me my last automobile ride in this, I will come back to life just long enough to smack them upside the head. Then I’ll haunt them for years, mercilessly hiding their car keys and rearranging their kitchen shelves.
In my Cadillac hating Father’s “Pre-Need” funeral contract he specified that a Lincoln hearse be used for his final ride.
A dozen years later when the Pre-Need was used; the funeral home owner grumbled about it but did provide a gorgeous 1980’s Lincoln funeral carriage for Dad’s last ride.
When a close friend and fellow Packard club member died about 1980, I arranged for club members to provide a 1952 Henney-Packard hearse, and a 1941 Packard 180 Super Eight limousine for the family to ride in.
And Yes, the funeral home was not very happy, but they did work with me and his widow to make it all happen very smoothly, except for the limousine having a dead battery because one of the kids left the interior lights on during the service. But since so many of the people at the funeral were “car people”, this wasn’t a problem as jumper cables in another vintage Packard came to the rescue!
Lumpy is how I’d describe the styling of this vehicle, look at that awkward hood rise that almost looks like a Camaro cowl induction hood by the time it meets the cowl, all because of that goofy grille. Why every Packard “revival” must include an unchanged from the 1930s upright grille is why Packard has never been successfully revived. It’s really hard not to see 70 Camaro RS or Cordoba with that headlight arrangement, though they’re about the only attractive thing on it.
There have been way too many attempts to “revive” Packard, and all of them awful, done by people/companies with no relation to the real Packard, based on other cars with a few vintage Packard parts tacked on. This is so not what a modern Packard would have looked like had it survived and done well.
Has anyone been following the unfortunate attempts to revive the old Packard factory, which was filled with other tenants for decades after Packard left in 1956 before being left mostly vacant? It’s now possibly the world’s largest industrial ruin. A promising plan by a guy experienced in renovating seemingly too-far-gone buildings who bought the place and started cleanup brought some hope, but spirits fell when the iconic Packard clock bridge collapsed on its own. He’s now trying to sell the complex to individual developers with demolition the likely outcome.
I think this pic of the Packard factory dates from the ’70s (bridge at far left), featuring an A&P grocery and an Arlan’s discount department store, both now as defunct as Packard.
I will never forget the phone call from a close friend and Packard nut like me. He was only a couple of miles from the old plant, when he heard the news from a friend who was a Detroit Police officer, that the iconic bridge over East Grand Blvd had collapsed. When he called me he was standing in the cold, looking at a pile of rubble that had just that morning been the bridge.
He kept repeating the same thing over and over. He and others had been begging the city for years, to provide some support to the bridge, as it was showing signs of collapse, only to have the city tell them there was no problem.
It is the city of Detroit’s own greed that caused them take the Packard plant over thru tax issues, and then try to lease it to others to develop. But over the years the city did nothing to preserve the buildings, and now they have only ruins.
Like the roman ruins in Italy, both ruins are owned by the State. The ruins in Rome bring in tourist Dollars. The Detroit ruins only bring shame.
Here’s what it looked like inside the bridge, before WW2 . . .
The only “work” done on the bridge was draping this tarp over it to make it at least look like it originally did.
Awhile back I read someone online posting her reminiscences about the Arlan’s store – that’s how she knew it, not as “the old Packard Plant”. Arlan’s was a deep discounter that sold cheap stuff on virtue of low price alone; it was often haphazardly organized and the old machinery to move car parts around was still visible if you looked upward. I remember stores like this where I grew up; they were wiped out by the likes of Walmart and Target which were cheap enough to appeal to those who couldn’t afford anything else, but nice and stylish enough to also appeal to the middle classes and even the wealthy. Anyway, to get to Arlan’s you had to walk or drive under the Packard bridge, and she always wondered why in 20-some years they never fixed the clock, which was stuck on one time probably since Packard moved out. The whole place seemed to be falling apart with nobody in charge, even while it was still occupied by dozens of small, often marginal businesses of every sort that needed cheap space.
Oof, I never knew about that tarp facade, it doesn’t even look real. Whoever came up with that must be the type who’d fix a rusted Packard frame rail with bondo.
The wrap in the photo was like doing a wrap on a car. It was based on a well-known 1930s black & white photo that was colorized. The wrap was created by Arte Express. The clock disappeared shortly after the company closed in 1956.
I’m enclosing a photo of the bridge, about a year before it collapsed.
What I find disturbing was the city really didn’t care. They never even approached the car clubs for help. Had they done so, I’m sure they would have garnered a lot of volunteer work, even lumber and materials, to shore the bridge up.
Detroit was and is dealing with real problems on a monumental scale that affect living people and their current well being and their future. The city didn’t care, and with good reason. They have much bigger fish to fry.
