1954 Packard Patrician Hearse Parked for Decades Is Rarer Than Hen's Teeth

1 year, 3 months ago - 27 July 2023, autocar

When talking about classic cars, hearses aren't the first type of vehicles that come to mind. Yet these professional haulers are usually rarer and more valuable than their regular-production counterparts. This 1954 Packard Patrician, for instance, is a funeral car most of us won't see in the metal. Because it's one of the rarest Packards out there.

Famous for its luxurious and comfortable cars, Packard did not make its own professional vehicles. However, the Detroit-based carmaker produced commercial chassis for coachbuilders to add specific bodies. Henney was one of the companies that built professional vehicles at the time.

Like most coachbuilding firms that ventured into the automotive realm, Henney started out by making carriages in the 1800s. The company joined the professional car business in the early 1900s and became an important name in the funeral car trade by the 1920s. Henney began using Packard chassis in 1937, two years before it became America's largest manufacturer of hearses and ambulances, with more than 1,200 units per year.

Henney remained faithful to Packard commercial chassis for as long as they were available. The latter discontinued the long-wheelbase chassis in 1954. In addition to funeral cars and ambulances, Henney also experimented with station wagons and limousines based on the commercial chassis. The collaboration also spawned the Pan-American concept car displayed a the 1952 New York Auto Show.

Henney stopped making professional cars around the same time Packard merged with Studebaker in 1954, so this Patrician based hears is among the last vehicles that rolled off the company's assembly line. At the time, production had dropped to a few hundred automobiles per year (and not only Packards).

This hearse surfaced in Palos Heights, Illinois, and it's most likely one of only a handful of survivors from this specific model year. Moreover, that thick layer of dust hides a surprisingly nice body with no visible rust. And that's a rare feat for a classic hearse since many of them were scrapped or left to rot away in junkyards once decommissioned.

This one had a more fortunate fate. Even though it's been sitting for decades and the engine hasn't been started for 15 years (as of 2023), the hearse was stored in a garage. So why is the current owner parting ways with such a nice classic funeral car? Well, he claims he has too many projects on his hands, and the Packard has to go.

He wants $14,995 for it, which isn't a lot for such a nice survivor, but he's also entertaining a trade with a Mercedes Sprinter cargo van. The funeral car is listed on Facebook Marketplace.

As a brief reminder, the Packard Patrician was introduced in 1951 as a replacement for the Super Eight. It was the last of the "senior Packards" and remained in production until 1956. The full-size was offered with a couple of straight-eight engines until Packard introduced its first V8 in 1955. This hearse packs a 359-cubic-inch (5.9-liter) inline-eight rated at 212 horsepower when new.