1903 Packard Model F Rear Tonneau

The Ohio Automobile Company was founded by brothers James Ward and William Doud Packard, with George Weiss, in Warren Ohio. James believed that they could build a better horseless carriage than the Wintons owned by Weiss (a Winton stockholder), and he had some ideas on how to improve the designs. The company was making vehicles by 1899 and soon was introducing innovations such as the steering wheel, which replaced tiller steering.

Packard concentrated on upscale cars that started at $2,600. Packard cars developed a following, in the United States, and also abroad, with many heads of state owning them. In need of more capital, the Packard brothers would find it when the wealthy Henry Joy, bought a Packard. Impressed by its reliability, he enlisted a group of investors to finance company expansion. In October 1902, the company became the Packard Motor Car Company and moved its automobile operations to Detroit.

By 1903, Packard was well on its way to becoming an icon of American automotive quality and perfection. The Detroit plant, designed by Albert Kahn, opened in 1903, and that same year, drivers Tom Fetch and Marius Krarup (who was editor of the original Automobile magazine), drove an already-aging, single-cylinder, Packard Model F from San Francisco to New York in 61 days, an incredible accomplishment in the days of minimal dirt roads and cow paths.

This rear-entrance Tonneau is powered by a single-cylinder, twelve-horsepower engine with a six-inch bore and a six-and-a-half-inch stroke. It has a wheelbase of 88 inches. A similar car participated in the trans-continental crossing, held June 20th through August 21st, 1903, from San Francisco to New York. That car, driven by Tom Fetch, would have emphasized the reliability and endurance that a Packard could provide to their customers. The Model F was the last car manufactured in Warren, OH, the birthplace of the Packard Automobile.