Perhaps the bird's most influential introduction into the layman's common knowledge came as a result of its being the model for one of the Packard Motor Car Company's mascots. Packard was at its height of engineering and popular success as a world-class luxury car when the Cormorant was first used as an optional hood ornament in 1932. The Cormorant was used in several versions through 1951, as the company was entering its final stages and the cars were becoming only a shadow of what they had previously been in terms of engineering, beauty and overall excellence. The company used the Cormorant at a time when they already had a well-known mascot in the Goddess of Speed, displayed on various models and in different versions from 1926 through 1950.
Some commentators-perhaps those who are not big fans of the Packard Motor Car Company-seem to prefer calling these two attractive ornaments a "pelican," and the "donut chaser." The bird seems clearly to this observer, to be not a pelican, which would have an enlarged pouch extending from a longer narrow beak.
Admittedly, the two birds are in the same family. And in a few versions of the company's own publications the Cormorant was at some times referred to as a pelican. This no doubt comes from the car company's heraldic family coat of arms, which is described in part on the Packard Club Website as, "...a pelican in her piety." Some sources claim that the original intent was for the mascot to be a pelican, in line with the company's coat of arms. While this may be true, the ultimate form of the mascot bird is clearly more graceful than any pelican this writer has ever seen. Call it what you will, this "Cormican" is one of the more beautiful hood ornaments from the glory days of the automotive mascot.
The Goddess of Speed, on the other hand, holds not a donut, but a wheel in her outstretched hands, in the direction in which she is racing. Leave it to us Americans to come up with something as crude and insulting as the moniker, "Donut chaser."
