Cooke Toledo Motors Ltd., Montreal.
Christy Packard Co., Oklahoma City, Ok, 1951.
Zell Motor Car Co., Packard, Baltimore, MD, 1951.
John Ramp Inc. Packard, Indianapolis, IN, 1953.
Earl J. Lancer, Packard-Kaiser, Elyria, OH, 1955.
Noll Auto Co., Pasadena, CA, 1956.
Auto Mart, Studebaker-Packard-English Ford, Santa Rosa, CA, 1956.
Studebakber-Packard, Elyria, OH, 1956.
1956s in the showroom.
So sad to see the optimism of the Packard dealers with their nice facilities, and did any of them know the end was in sight?
Based on a web search, Earl J Lance came to his senses and started selling Buicks. The dealership made it into the seventies.
The Noll Auto Co. building in Pasadena, Ca. is still there and has been many different auto sales places and even a discount book store for a while .
-Nate
Photos #5 and #8 are the same dealership.
Also, in Photo #5, looks like the deanship sold Kaiser vehicles as well. However, the Kaiser sign was removed by Photo #8.
As per Google maps, the building was used as a Salvation Army thrift store which is currently closed.
Well, by the 1955 model year he didn’t have many Kaisers left to sell, so he took on the Studebaker franchise (a given, seeing they were already tied up with Packard). So the sign change would be pretty obvious. Actually, that’s the first time I can remember seeing this changeover in the dealer series that’s been run.
If you rearrange the triangular red, white, and blue flags in the first photo, you can make an AMC logo out of them, or something close, and AMC did eventually buy what was by then Kaiser-Jeep.
W. I. Simonson Motors in Santa Monica was a Packard dealer that then became one of the earliest Mercedes dealers. It’s a lovely building; I went in a time or two.
Here’s how it looks now.
That Spanish style of architecture so common. Reminds me both of Balboa Park and the old center of San Diego State University.
Still has the Packard grille above the entrance.
Amazingly little change to that building over that long a time. They sold Hudsons and Terraplanes too!
Actually the showroom burned down in 1986 and later was completely rebuilt.
https://www.laconservancy.org/learn/historic-places/w-i-simonson-mercedes-benz/
That english , “Ford” out front (“Santa Rosa” pic) almost looks like a “toon car”.
From the showroom, it appears that Cooke was selling Willys Aero also. We had that same combo at Leavenworth KS dealer.
“Auto Mart, Studebaker-Packard-English Ford”. How’d that work out for you?
But seriously… This website has made me aware that “English Ford” dealers could be a standalone thing, i.e. not just a corner of a Ford dealership. However, I’m not clear when it ended. I know that UK-built Cortinas were sold in the US through MY1969, but were there “English Ford” dealerships until then or…?
Read Mullan Ford in Phoenix had a stand-alone English Ford store. My ’64 VW bus was bought there, in 1968. I believe they sold Cortinas.
Packard and English Ford certainly covers quite a spectrum, big luxury American car or would sir like a sidevalve shit box from England that can barely move itself? UK Fords improved after Packard went away but did that dealership outlast either?
It was damn near malpractice on Dagenham’s part not to put the 1500cc ohv Consul engine in the smaller, lighter 100E body if only for export. Geared right (Ford worldwide’s late adoption of 4-speed transmissions wouldn’t help) it would’ve been the equal or better of the VW in terms of cruising speed and probably would’ve led to a lot more US Ford and Lincoln-Mercury dealers exercising their right of first refusal to sell English Fords.
What’s that little red car at the far left in the Auto Mart used car lot ? Simca Aronde ? Something Italian ?
Yes, interesting. Probably a recently traded used car. A 1955 Plymouth Belvedere is a possibility given the bumper, grill, headlight and bumper guard placement.
I have strong memories of Pontiac (I even bought a new Firebird at one) and Plymouth and Oldsmobile, and Saab and MG dealerships, even Citroen, and of course Mercurys at “The Sign of the Cat”, but I am just too young to recall any Packard stores, or even Studebaker. Maybe there were none in the town I grew up in.
