The Packard family name still resonates in Trumbull County: Packard Street, W.D. Packard Music Hall and Packard Park are just a few of the places named for the Northeast Ohio industrialists. Seventy years ago this month, it was the beginning of the end for their luxury car brand. Today the National Packard Museum in Warren is running at full throttle to keep the memory alive.
“When was the last time you thought about who developed the sun visor or the foot pedal accelerator?” said Mary Ann Porinchak, the museum’s executive director. “The glove compartment … things we take for granted were all Packard innovations, and we still use them today. And that's the story we want to convey to our guests.”
Porinchak credits Packard automobiles with many “firsts,” demonstrated by more than two dozen cars on display in the city’s former municipal bathhouse. It was converted to a museum in the late ‘90s, thanks to a group of volunteers led by the late Terry Martin.
“He actually came from Chester, West Virginia, and he was a car guy, restored old vehicles. And he came to Warren as a cabinet maker,” she said. “The Packard Museum Association went to the city and said, ‘We want to put a museum in there.’ They signed a lease and over the next two years they raised money to renovate it.”
As a teenager, Porinchak taught swim lessons in the building, which, by 2008, was bursting with automotive artifacts.
“The museum then lobbied the U.S. government for support - noting Packard’s contributions to the country’s transportation network,” she said.
A $1 million grant funded an expansion to include a climate-controlled vault for vehicles like a 1955 Caribbean convertible that belonged to eccentric industrialist and film producer Howard Hughes and his fiancée, actress Jean Peters.
“They drove it once,” she said. “Didn't even put 500 miles on it. She didn't like it. It was too big.”
Volunteer William Griffin of Kinsman has another theory as to why the famous couple mothballed the car: 1955 was the first year that Packard offered air conditioning.
“One position: On and off,” he said. “No fan controls, no blower motors or anything. So that’s just blowing after you the entire time.”
Griffin is among the volunteers who come in on Tuesdays to preserve the cars. The small team appreciates the features of the Packard brand.
“Some of the cars have the torsion bar suspension,” he said. “If you put four people in the back or only one person in the back, it senses it and automatically adjusts it. You can go over railroad tracks, and you don't even know you're going over it. They’re so smooth.”
Volunteer Jack Paisley from Southington has many stories about Packards, too.
“Packard was known for not only high quality, but also a fast automobile in their day,” he said. “That’s why a lot of the gangsters used Packards: They were dependable, and they were fast.”
He’s passing along the automotive bug to his great nephew, 10-year-old Ryan, from Kent.
“Whenever they move the cars around, I usually hold the wheel to keep it straight,” he said. “Whenever they take the cars outside, if they don't have anyone to ride with, I just ride with them.”
The camaraderie cuts both ways according to Dean Applegate from Champion, who has loved cars since he was Ryan’s age.
“I am currently 81 years old, and I'm a widower. So I don't have a lot to do at home,” he said. “This gives me something to do and a place to spend my time and energy.”
Packard merged with Studebaker in October 1954 and faded away soon after. Ohio has not just one but two locations dedicated to Packard history. In “The Godfather,” perhaps the quintessential “gangster flick,” Don Corleone’s body is transported in a 1948 hearse built from a Packard. That car isn’t on display in Warren: It’s in Dayton at a restored Packard dealership, billed as America’s Packard Museum.
