[2] From 1880 to 1884, Packard studied mechanical engineering at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

General Motors acquired the company in 1932, renaming it Delphi Packard Electric Systems in 1995.

[8] He spent his final 16 months at the Cleveland Clinic Hospital, where he died at the age of 64 on March 20, 1928.

The James Ward Packard Laboratory of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at Lehigh University was funded by him and completed in 1929, the year after he died.

[9][10] In 1927, Packard commissioned Patek Philippe to create the world's most complicated watch that could never be outdone; banker Henry Graves Jr. surpassed him in 1933 to become the owner of the Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication, the most complicated watch ever made, spending nearly five times the price paid by Packard.