It’s always fun to find out about a buildings past…
I stumbled across this ad for Downtown Motor Sales, a Studebaker-Packard dealership from August 1956.
It was probably the wrong time to open a new dealership, and this was likely one of the last Studebaker-Packard Dealerships ever built. Packard bought Stuedebaker in 1954, and the last Packard was built in 1958.
In 1958 Packard sales were horrible, and the name was tanking, it was retired and ceased to exit in 1959.
Studebaker ceased production in the US in 1963, but continued its Canadian operations in Hamilton, building Studebakers until 1966.
According to Wikipedia, interstingly enough, The remains of the auto maker still exist as Studebaker-Worthington Leasing, a subsidiary of State Bank of Long Island, which provides leasing services for manufacturers and resellers of business products and industrial products.
The building looked familliar to me, and it’s still there with only some slight modifications. It appears to be currently vacant and for sale. It is located beside the Esso on Wyandotte and Marentette.
Looks like Packard tried to make a comeback in 2003 with a luxury V12 Prototype sedan http://www.packardmotorcar.com/pg.htm
Dynoed at 0-60 in 4.8seconds, 12.5 quarters.
Was never put into production like the V12 Aston Martin Vanquish S, which was doing 0-60 in 4 seconds.
Packard was sold to Roy Gulickson in 1995.
Suprisingly, DeLorean was also put back into production by a group of enthusiasts recently, so who knows if Packard will be successful in a production comeback. I doubt the old 3.5 million square foot former Packard plant in Detroit will still be standing by that time.
There’s non need for this building to stay vacant and for sale for long. All it needs is to have a canal dug up in front of it! 😉
i remember in the early 80s when it was a Lada dealer selling Russian cars.
Nice find Andrew. I never paid attention to this building, and never knew it had a history of being a dealership.
I know it was a movie rental place for a long time, where they insisted (for some stupid reason) on taping movie posters to the outside of the windows, instead of hanging them from the inside.
Mike
i bet’cha it still says downtown motor sales under that overhang.
It was a car dealership for the 70s and 80s at least. Possibly into the 90s. My family had a neighbouring business.
The first car I brought was from Downtown Motors in 1962, it was a 1956 Studebaker like the one in the front of the building. After Studebaker stopped making cars they became Downtown Import Motors, they sold an number of English cars, as the cars would coming in by rail cars and would be unloaded at the rail yard on the river at the foot of Aylmer and driven to the sales room. Where the Esso / Tim Hortons is today part of that lot was their used car lot.
I bought my ’73 MGB there, new, in June of 1973. It was parked by a fence that would have been about where the front drive of the Tim Hortons is now. They sold Fiat and all the BMC and later British Leyland cars. The MGs, Triumphs, Jags, Fiat 124 were the sports cars of dreams for free spirited buyers. I still have that MGB, but sadly British Leyland (actually the entire native British automotive industry), and Downtown Motors are gone.
My dad bought our first new car from Downtown Motors. It was a 53 Morris Oxford which lasted ’til 1966.
I own an original 1940 Packard 110 Business Coupe that was purchased new in Windsor , I’m presuming at Gordon W Edwards at 649 Wyandotte st.E. Using Google Maps , I found what I believe to be the building , still standing and being used as a foreign meat market. The art deco styling is still very evident. Does anyone have an original photo of this building in its’ heyday ?
@ Jim Boland. I thought the building was familiar, when I looked it up, but I was thinking of another former dealership on Wyandotte, a couple of blocks west.
http://internationalmetropolis.com/2010/11/22/mercer-and-wyandotte/
Hello,
Packard did not make a “try at a comeback in 2003” … this was just a fellow who had some kind of use of the name and (despite a massive investment) built a rather homely car with a V-12 engine and 1940s style grille… then called it a Packard. This car was only recently auctioned off.
There were others who also built cars over the years since Packard’s demise and called them “Packard” too. But the company itself was long gone (the real Packards ended with 1956 and they hung on with a disguised Studebaker thingie which didn’t go past 1958). Studebaker-Packard officially dropped the “Packard” part of the name in 1962.
As for the dealership mentioned here, it was likely just intended to sell Studebakers. There was a REAL Packard dealership and factory branch just outside of WIndsor (now very much INSIDE Windsor) over on Huron Line Road. They had a showroom, service facility and a small factory unit there. Originally, it simply said “Packard” in vertical letters on a blue porcelain background on the outside of the structure. In this building real knocked-down (K.D.) Packards from the factory in Detroit were fully assembled in Canada.
While I don’t get to the area often, and while it is hugely changed from the semi-rural way it once was as I remember it, the building is still intact. But no idea what is in there now. It was originally brick construction with Fenestra-type windows.
I remember riding my bicycle over the Ambassador bridge to Canada from Detroit on my way to my uncle’s house–which in those days was considered out in the sticks on Malden Road. I would pass the Packard facility on Huron Line and sometimes stop and get brochures.