DID YOU KNOW...

• Packard (USA). Formed in 1899, taken over in 1901, Packard became established as a leading manufacturer of luxury cars during the Edwardian period. That position was held through to World War II, but never regained after it. Studebaker was acquired in 1954, then the ailing group was taken over, and the last Packards were sold in 1958.
  
• The first reinforced concrete building erected for motor car manufacture was the Packard factory constructed in Detroit in 1903 and designed by architect Albert Kahn, who was to become the leading designer of car factories for the American motor industry.
  
• The first wind-up window mechanism (the "Perfect") was introduced on 1919 model Packard and Pierce-Arrow cars. Before that, railway carriage-type leather strap window lifts were used.
  
• Air conditioning was first offered on the 1940 model Packard Super-8 One-Sixty ('cooled by mechanical refrigeration') launched in August 1939. Nash's much publicised 1938 'Weather-Eye' system was merely controlled heating and ventilation of filtered air, even though Nash had just purchased the Kelvinator refrigerator company.
  
• Powered operated seats were first used on the 1947 Packards. Electrically controlled door locks were fitted to 1955 Packards. Electrically controlled self levelling suspension was used on 1955 Packards.
  
• The first car to be fitted with automatic ignition advance was the 1900 Model B Packard (the Packard brothers were in the electric lighting business before branching out into car manufacture). Centrifugal fly-weights varied the ignition timing in relation to engine speed, a principle which was universally used into the electronic era.
  

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