I’ve never gotten these types of cars… the ones that start off with a base car and start throwing parts off of other production cars and join them together with various filler panels. The results always look like the product of a drug-addled fever dream, and it’s hard to imagine them not. There is no happy way to join a traditional Packard grille with a 1980’s car.
I see a 1979-85 Buick Riviera with a real Packard grille and 1975-77 Cordoba parking lamps, a Cadillac door mirror, and then I looked away. A quick search shows that Mr Bayliff was actively piecing together his Packard dreams well into the 1990’s, where Panther cars seemed to be the platform of choice. I’m a bit bummed to not have seen a Packardized Shamu Caprice in there. Shame, really, as that potato Caprice would’ve been as good a starting point as any.
Riviera based? Would make sense to maximize rear space…..
Sure looks that way. I tried to ID the front fender blades when I noticed
that unique swooping body line at the rear. Couldn’t be anything else.
Comical. A combination of one man’s dreams of a funeral car. Call T Adams Family – they might want it. Thanks for posting this.
As a Packard collector for 55+ years, and having owned a couple of Henney-Packard hearses, I can say this with confidence; The only “Packard” in this monstrosity is a modified 1941-42 grill assembly from the 110 and 120 series cars, and possibly some Packard emblems.
The Packard Club [PAC] owns all the Packard copyrights to the name, logo, crest, emblems, red hexagon hubs, etc. I’m not sure 100%, but I don’t think Bayliff ever licensed the rights to use the Packard items in their cars.
I would be curious as to how they were able to change the front bumper, while still maintaining the 5mph bumper impact regs.
FWIW, Other Bayliff “Packards” were based on Pontiac vehicles.
I go by a regular Caddy hearse conversion…..This is too much for me….
Thank you for posting.
This only confirms my future request to be cremated.
It’s certainly unique .
Why put red rotators on a hearse ? .
-Nate
For emergency funerals?
Thank you peter ! the answer is _OBVIOUS_ once you mentioned it =8-) .
Marc/Kyle ;
THANK YOU ! I’ve not seen this movie since it was new, I didn’t remember the 1964 Ford station wagon in the garage, at that time I had a nice if well worn 1962 Ford Ranch Wagon (cheapo stripper) with a V8 and AM radio as the only options.
-Nate
Harold, the replacement for your trashed Jaguar hearse is here!
The grille and the cormorant are nice. The little arrow at the front of the chrome strip was seen on some postwar Packards. Everything else is horrible. The quad lights suggest Pierce, not Packard.
The little arrow began in the 20’s if not earlier.
Ralph L,
I attended the 1973 Packard Club national meet in Detroit. I had the opportunity to talk with a former Packard factory employee who said his father was one of the first employees in the Detroit location.
We were standing near a very early Packard that displayed that little arrow at the front of the hood. He said his father would joke among the other employees that the arrows on both sides of the hood were there to remind the chauffeur of the direction to drive the car forward!
The nose reminds me of an early Jeep Wagoneer more than anything else.
+1
I’m guessing that the Riviera’s doors became the back doors and a Seville donated the new front doors.
Let this serve as formal notice: if someone will one day try to give me my last automobile ride in this, I will come back to life just long enough to smack them upside the head. Then I’ll haunt them for years, mercilessly hiding their car keys and rearranging their kitchen shelves.
@ Daniel ;
Please tell us how you _really_ feel .
-Nate
In my Cadillac hating Father’s “Pre-Need” funeral contract he specified that a Lincoln hearse be used for his final ride.
A dozen years later when the Pre-Need was used; the funeral home owner grumbled about it but did provide a gorgeous 1980’s Lincoln funeral carriage for Dad’s last ride.
When a close friend and fellow Packard club member died about 1980, I arranged for club members to provide a 1952 Henney-Packard hearse, and a 1941 Packard 180 Super Eight limousine for the family to ride in.
And Yes, the funeral home was not very happy, but they did work with me and his widow to make it all happen very smoothly, except for the limousine having a dead battery because one of the kids left the interior lights on during the service. But since so many of the people at the funeral were “car people”, this wasn’t a problem as jumper cables in another vintage Packard came to the rescue!
Lumpy is how I’d describe the styling of this vehicle, look at that awkward hood rise that almost looks like a Camaro cowl induction hood by the time it meets the cowl, all because of that goofy grille. Why every Packard “revival” must include an unchanged from the 1930s upright grille is why Packard has never been successfully revived. It’s really hard not to see 70 Camaro RS or Cordoba with that headlight arrangement, though they’re about the only attractive thing on it.
I think that I’ll just leave this right there.
