Buy a Piece of Packard Automotive and Architectural History

RM Auctions is offering the complete 1907 Packard Motor Company stone entrance from its original factory at the Vintage Motor Cars of Meadow Brook event in Rochester, Michigan on August 2nd, 2008. Packard Motor Company was known for their supreme combination of innovation, beauty and all that is fine in motor cars, and the factory they built them in gained an equal and deserving reputation.

When Packard share holders decided to move the Warren, Ohio, facilities and build a new factory in the Motor City, they chose a large cow pasture that now sits at East Grand Boulevard, in Detroit Michigan.

Albert Kahn, a German immigrant, was hired as the architect to design Packard’s production plant. This was Kahn's first significant industrial commission. The project included nine conventional buildings and a tenth constructed of reinforced concrete, a material that had rarely been used before in factory construction.

Factories of this era were often dangerous, with poor lighting and ventilation. Most commonly made of wood, these structures were literal death traps, with many disastrous and deadly fires over the years.

Albert Kahn’s design allowed for expansion, for continuously moving assembly lines and incorporated the maximum use of natural lighting and ventilation. The construction of the Packard factory did not go unnoticed by the press or the industry; it was the most attractive manufacturing facility in Detroit of its time and certainly the most advanced in the world for building automobiles.

Motor Age noted not only Kahn’s structural innovations, but also the building’s more “human” attributes: “When a man buys a Packard he gets a machine that was made by workmen who toil in pleasant surroundings, for if there is one thing more than another which characterizes the new factory…it is the bright, clean and cheerful aspect of the different departments.”

The winning bidder of the 1907 Packard Motor Company stone entrance will not only be purchasing a automotive piece of history, but a piece of architectural significance. Albert Kahn went on to provide streamlined and functional factories for many of the great Detroit manufacturers and has been called “the father of the modern American factory”.

There is one catch though, the entrance that is estimated to sell for $50K to $100K, is still attached to the factory, and the buyer will be responsible for its safekeeping and removal immediately following the auctioneer’s declaration of sale. Know any good building dismantlers?

The listing for the Packard entrance and details about the Vintage Motor Cars of Meadow Brook event can be found at RM Auctions website.