This 1954 Packard Pacific hardtop is a shed find from many years in storage. The car shows it’s age but does not seem to have suffered much during it’s time away, though, as it’s now a runner! It’s in St. Petersburg, Florida (get it, on the “Gulf”) and is up for sale here on eBay where bidding is pretty low, but the buy-it-now is $12,500.
The seller tells us that the Packard is rust free and as you can see, it looks pretty nice. I wonder what the paint would look like if Josh got to buff it out? The chrome certainly looks nice. Do you think it’s original paint?
I think it’s interesting that Packard added fins to these models with add-on chrome rather than actually changing the steel body panels. The “fins” themselves look almost art deco. The double-stacked bumper is certainly unusual!
The trunk looks very solid and contains the original air cleaner housing. I hope the spare tire well is as solid as the part of the trunk floor we can see.
What an interior! As far as I can tell from looking around the internet, this is original with leather and fabric. The carpet looks awfully nice to be original, but I can hope, can’t I? It is showing 54,714 miles, which might actually be original based on pedal and interior wear.
As you might expect, the rear seat looks even better than the front. Some leather conditioning is in order, and there may be a few localized repairs in the front seat, but as a whole the interior really doesn’t need much!
The 1954 Packards were powered by a 359 cubic inch straight 8. Very smooth, but without the free-revving characteristics of the emerging V8s, this particular engine features an aluminum cylinder head and a factory four barrel carburetor. The engine was originally rated at 212 horsepower. I really like this car, although I like it best at a figure below the buy-it-now. What do you think this Pacific at the Gulf is worth?
It’s worth $12,500. It’s sold.
Would have chosen the Packy over the E-Type….. any…..day.
Nice car. Did they mold in plastic footpads to carpeting in 1954? looks to be newer carpeting but still a nice car.
Too bad that those in charge at Packard were a bit older and way too conservative to be competitive. Packards were great cars! Ask the man who owned one!! By the time this model came out, just about all the cars offered modern OHV V-8’s. Packard’s big competition, Cadillac had their modern V-8 out by 1949. But, this straight 8 was a good power plant, so quiet and smooth.
As someone who has owned around 300 Packards [1922 thru 1958], and has owned several senior ’54 Packards, and based on those photos, I believe the car is original, including the carpets. Packard carpets were a wool blend, and unless subjected to excessive moisture, lasted for a long time.
The one caution is the alloy cylinder head, as using the wrong anti-freeze causes internal corrosion.This is the last year for the straight eight, and being a senior car, it’s the one with the 9-main bearing crankshaft. These engines are so smooth that it’s easy to balance a nickel on edge, on the top of the cylinder head, while the engine is at idle.
And that was a VERY nice price.
I agree Some one got a bargain what a gorgeous car just needs a little lovin and it will be in top form. The engine might have been a little dated by 1954 but I’ll bet it was very tough, the thing I like about inline engines is that they are strokers they would reach the top of their power ban at a low rpm, lots of flywheel weight would give them lots of torque, this car would have had decent gas mileage too I would expect 20 mpg or possibly better. When you consider that this car was no light weight that mileage is respectable. I would have loved to have this car if for no other reason then to listen to that straight 8 run, nice find I hope the new owner treats it well.
Pontiac did not build a V8 until 1955, a year after Packard’s first V8, the only advantage I can see to a V configuration engine is the shorter length and height, OHV engines can have better fuel/exhaust flow dynamics if the designers choose to take advantage of them but many did not exploit the design to it’s capability. I love the long narrow engines. I think Packards demise was more to do with there reluctance to move away from the build quality they had always been known for in favor of the more marketable (cheeper) post war cars that they had to compete with. I like many of the 50’s cars but Packard quality is superior to anything built by any other American manufacturer of the time so were also more expensive. This looks like a great car for a good price.