The Packard Motor Car Company introduced the Packard Clipper model, as part of Packard's Nineteenth Series of automobiles. The car featured "fade away" styling, which means that the front fenders melted into the front doors, and was powered by the same engine used in the Packard 180 series. The Clipper was lower and wider than previous Packards, and was the first streamlined Packard. One body series was offered (model 1951), a four door sedan. The Packard Clipper was priced between the 120 and the 160. Packard advertising encouraged consumers to "Skipper the Clipper!" For its Twentieth Series (1942), save for its Packard Six and convertible models, all Packards (models 2001, 2002, 2003 "Eight" models 2003, 2023, 2004, 2005, 2055 "Eight" and models 2006, 2007 and 2008 "Super-Eight) became "Clipperized" and adopted the styling cues introduced by the 1941 Clipper. The Clipper nameplate was dropped for 1948 as Packard issued its Twenty-Second Series automobiles, which, while proclaimed by the company as "all-new," were actually restyled Clippers. At a time when the company could have sold virtually any car it built, Packard's president insisted upon concentrating on sales of the company's lower-priced cars, while longtime competitor Cadillac focused its attentions on the upper end of the market.
The Twenty-Second and Twenty-Third Series (from mid-1949) cars wore the "upside-down bathtub" styling that was briefly in vogue in the late 1940s. Unfortunately for Packard, Nash and Hudson, the three manufacturers who embraced this type of styling, General Motors introduced designs that were lower-slung, more tightly-drawn and less bulbous at around the same time. GM's designs quickly caught the buying public's fancy, while the "bathtubs" quickly fell from favor. Following a round of bitter corporate infighting in 1949, Packard management finally decided to phase out the "bathtubs" and create the all-new Twenty-Fourth Series for 1951. The new "high-pockets" design (so called because of its high beltline) was much more modern and impressive. However, Packard continued to push hard into the lower end of the mid-priced field with its new "200" and "250" models, which was dominated at the time by Oldsmobile, DeSoto and others. James J Nance became the company's president in 1952, and he immediately set to work on divorcing the lower-priced cars from the higher-end Packards. To this end, he decreed that the 200 and 250 would be consolidated into a new line of Clippers for 1953. Nance originally had hoped to introduce the new "Clipper" as a stand-alone marque, targeting the mid range price field which he felt was dragging the Packard image down. When word was leaked to the Packard dealer network that they would be losing their best selling Packard model to "Clipper", they balked. As an appeasement, Nance rolled the Clipper out as a Packard, and worked to transition the cars toward their own make. Thus, the Packard Clipper name was reintroduced and applied to the company's entry-level models, previously known as the 200, beginning in 1953. Clippers were available in Special and Deluxe trim models, as two and four door sedans.
This fine older restoration runs and drives exceptionally well. The car features newer wide whites, hubcaps, a reconditioned fuel system, rebuilt brakes, and has had the bumpers replated. Additional replating would be in order, but the car is fine just as it is as a driver, that one can improve as time and funds allow. The powerful 327 Straight 8 Thunderbolt motor fires to life at the flick of the starter button, and the Ultraglide transmission pulls effortlessly as it should with no discernable move from gear to gear. In short this is a turnkey car you can drive and enjoy immediately.
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