Our friends at Bring a Trailer posted a link to this 1954 Packard Henney Junior ambulance. ‘Junior’ is obvious a moniker as it was based off the smaller Clipper body – it wasn’t lengthened or stretched. It’s a baby! This one is for sale in Victoria, BC, and looks like a great candidate for a ratrod. The seller might be a CC reader, judging from his style of photo-taking.
The early 50’s saw Packard trying to catch up to Cadillac, following their incredible loss of market share with their overwrought, bathtub bodies of ’48, which resembled Nashes.
A handsome (if Plymouth-esque) redesign in ’51 just wasn’t enough. This is a ’48.
The ’54 was the third year of the redesigned ’51 Packard bodies, which would last til ’56, with a revised front end coming in ’55. This model had a bit of an identity crisis. In ’53, the model formerly known as the 200 became the ‘Clipper by Packard’, in an attempt to move the Senior Packards back upmarket, with the plan of spinning the Clipper off into its own value-priced marque. More info in this in this CC post on the 200.) ’54, though, was the last year of Packard’s independence…’55 brought the ill-fated Studebaker-Packard merger.
The 200 and Clipper base engine was Packard’s long-stroke 288-ci flathead straight-8- a proven, smooth design that was a winner (nine main bearings!) but terribly long in the tooth compared to the OHV offered in the contemporary Cadillac, like our flagship car, or the ’53 Studebaker. That said, the Packard was clocked at 0-60 in 17.6 seconds, which wasn’t too bad for the times, and Popular Mechanics affirmed that owners loved everything but the gas mileage.
This motor looks intact, if missing a few parts, but it does look preserved well. It’d be a good candidate for some sort of modern fuel delivery system…why the hell not? One would assume that Henney used the bigger, 327-ci flathead that was optional. The added weight of the ambulance body probably negated any gain in horsepower and torque. Still a speedy chariot.
Henney wanted to fill a lower-priced niche in the professional cars segment, and Googling shows that the Junior was used for hearses, ambulances, and flower cars. It sure is a lovely looking ride with great lines. However, the company apparently lost money on every single one and sold most at bargain-bin prices to the US Government, like this one, which was originally commissioned to the USAF. 1954 was the last year of Henney production, and what was once the largest professional coachbuilder was liquidated.
Three-on the tree (Borg-Warner?), a badass flathead…I can imagine a uniformed ambulance driver rushing an airman to the hospital in 1955, upshifting while puffing on an unfiltered Lucky Strike. I want to ratrod this thing so bad. While not up to the standards of the bigger Packards, it’s still a classy interior, indeed.
Anybody got $3500 in Victoria? You should drive this thing every day. Plenty of luggage room…
Extra-small ambulance… huh? Keep one parked in front of an animal hospital?
But it’s so cute.
Someone in the pest control business needs this. Or maybe the computer repair business? Computers do get some nasty viruses, you know, and that can be an emergency. I think that Keith Thelen needs to jump on this. It’s white like the rest of his vehicles, and there is lots of room on the sides for a logo. Probably couldn’t get away with red lights and sirens, though.
Some time ago a diesel Chevy ambulance crossed my path. I thought about it – cheap tow rig and mobile workshop, with the obvious marketing tie-in. Didn’t end up pulling the trigger, though.
As for this? Well, it’s neat and all, but I bet parts would be a nightmare to find. Not to mention, I already know that “average people” associate any car-based ambulance with one thing, and one thing only: Ghostbusters.
If I were to rat-rod a mini ambulance, it’d have to be something more like this. (Dug up the pics after writing the above part, purely by coincidence… did I call it?)
Good point on Ghostbusters. But I’m thinking of a tie in slogan like “We will bust the ghost in your machine.” Maybe not.
The proportions of that Pontiac remind me of the Monkeemobile.
Follow-up: Found more pictures of the white Pontiac/Superior I posted above – including this shot of the floor pans. You wouldn’t need to rat it, it’s already ratty!
I get enough of that kind of fun already, thankyouverymuch. Next!
Wow – that body looks solid!
Be aware that the curved glass windows in the back are made from Unobtanium.
Unbeknownst to most people, there are various types of Unobtanium. The back glass for a 1959 Miller-Meteor (Ecto-1), for example, is made from regular unobtanium. Back glass for a Henny Jr. Ambulance (a sentence which produces unsuppressed laughter at auto restoration shops everywhere)? That was made from a short-lived unobtanium isotope that was a side-benefit of a one-time cold-war era nuclear research project; all remaining stockpiles had fully decayed away by 1961.
Ratrod? Please don’t. It’s a Packard and certainly deserves better. Go ratrod a brougham.
Put in rear quarter windows to convert it to a station wagon.
When I say ‘ratrod’ I simply mean fix it to safely drive with period speed pieces, but otherwise leave it as is.
Not a Brougham fan…unless it’s a Fleetwood Brougham.
> This motor looks intact, if missing a few parts, but it does look preserved well.
Looks to me like it’s been sitting for a long time with no spark plugs and no coolant. One has to wonder why the parts were removed in the first place. At the very least a complete teardown would be in order. Then the block would probably need to be hot-tanked.
