Packard Model A History
Catalog record
This is a brief catalog introduction with limited source documentation. A licensed, identity-checked lead photograph has not yet been added for this page. Detailed year, configuration and ownership coverage must be identified separately; this page is not a complete vehicle catalog.
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The Packard Model A was the company's first automobile, completed on November 6, 1899, in Warren, Ohio. James Ward Packard, a mechanical engineer dissatisfied with a Winton he had bought, set out — famously goaded by Alexander Winton's advice to 'go build your own car' — to build something better, with his brother William and partner George Weiss.
A simple single-cylinder runabout, the Model A established the engineering-led reputation that Packard would carry into the luxury field. Only a handful were built before the line evolved into the Models B and C, and the company's early single- and twin-cylinder cars carried it through the move to Detroit in 1903.
Body styles
- Runabout
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