Re: Snoozing for 30 Years
Posted by Packard Don On 2016/2/11 18:14:03
The Cadillac on the carrier is a 1965 Fleetwood Sixty Special so is not a true hardtop, having pillars as that model does. It also has eight power windows including the four wings.
Quote:
Yes, but I meant light weight construction. Once I picked up my 1964 Ghia-Imperial by its rear bumper using an engine lift to get it up as far as possible, then later tried the same thing on the Cadillac. The Cadillac's bumper went up but the car stayed firmly on the ground! The Imperials and Packard were built well and probably the Cadillacs of the era were too but by the sixties the Cadillac went for gadgetry while the Imperial remained sturdy with excellent but basic accessories, such as a fantastic A/C (even dual as an option) but no plumbing nightmare of a climate control.
Anyway, perhaps I should ask BigKev to move this thread to the project blog area where I can expand on the Patrician work when the time comes! Just a thought and I was about to post some old photos to get it started but I have apparently not yet scanned the negatives so all I could find was this old Polaroid SX70 shot (I have many Polaroids back to the early '50s) that I had taken on a diagonal of my old outdoor storage yard in the north edge of downtown San Jose. By the number and positioning of the cars, it was taken early on in the many years I had it available. Just so you don't have to tilt your heads to see it, I rotated and cropped the image to the odd shape and size you see here.
I must have driven the 1954 Patrician that day because it is in the center where I would usually park whatever I was driving and it had never been stored there. On the left is a 1951 Henney-Packard combination and a 1940 110 Club Sedan. The latter was purchased before it was even quite an antique and came from the Packard Seattle Company, and I bought it in Seattle, then later drove it to San Jose before starting to re-restore it some years later. I owned the 1940 since the mid-'60s but the '51 Henney was purchased sometime in the '70s and was my first postwar Packard, followed a year or two later by the Patrician.
Left to right:
1964 Imperial LeBaron (sold); 1951 Henney-Packard Combination (sold); 1940 Packard 110 Club Sedan (sold); 1964 Ghia-Imperial limousine (sold); 1954 Packard Patrician (still have); 1964 Imperial Crown Coupe (sold); 1965 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham (parted out); 1965 Imperial LeBaron (still have).
Attach file:
(44.20 KB)
Quote:
But light? I think it weighed in at about 4000 lbs. No gadgets on this one. Manual everything and an a.m. radio. The 445 ft. lbs. of torque that the 401 ci "Wildcat" engine put out certainly made it feel light! I remember the first time I drove it vividly. Off the line, with just a tap on the accelerator, it felt like nothing else I'd ever driven. Sorry to say, our '55 Packards could not compare. I was a little hurt about that realization. I thought Packard V8s ruled the world.
Yes, but I meant light weight construction. Once I picked up my 1964 Ghia-Imperial by its rear bumper using an engine lift to get it up as far as possible, then later tried the same thing on the Cadillac. The Cadillac's bumper went up but the car stayed firmly on the ground! The Imperials and Packard were built well and probably the Cadillacs of the era were too but by the sixties the Cadillac went for gadgetry while the Imperial remained sturdy with excellent but basic accessories, such as a fantastic A/C (even dual as an option) but no plumbing nightmare of a climate control.
Anyway, perhaps I should ask BigKev to move this thread to the project blog area where I can expand on the Patrician work when the time comes! Just a thought and I was about to post some old photos to get it started but I have apparently not yet scanned the negatives so all I could find was this old Polaroid SX70 shot (I have many Polaroids back to the early '50s) that I had taken on a diagonal of my old outdoor storage yard in the north edge of downtown San Jose. By the number and positioning of the cars, it was taken early on in the many years I had it available. Just so you don't have to tilt your heads to see it, I rotated and cropped the image to the odd shape and size you see here.
I must have driven the 1954 Patrician that day because it is in the center where I would usually park whatever I was driving and it had never been stored there. On the left is a 1951 Henney-Packard combination and a 1940 110 Club Sedan. The latter was purchased before it was even quite an antique and came from the Packard Seattle Company, and I bought it in Seattle, then later drove it to San Jose before starting to re-restore it some years later. I owned the 1940 since the mid-'60s but the '51 Henney was purchased sometime in the '70s and was my first postwar Packard, followed a year or two later by the Patrician.
Left to right:
1964 Imperial LeBaron (sold); 1951 Henney-Packard Combination (sold); 1940 Packard 110 Club Sedan (sold); 1964 Ghia-Imperial limousine (sold); 1954 Packard Patrician (still have); 1964 Imperial Crown Coupe (sold); 1965 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham (parted out); 1965 Imperial LeBaron (still have).
Attach file:
(44.20 KB)
This Post was from: https://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=172152