The Packard Panther is a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle or show vehicle) is a car made to showcase new styling or new technology. Concept cars are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not ...

built in 1954 by

Packard Packard (formerly the Packard Motor Car Company) was an American luxury automobile company located in Detroit, Michigan. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last Packards were built in South Bend, Indiana, in 1958. One ...

and was displayed at

auto show An auto show, also known as a motor show or car show, is a public exhibition of current automobile models, debuts, concept cars, or out-of-production classics. It is attended by automotive industry representatives, dealers, auto journalists a ...

s to showcase some of the ideas the automaker was considering for its production models. This show car was first named the "Grey Wolf" and also called the "Packard Daytona". A total of four Panthers were built.

Design

The Panther is a two-seat "personal luxury" sporting

convertible A convertible or cabriolet () is a Car, passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary across eras and manufacturers. A convertible car's design allows an open-air drivin ...

(in the same vein as the

Pan-American Pan-American, Pan American, Panamerican, Pan-America, Pan America or Panamerica may refer to: * Collectively, the Americas: North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean * Something of, from, or related to the Americas * Pan-Amer ...

), with Packard styling cues, but lower stance. Originally, the cars had 1955

Clipper A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. The term was also retrospectively applied to the Baltimore clipper, which originated in the late 18th century. Clippers were generally narrow for their len ...

taillights, but these were subsequently removed and replaced with the Senior Series' "cathedral" style units. The design for the Panther's one-piece fiberglass body is credited to

Dick Teague Richard Arthur Teague (December 26, 1923 – May 5, 1991) was an American industrial designer in the North American automotive industry. He held automotive design positions at General Motors, Packard, and Chrysler before becoming Vice President o ...

. He designed several Packard cars and worked at Mitchell-Bentley Corporation at the time. Teague later joined

American Motors Corporation American Motors Corporation (AMC; commonly referred to as American Motors) was an American automobile manufacturing company formed by the mergers and acquisitions, merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company on May 1, 19 ...

(AMC). Although it was shown in late 1954 and 1955 (when Packard was already advertising its new, modern

overhead valve An overhead valve engine, abbreviated (OHV) and sometimes called a pushrod engine, is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with flathead (or "sidevalve") engines, where the v ...

V8), the Panther featured the company's previous

L-head A flathead engine, also known as a sidevalve engine''American Rodder'', 6/94, pp.45 & 93. or valve-in-block engine, is an internal combustion engine with its poppet valves contained within the Cam-in-block, engine block, instead of in the cyl ...

(flathead)

straight-eight The straight-eight engine or inline-eight engine (often abbreviated as I8) is an eight-cylinder internal combustion engine with all eight cylinders mounted in a straight line along the crankcase. The type has been produced in side-valve, I ...

supercharged In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement. It is a form of forced induction that is mechanically powered (usually by ...

to produce , along with

Ultramatic Ultramatic was the trademarked name of the Packard Motor Car Company's automatic transmission introduced in 1949 and produced until 1954, at Packard's Detroit, Michigan, East Grand Boulevard factory. It was produced thereafter from late 1954, thr ...

automatic transmission An automatic transmission (AT) or automatic gearbox is a multi-speed transmission (mechanics), transmission used in motor vehicles that does not require any input from the driver to change forward gears under normal driving conditions. The 1904 ...

. Of the four Panthers built, one was owned by Mitchell-Bentley exec William Mitchell, Sr. The Mitchell car is the only Panther that had a removable hardtop (which resembled that of the 1955

Thunderbird Thunderbird, thunder bird or thunderbirds may refer to: * Thunderbird (mythology), a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture * Ford Thunderbird, a car Birds * Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds k ...

Footnotes

External links

* *
Packard Panther Daytona Photos
OldConceptCars.com {{Packard Packard vehicles Concept cars

Design

See also

Footnotes

External links