1940 Packards in the service

[Bill Murray]

Hi Jordan:

I really wish I could help more, especially considering that soft skins are my "thing" and especially US make vehicles used by other countries.

I can verify that Ford, Chevrolet and Buick sedans were "catalouged" official vehicles used as staff cars by Canadian Forces but you probably already have that info.

The problem that you run into with these civvie vehicles is that many of them, particularly if we are dealing with "Flag Rank" officers, were very much an ad hoc affair.

As you no doubt are aware, the Germans and the Japanese confiscated virtually the entire civilian vehicle park in the countries they conquered and occupied. This included, amongst other vehicles, thousands of US make vehicles that were either used by the troops or in the case of luxury vehicles by the Brass.

As the Allies took back these countries, the luxury vehicles that were left and running were in turn confiscated by high ranking Allied officers and put into their service.

The picture is further complicated by what Bruce describes. the outright purchase or requisition of large numbers of dealer's stocks, not only in the UK but also in Canada and the US and I suspect many of the Empire countries.

From a research point of view, these vehicles are a real headache as they for the most part are not carried "On the books" but are just folded into the mix.

Even if they are given official registration plates or military ID numbers on the vehicle, I doubt if we could ever completely track down these ad hoc sort of situations.

As a New Years Eve present, I can say that I would bet that the Canadian Forces had at least a few Packards on charge at some point in time during the 1939-1945 period. Just can't prove it tonight.

Happy New Year.

Bill

[Lang]

Dredging up an old thread. Found a photo of Douglas Macarthur at Strathpine near Brisbane in 1944. His car is a special Packard (they had stopped car production) supposedly only two built - one for him and one for Eisenhower in Europe. I believe this is incorrect and more were made for the highest level officers but have found no more photos.

Lang

[Bob McNeill]

Does that include the ones converted to pickups with Masonite rear bodies as seen in Oz.

[Lang]

Bob,

Perhaps you are thinking of Pontiacs, I would like to see a photo of them if you have one. Packards are seriously expensive cars to be turning into utes!

Lang

[Bob McNeill]

Sorry Lang ,checked my old pics and they where pontiacs

[servicepub (RIP)]

I have the list of Cdn Army vehicles to May 1940 and no Packards are shown.

C

[Bill Murray]

Hi Lang:

I can at least verify that the 1941 and 1942 Packard Clipper models were catalogued as "official" staff cars for Flag Rank Officers according to multiple sources including my copy of TM-9-2800 of September, 1943.

One of the odd things about the hobby of doing research on soft skins for me is that I rarely save on my hard drive photos of otherwise "ordinary" vehicles like these Packards as they can be found in books and on the net by the hundreds.

You can find photos of both Eisenhower's and Mac's Packard Clippers on Google.

Other than what their assigned drivers may have done to smarten up the rear of the interior passenger compartment and the obligatory Olive Drab paint and maybe some lighting modifications, they were pretty much just as they came from the factory.

I hope this helps a bit.

Bill