I’d prefer to see someone restore this since it is fairly unique. if it fell into my lap however, I’d convert it into a family-size station wagon, with a Mopar V8 swap.
Greetings from Spokane! First time, here in the comments. My friend Herb’s dad, restored one of these about 20 years ago. And now the rest of the story… Herb and I were sort a like CARtoon’s Crass and Bernie,only with very little budget and a penchant for Studebakers. Somehow, Herb’s recently retired dad, heard though the grapevine, that his old hometown (Metaline Falls, WA) was auctioning the old town ambulance. Telly (for the sake of the story,we will refer Herb’s old man by name)was only one to place a bid on this fabulous prize.I should also mention, it was sight unseen. 75 dollars went to city coffers and he had 30 days to haul it off. Next thing I know, it is sitting their driveway in pretty much the same shape as it the one pictured.After week of clean up and engine removal,they took newly liberated 288(yes they used smaller straight 8) 70 miles to the machinist, who declared that spark plugless motor had rusted itself solid.Now what,obviously a new motor; but where? Well,a nice driver 54 Pacific hardtop shows up for $750 and what do they do? Not drive that, they pull the 359 4 barrel out it and put in the ratty Henney jr. Two years and a lot work, an air force blue paint job later… it was ready for the road. The Air Force used these as flight line runway ambulances and they geared quite low for rapid response. So flat out it would do all of 60 mph! I remember we used to better parking at local car shows; but the novelty wore off and Telly sold it to a physical therapy office up in Airway Heights WA were it sits to this day.
“This model had a bit of an identity crisis. In ’53, the model formerly known as the 200 became the ‘Clipper by Packard’, in an attempt to move the Senior Packards back upmarket, with the plan of spinning the Clipper off into its own value-priced marque.”
Packard President Jim Nance had so much hit him in 53, it’s a wonder his head didn’t explode.
Half of Packard’s revenue, and 80% of it’s profits, was from defense contracts for the government: J47 jet engines for the Air Force and diesel engines for the Navy. It was the profits from the defense work that Packard was looking at to fund it’s next car redesign and factory rennovation.
In 53, the Korean War ended, and the defense contracts were cut. The newly installed Eisenhower administration made additional cuts to conventional forces, and Ike’s SecDef, a former GM honcho, and known for uttering “what was good for our country was good for General Motors”, tilted the contracts that were available to favor GM.
Plus, since 41, Packard had outsourced auto body production to Briggs, but in October 53, Briggs was bought by Chrysler, which gave Packard 1 year to find a body plant.
Plus, Chevy and Ford got into a price war over who would claim the #1 sales position, which hurt everyone else in the industry, a lot.
The price war continued into 54, which finally pushed Packard and Studebaker to the merger.
Studebaker lied about it’s financial condition, and proceeded to suck Packard down faster. Nance was staring at bankruptcy almost from the day the merger was finalized.
The refreshed 55 Packard proved popular, but bottlenecks, and terrible build quality, at the new body plant damaged their reputation. Then people started having trouble with the automatic transmissions. The Ultramatic was designed with the “drive” position starting in second gear, with torque converter lockout at a higher speed. “Low” was only supposed to be used for steep hills and low speed maneuvering. Customers found they could accelerate faster if they started in low, then slap the trans into Drive. The trans was already marginal for the higher torque of the new V8, and the abuse killed them.
By 56, Packard got it’s arms around the build quality issues, and the trans was revised to eliminate the weak points, but it was too late. Banks cut off credit and rumors of bankruptcy persuaded customers to run away.
After an unfortunate career choice at Ford (head of the division responsible for marketing the Edsel), Jim Nance was the head of a bank in Cleveland. Wiki quotes him “According to Nance he left the automobile industry because while there he had learned that everything depended on money and who controlled it.”
Henney was based in Freeport Illinois, which I have been to many times (my parents have a cabin in nearby Carroll County). I believe the factory may still be standing; next time I’m in town I will have to get some pictures. I recall several books on Henney in the Freeport library too.
So many errors in the text! First, the Clipper name which had last been used in 1947 was revived in 1953, not 1954, but the Henney Junior was NOT a Clipper even though it used the dashboard with the name from one. The Clipper was on the 122″ wheelbase while the Henney Junior was in the 127″ wheelbase but even then, it was a special commercial chassis rather than the same as used on Packard (non-Clipper) passenger cars.
1955 did NOT bring a merger. In fact, there was no merger at all. Packard BOUGHT Studebaker in 1954 and the plan was to also bring in Nash. Packard and Nash were doing well while Studebaker was not so after the purchase, Nash changed management and reneged on the deal, leaving Packard stuck with the flailing (and failing) Studebaker which dragged it down. Had Packard not consolidated production in South Ben, Indiana on the smaller Studebaker assembly line that was not capable of handling large luxury cars, things might have been different but they did so what we got for 1957 and 1958 were essentially rebadged and tarted up Studebakers.
Also, 1954 was the FOURTH year of the restyle, not the third as stated.
Incidentally, the proper make name for these was Henney-Packard.