The Packard Clipper is one of the Packard entries the open record knows by name and by date — in 1941, and by little else. That is not nothing: a name in the catalogue is where a car's story starts to be recoverable.
The background
The Packard Clipper is an automobile series built by the Packard Motor Car Company (and by the later Studebaker-Packard Corporation) for model years 1941–1942, 1946–1947, and 1953–1957. It was named for a type of sailing ship, called a clipper. The Clipper was introduced in April 1941, as a mid-model year entry. It was available only as a four-door sedan. The extreme top-rung high hat models had had their day, with engineering improvements, less expensive, more rationally sized fare predominating.
Since the action was in the increasingly sophisticated, upper-medium price field, the debut Clipper line was aimed at Buick Roadmaster, Cadillac's cutthroat-priced Model 62, Chrysler Saratoga/New Yorker, and Lincoln (through 1940 known as Zephyr). The Clipper name was re-introduced in 1953, for the automaker's lowest-priced lineup, leading some to think it was a cheap car initially, instead of a full-range offering. By 1955, the Clipper models were seen as diluting Packard's marketing as a luxury automobile marque. The Clipper was classified as a stand-alone marque for the 1956 model year when it was produced by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation. Following the closure of Packard's Detroit, Michigan factory in 1956, the Clipper marque was discontinued, although the Clipper name was applied to 1957 Packards that were built at Studebaker's South Bend, Indiana, factory.
Where it sits
Where it sits in Packard's history is not in doubt: the Packard 200 came before it; it was built at United States. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Lincoln Continental, the Volkswagen Beetle, the Jeep Jeep. Its Packard stablemates include the Packard 160 and the Packard 180.
The money
There is no federal ownership record for the Packard Clipper — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.