When Packard failed to regain the quality and prestige it had before World War II, it was eventually (sometime in the Fifties) bought out by Studebaker, which in turn went belly up sometime in the mid-Sixties. From what I've been able to find, several companies tried to pre-empt the slogan "Ask the man who owns one" before Packard was actually defunct, and were ordered to cease and desist.

I goofed. I had heard that it was William Doud Packard who coined the phrase sometime in the Twenties or Thirties, but I just found out that it was James Packard, two years after he founded the company in 1899 in Warren, Ohio, ". . . showing the confidence he had in his cars. American luxury at its finest, Packard was and continues to be an icon of automotive brilliance."

My dad put 250,000 miles on one. It was basically in pretty good shape when he traded it in (on another Packard), except that tended to burn oil. One can truly say "they don't make 'em like that anymore."

Don Firth