Start with what the Packard Station Sedan is: a 4-door luxury station wagon with 288 cuin I8, built from 1948 to 1950, in a decade split by war, when civilian production stopped and restarted. What it meant takes a little longer.
The background
The Packard Station Sedan was a luxury station wagon model produced by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan between 1948 and 1950, using the reintroduced Packard Eight platform. By offering the Station Sedan Packard could market a vehicle with station wagon attributes, but without the investment cost associated with a complete station wagon development program. The Station Sedan used a combination of steel framing and body parts along with structural wood panels made from northern birch to create a "woody" station wagon-like car due to the growing popularity of them after World War II.
Unlike other woody wagons of the day, which used wooden passenger compartments mounted to chassis of a particular car, the Station Sedan used a steel subframe and steel passenger doors onto which hard wood panels were mounted. The only wooden door on the vehicle was the rear gate assembly. Unlike competitor station wagons from Buick, Chrysler and Mercury, the Packard's length was not long enough to accommodate optional third row seating. Neither a sedan, nor true station wagon, the Station Sedan enjoyed limited success, with a listed retail price of US$3,459 ($46,287 in 2025 dollars ) for its final year of 1950, and was discontinued when the 1951 Packard models were introduced.
The engineering
The engine is 288 cuin I8. On the scales it comes to 4075 lb. Drive goes through a 3-speed manual / Ultramatic (1950). The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 120 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
In the Packard line-up the Packard Station Sedan has a clear place: it replaced the Packard Super Eight One-Sixty Station Wagon; the factory was Packard Automotive Plant, Detroit, Michigan, United States. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Porsche 356, the Citroën 2CV, the Chevrolet Bel Air. Its Packard stablemates include the Packard 160 and the Packard 180.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Packard Station Sedan — 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.