Packard: America's Finest Car, Born in Ohio, Crowned in Detroit

The Packard story begins not in Detroit but in Warren, Ohio, on November sixth, eighteen ninety-nine, when brothers James and William Packard rolled the first car bearing their name out of their manufacturing shop. The brothers had initially bought a Winton automobile, found it unsatisfactory, complained to the manufacturer, and been told, according to legend, to build something better themselves. They did.

For three years, Packards were built in Ohio, about four hundred total. Then Henry Bourne Joy, a wealthy Detroiter, bought a Packard in New York, drove it home, and was so impressed he convinced a consortium of Detroit's most prominent families, Newberry, Alger, McMillan, Ferry, to invest in moving the operation to Michigan. By nineteen oh three the company had relocated, and it hired architect Albert Kahn to design a new plant on East Grand Boulevard. The Kahn-designed Building Ten, completed in nineteen oh five, was the first reinforced-concrete building in the automobile industry, a construction innovation that Kahn then applied to virtually every major factory in Detroit.

Packard quickly established itself as the luxury standard in American automobiles, preferred by presidents, film stars, and foreign heads of state. The company's slogan, 'Ask the man who owns one,' reflected a customer base that didn't need to be sold. For years Packard outsold Cadillac among buyers who wanted the finest American car available.

The postwar years were kinder to mass-market brands. Packard attempted to save itself by merging with Studebaker in nineteen fifty-four, but the combination diluted both brands. The last true Packard rolled off the Detroit line in nineteen fifty-six. The plant on East Grand Boulevard sat vacant for decades, becoming one of the most photographed ruins in America, a monument to the rise and collapse of the auto industry that built modern Detroit.