Bayliff replicars announced by Kess

1960 "Packard" Bayliff Landau funeral car

By the mid-1980s, Ohio funeral directors were watching a whole category of vehicle quietly disappear: the traditional combination coach—a professional car that could serve as both hearse and non-emergency “invalid coach.” When Long & Folk Funeral Homes in Wapakoneta and St. Marys wore out their 1981 Superior combinations, owner John Long went looking for replacements and ended up partnering with C. Budd Bayliff of Bayliff Coach Corporation in Lima, Ohio.

Bayliff, a serious Packard devotee who had already acquired rights to the Packard name/trademarks and was building Packard-themed “replicars,” proposed something bolder than an off-the-shelf coach: a Packard-styled Landau combination built from a donor Buick Riviera. Two 1985 Rivieras were cut and stretched 46 inches, reworked into five-door pillared hardtop landaus, and fitted with professional-car hardware cannibalized from 1973 Superior Cadillac combinations right down to items like rear loading doors and attendant seating. Construction began in 1986; the first was completed in 1987 and the second in 1988, and the pair finished in formal black looked like a “lost” Packard professional car from another timeline.

This model will join my collection solely for its historical value. It is by no means elegant, in my humble opinion.

1949 "Packard" Bayliff Roadster (top up/down)

The 1949 Packard Bayliff Roadster is less a restored Packard than a coachbuilt tribute, a continuation-style custom created under the revived Packard identity that Budd Bayliff launched after purchasing Packard naming rights and trademarks in the late 1970s.

One well-documented example wears rich burgundy paint over tan leather, and like many high-end customs of the era, it pairs classic visual drama with modern drivability. It’s powered by a 5.4-liter Lincoln V8 with a three-speed automatic, and the build was completed in 2003. It was even titled as a “1949 Packard Bayliff,” underscoring the car’s goal: not strict historical authenticity, but the feeling of a grand Packard open car that should have been.