Packard 1938 images

Packard built roughly 55 examples of the 1603 Super Eight Touring Sedan for 1938, and today only about two dozen are believed to survive. It was the lightest body style in the whole Super Eight lineup, which meant it was also the quickest, riding on a 320 cubic inch straight-eight and a shorter 127-inch wheelbase. This Gateway Classic gallery captures a genuinely scarce piece of Depression-era engineering most people would drive right past without a second look.

1938 Packard 1603 350 4 Speed Automatic

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A four-door sedan doesn’t usually make anyone’s pulse jump, but Packard’s Super Eight line in 1938 was quietly building some of the most engineered chassis in America, years before anyone coined the phrase muscle car. This particular 1603 Touring Sedan sat at the light end of the whole Super Eight family, which is exactly what let it move a little quicker than its heavier siblings. Only a handful were built to begin with, and fewer still survive today. What made Packard willing to build a car this specialized in the depths of the Depression era, and why does a 1938 sedan still turn heads at a muscle car site eight decades later?

The Lightest Super Eight, Built for a Reason

The 1603 carried Packard’s 320 cubic inch L-head straight-eight, good for 130 horsepower, riding on a 127-inch wheelbase that was noticeably shorter than the other Super Eight body styles. At roughly 4,530 pounds it was the lightest car in the entire Super Eight lineup, and that lighter curb weight translated directly into the best performance Packard’s Super Eight buyers could get that year. It came with a floor-shifted three-speed synchromesh gearbox and four-wheel hydraulic brakes, and Packard priced it under $3,000 — a genuine bargain by the standards of a marque known for cars that cost considerably more.

Rare When New, Rarer Now

Packard built only around 55 of these 1603 Touring Sedans for the entire 1938 model year, and of those, roughly two dozen are believed to survive today. That kind of scarcity puts this car in different territory than the more common Packard Eights and Twelves that show up more regularly at auction.

A Survivor Worth a Second Look

Gateway Classic’s gallery here captures a car that split the difference between prestige and practicality back when it was new, and between rarity and pure survival today — a Depression-era engineering exercise that most people walking past it on the street would never guess is this hard to find.

“Ask the Man Who Owns One”

Packard built its entire prewar reputation on one simple idea, distilled into its famous advertising slogan: “Ask the man who owns one.” The company wasn’t selling flash so much as it was selling confidence — a promise that anyone who actually lived with a Packard would vouch for its engineering and durability without prompting. That reputation put Packard in genuine competition with Cadillac and Lincoln for the top tier of American luxury motoring through the 1920s and 1930s, and a well-optioned Packard like this 1603 carried that prestige even in its lightest, most affordable Super Eight configuration.

Straight Eights Were Packard’s Signature

The straight-eight engine layout, with all eight cylinders arranged in a single inline row rather than a V-configuration, was something of a Packard signature through the 1930s and into the following decade. Straight-eights were prized for their inherent smoothness — a long crankshaft with evenly spaced power pulses that made for notably quiet, vibration-free cruising compared to many of the era’s V8 and inline-six alternatives. That smoothness was a major part of what buyers were paying for when they chose a Packard Eight over a cheaper make, and it’s part of why the marque’s straight-eight cars still have such a devoted following among prewar collectors today.

The Junior Series That Saved the Company

Packard’s survival through the worst years of the Great Depression owed a great deal to a car far more humble than the Super Eight line: the One-Twenty, a genuinely affordable Packard introduced in the mid-1930s aimed at middle-class buyers who could never have justified a Twelve or a Super Eight. That junior series kept factory volumes high enough to keep the company solvent while less nimble luxury makers struggled or folded outright, and the revenue it generated helped underwrite continued engineering on cars like the 1603 at the upper end of the lineup. It’s a reminder that even a prestige-focused company like Packard had to build cars ordinary people could afford in order to keep building the cars that made its name.

Speed Records in the Utah Salt Flats

Packard’s engineering reputation wasn’t built on advertising copy alone. The company’s cars, and straight-eight power in particular, were regularly campaigned at the Bonneville Salt Flats and other speed venues during the 1930s, with drivers like Ab Jenkins piloting specially prepared Packards to endurance and speed records that generated real headlines. Those record runs gave Packard something most luxury manufacturers of the era couldn’t claim: proof, on a stopwatch, that its engineering matched its marketing.

The Slow Fade of an American Icon

The postwar years were not kind to Packard. Rising costs, a shrinking dealer network, and a disastrous 1954 merger with Studebaker left the company unable to keep pace with Cadillac and Lincoln’s postwar reinvention, and the Packard name disappeared from new car showrooms entirely by 1958. That slow fade makes surviving prewar Packards like this 1603 more than just old cars — they’re artifacts from the company’s genuine peak, built before the financial pressures of the 1950s forced compromises that diluted the brand beyond recognition.

Why Prewar Classics Sit Differently in the Hobby

A site built around Tri-Five Chevys, GTOs, and Hemi Mopars might seem like an odd home for a 1938 sedan, but prewar classics like this Packard occupy a different, equally important corner of the same hobby. Where muscle cars are chased for straight-line performance, cars like the 1603 are preserved for craftsmanship and engineering that predates the entire muscle car era by more than two decades — a reminder that American performance and prestige motoring didn’t start with the 1964 GTO, it just changed shape along the way.

Coachbuilders Still Had a Role at Packard

Even in the depths of the Depression, Packard’s senior series — the Twelve and the Super Eight lines the 1603 belonged to — could still be ordered with custom coachwork from established outside firms like LeBaron and Dietrich, houses that built bespoke bodies for buyers who wanted something beyond Packard’s standard factory offerings. That option gave Packard’s wealthiest customers a genuine bridge between mass production and true custom coachbuilding, a level of personalization that all but disappeared from the American auto industry within a couple of decades as body-on-frame custom coachwork gave way to unibody mass production.

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