About the Museum
The mission of America’s Packard Museum is to educate
present and future generations about the Packard Motor Car Company, its products, and philosophies. Since 1992, we have been at the forefront of automotive preservation and educating the public, especially children, about design, engineering, history, innovation, and technology. We continue to improve our facilities, expand collections and exhibits, and follow all professional best practices.
As owners of the Automobile Quarterly collection, the Museum is committed to digitizing the images of all represented brands, not just Packard.
The Museum is open to the public, and focuses on community engagement at all levels as it serves both the local community and visitors to the Dayton metropolitan area. All guests are welcome, and the team provides outreach to the school system, youth groups, and underserved populations. The vehicles, artifacts, and archives tell the Packard story, but staff and volunteers also use them to teach about contemporary issues, technology, engineering, art, and design.
The Packard Motor Company was a prime example of American business success and failure. The collection is a carefully curated gathering of prime examples from the company’s sixty-year history, each chosen to tell a particular story. From 1899-1956, the Packard Motor Company built 1.6 million cars, with annual model changes. Collectors estimate only about 10,000 still exist. America’s Packard Museum manages the largest public collection of Packard automobiles and memorabilia in the world. The Museum is 60,000 square feet, and it contains over seventy cars, thousands of parts, and a research library. The museum is located in an original 1917 Packard dealership facility. TripAdvisor lists the Museum as the #3 Thing to Do in Dayton, and awarded us the 2023 Travelers’ Choice award.
The Museum is ADA-compliant, with policies on non-discrimination and equity, diversity, and inclusion, and has completed the completed the Section 504 Self-Evaluation Workbook from the Civil Rights Office at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Candid awarded America’s Packard Museum a Platinum Seal of Transparency, and Charity Navigator gave the Museum a 100% 4-Star Rating. The Society of Automotive Historians awarded the Museum the 2004 James J. Bradley Distinguished Service Award. America’s Packard Museum implements the American Historical Society’s 2017 Standards for Museum Exhibits Dealing with Historical Subjects, and the American Alliance of Museums guidelines, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Guidelines for Accessible Exhibition Design.
The Museum is in an original dealership and guests are delighted they can get remarkably close to the vehicles. Few know anything about Packard history, so we provide the context for the history of the company. We present no physical barriers to our guests with the goal of creating a welcoming, exciting experience. The visitors may step as close as they want to each car, peer inside, and photograph without flash. Our only request is that patrons do not touch the cars. The Museum’s purpose is to reflect its history as an original Packard dealership and to encourage as much interactivity as possible while preserving the vehicles, through programming events, and rides.