Rare Packard 5479 Convertible Resides in New Jersey

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With the recently announced demise of Mercury, yet another old, storied automaker has slipped beneath the waves of retired brands. This is the fourth brand to be shuttered in the past year, joining GM’s Pontiac, Saturn, and Hummer in the great graveyard in the sky. But it will be in good company, as the number of obsolete automakers far outnumbers those that are still left.

One of the oldest brands, Packard, was retired over 50 years ago. Few examples of these once-legendary cars still exist on the road today, and even fewer are in showroom condition. But deep in southern New Jersey, sitting in a nondescript, climate-controlled garage are not one, but two Packards, including an ultra-rare 5479 Convertible.


Pictures: Chris DeMorro

You could be forgiven for never having heard of the 5479. After World War II, when American automakers started getting back into the swing of things, the first cars were refreshed 1940 models. Packard was in excellent financial shape, but a series of misguided moves to expand from a niche luxury car maker to a volume dealer ultimately led to its tragic, yet expected, demise.
Packard attempted to sell volume vehicles to the rapidly emerging American middle class.



Packard had done just fine as a luxury marquee, but many of their cars were simply out of financial reach for most Americans. Packard attempted to fix this by producing more economical vehicles like the 5479. The problem though was that Packard only had one bodystyle to work with, the “upside down bathtub.” Popular prior to World War II, this style went out of style too quickly for Packard to change with the times. Unable to afford to design an all-new body, Packard kept revising and face-lifting its popular Clipper model, diluting its image as a luxury brand even further.



This particular 1954 5479, owned by Larry Riccardi of West New York, New Jersey, is one of just 26 left in the world. A fully loaded 5479 rivaled upper level Packards like the Patrician and 300 in both costs and available options. This particular 5479 was equipped with the most of the available comfort options, sans power windows. Heat, radio, chrome flair, a power convertible top; this Packard had it all. Even better though, was the very well built Packard 327 cubic inch “Thunderbolt” engine. This engine could be had in either 225 horsepower or 245 horsepower flavors, making it one of the most powerful engines available on the market during its day.



But horsepower alone could not save the Packard from poor management. A merger with Studebaker further diluted Packard’s luxury car image, and by 1958 the name disappeared altogether from the American marketplace. Dealerships and service centers closed, and many of these cars simply rotted away once their owners were done with them. Larry came across this rare Packard convertible quite by accident. His father in-law was originally left the car in a will, and he offered it to his two sons first who both passed on the cars. He then offered the car to Larry, telling him it was in “good condition”. But it wasn’t.



“The interior was shot, the body was mostly rust, and it was missing a lot of little pieces,” Larry says. It took a friend of Larry’s seven years to correctly restore this car while Larry tracked down the part. Many of the parts were difficult to track down though, and even a modest chrome ring around the ignition key could go for $100 or more. “Finding the parts was almost as interesting as finding the car though,” says Larry. “The Packard fan club is small, and most people haven’t even heard of the car. But these guys are all nice, and they go out of their way to help you find the right parts.” The example Larry gave was of a windshield he tracked down to Kentucky. It would have cost a small fortune to ship such a fragile piece, so the seller informed Larry of a guy in Pennsylvania who had the same windshield for sale. “It saved me a lot of money, and he didn’t have to do that.”



After finishing the convertible, Larry wound up with a second Packard, a 1952 Clipper sedan. He bought this car for just $4,000 on eBay “and I was stunned by how great of condition it was in. People really aren’t as interested in these cars as they should be.” The only issue with the Clipper was its brakes, so Larry brought it to another mechanic to have it fixed. The soon-to-retire mechanic was shocked to see a Packard rolling into his shop. “He told me the first car he ever worked on was a Packard,” says Larry. “He never expected the last car he would ever work on would be a Packard too.”




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