Mercedes Benz had a deal with Studebaker to use its dealership network to sell its cars…think Buick/Opel. Alot of the older operating M-Bs were former Stude /Packard dealers.
These look like some of the more prosperous Packard dealers. Weren’t most of their remaining dealers by 1955 small operations that couldn’t afford to stock many cars if any?
The Noll building in Pasadena was built in ’27 for Buicks, switched to Packard in ’38. That’s quite the arch. Found the post below with an interior photo and other old dealers around the country.
https://forums.aaca.org/topic/320441-vintage-dealership-buildings-that-are-still-around/
A 2 tone “English” Ford! How decadent !
They were always battleship grey or hearing-aid beige over here in their homeland!
That would have to have been a dealer ‘enticement’, those Anglias were so plain. Never saw a two-tone one in Australia either, and I thought the chrome side strip was only on the Prefect. Whitewalls too!
I’m restoring a 57 Packard Town & Country wagon.
First production station wagon with a Supercharger. Total production 869.
I wonder if there were still any standalone Packard dealers in 1957-58. Couldn’t have been an easy sale
Earl Lance in Elyria OH didn’t have much luck he had an Edsel franchise after Kaiser Frazier and Packard bailed out. He eventually got lucky and picked up a Buick franchise. The dealership building is still there, empty now but it was a Salvation Army thrift store for a long time after Lance moved out to the bypass.
Apparently numerous dealerships that sold faltering independents in the mid-’50s were lured by Edsel, which seemed like a safe choice being made by Ford and everything, before dealers knew much about the car except that it would be slotted (at the time) between Mercury and Lincoln. A local Packard dealership here in Maryland, Covington Packard, sat out the 1957 model year then switched to selling Edsels with this reasoning. When that didn’t work out, they became a Buick dealer (thinking a known upscale GM brand was safest) and survived until the Great Recession GM dealer shakeout, albeit having skipped across town in the interim.
A big local Studebaker dealer, American Service Center in Arlington, VA, took on Mercedes-Benz when S-P became their US distributor in 1957. They’re still in operation in the same (though expanded) building, although they’re now called Mercedes-Benz of Arlington (I think MB, like several luxury and some non-luxury brands, no longer allows “Bob Smith Mercedes” or the like).
I wondered about the origins of ASC. They had the snootiest ads on WGMS in the 70s. Whoever owns them really lucked out from the Studebaker connection to MB, as NoVa became one of the largest markets for them, and they’re relatively close to DC & Georgetown.
WGMS (DC area classical music station) apparently attracted an upscale demographic, as I remember all sorts of luxury items frequently advertised on it, including cars. I remember one pun-laden jingle that went “American Service Center, where you’ll realize your driving ambition”, and another which may or may not have been for ASC that had a frantic string quartet for the first half followed by ethereal voices just singing “ah-ah-ah-ahhh”, with a voiceover speaking over both parts. At the end the voiceover stops and the vocalists sing “Mercedes-Benz”. Despite it coming across as a generic MB commercial I think it was for a specific dealership, maybe ASC.
I forgot about Nelson Motors in College Park, MD, a few blocks from where I used to live, another Studebaker dealer that later took on Edsels. The building now houses a Zips dry cleaner.
Ack! I was going to JOKE that he probably picked up Edsel after Packard and Kaiser and Studebaker, but he really did it!
There’s still Fletcher Jones Mercedes Benz in Newport Beach, CA. Paul N. referenced W. I. Simonson in Santa Monica. Keyes of Van Nuys. House of Imports in Buena Park. Maybe newer dealerships (or ones with a change of ownership) have the Mercedes Benz of (city name) format. Caliber Motors is Mercedes Benz of Anaheim Hills.
When I see those Earl Lance cards, I think of our local Packard Dealer, John P. Mooney took on Studebaker when the merger happened, then dumped them to be an Edsel dealer. After biding his time selling Skodas and Land Rovers until hitting the jackpot with a Volkswagen franchise in 1962.
It look’s like the Mount Royal building that housed Zell’s in Baltimore is still there…
https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/11-E-Mount-Royal-Ave-Baltimore-MD/23221307/
…and it’s for lease!