There have been way too many attempts to “revive” Packard, and all of them awful, done by people/companies with no relation to the real Packard, based on other cars with a few vintage Packard parts tacked on. This is so not what a modern Packard would have looked like had it survived and done well.
Has anyone been following the unfortunate attempts to revive the old Packard factory, which was filled with other tenants for decades after Packard left in 1956 before being left mostly vacant? It’s now possibly the world’s largest industrial ruin. A promising plan by a guy experienced in renovating seemingly too-far-gone buildings who bought the place and started cleanup brought some hope, but spirits fell when the iconic Packard clock bridge collapsed on its own. He’s now trying to sell the complex to individual developers with demolition the likely outcome.
I think this pic of the Packard factory dates from the ’70s (bridge at far left), featuring an A&P grocery and an Arlan’s discount department store, both now as defunct as Packard.
The newest car in that shot is a 1959. So, I’d guess this photo is from that year.
Correct…. I shouldn’t post photos from small screens….
And what major grocery store chain in the 1970s wasn’t open on Sundays?
I will never forget the phone call from a close friend and Packard nut like me. He was only a couple of miles from the old plant, when he heard the news from a friend who was a Detroit Police officer, that the iconic bridge over East Grand Blvd had collapsed. When he called me he was standing in the cold, looking at a pile of rubble that had just that morning been the bridge.
He kept repeating the same thing over and over. He and others had been begging the city for years, to provide some support to the bridge, as it was showing signs of collapse, only to have the city tell them there was no problem.
It is the city of Detroit’s own greed that caused them take the Packard plant over thru tax issues, and then try to lease it to others to develop. But over the years the city did nothing to preserve the buildings, and now they have only ruins.
Like the roman ruins in Italy, both ruins are owned by the State. The ruins in Rome bring in tourist Dollars. The Detroit ruins only bring shame.
Here’s what it looked like inside the bridge, before WW2 . . .
The only “work” done on the bridge was draping this tarp over it to make it at least look like it originally did.
Awhile back I read someone online posting her reminiscences about the Arlan’s store – that’s how she knew it, not as “the old Packard Plant”. Arlan’s was a deep discounter that sold cheap stuff on virtue of low price alone; it was often haphazardly organized and the old machinery to move car parts around was still visible if you looked upward. I remember stores like this where I grew up; they were wiped out by the likes of Walmart and Target which were cheap enough to appeal to those who couldn’t afford anything else, but nice and stylish enough to also appeal to the middle classes and even the wealthy. Anyway, to get to Arlan’s you had to walk or drive under the Packard bridge, and she always wondered why in 20-some years they never fixed the clock, which was stuck on one time probably since Packard moved out. The whole place seemed to be falling apart with nobody in charge, even while it was still occupied by dozens of small, often marginal businesses of every sort that needed cheap space.
Oof, I never knew about that tarp facade, it doesn’t even look real. Whoever came up with that must be the type who’d fix a rusted Packard frame rail with bondo.
The wrap in the photo was like doing a wrap on a car. It was based on a well-known 1930s black & white photo that was colorized. The wrap was created by Arte Express. The clock disappeared shortly after the company closed in 1956.
I’m enclosing a photo of the bridge, about a year before it collapsed.
What I find disturbing was the city really didn’t care. They never even approached the car clubs for help. Had they done so, I’m sure they would have garnered a lot of volunteer work, even lumber and materials, to shore the bridge up.
Detroit was and is dealing with real problems on a monumental scale that affect living people and their current well being and their future. The city didn’t care, and with good reason. They have much bigger fish to fry.
I’ve never gotten these types of cars… the ones that start off with a base car and start throwing parts off of other production cars and join them together with various filler panels. The results always look like the product of a drug-addled fever dream, and it’s hard to imagine them not. There is no happy way to join a traditional Packard grille with a 1980’s car.
I see a 1979-85 Buick Riviera with a real Packard grille and 1975-77 Cordoba parking lamps, a Cadillac door mirror, and then I looked away. A quick search shows that Mr Bayliff was actively piecing together his Packard dreams well into the 1990’s, where Panther cars seemed to be the platform of choice. I’m a bit bummed to not have seen a Packardized Shamu Caprice in there. Shame, really, as that potato Caprice would’ve been as good a starting point as any.
Its awful, hideous styling, Dead sleds should be classy not junky.
After seeing the pic I was tempted to re-post the projectile vomiting guy picture that got me in hot water with management a few years back.
🙂
I feel like I’m watching a psychotic translation of a Puerto Rican pimp’s Stutz Blackhawk into a neo-gothic hearse customized by crack-addled rappers.
The absolute first thing I thought: “Wow! An Avanti Hearse! Cool” (as in Studebaker (bought Packard in 1954) Works for me!