Re: Identify the engine

Posted by John Harley On 2018/10/4 22:47:56

Roundsy

I was going to reply to your original post about your car but for some reason I couldn't find it.

Your car has a 356. I was in the Eastern Packard Club and President twice. I knew Dan reasonably well. He was in business with his brother Frank for many, many years, but Frank had passed away quite some time before I met Dan in 1988.

His shop was behind his home in New Milford, Connecticut. It was a one story cinder block building with two or three rooms. I don't remember a lift but he had an old fashioned lubrication pit. There was no pavement going to the building. Whatever car was in the building in November would be there until later in the spring.

i remember your car very well. It turned up in Connecticut one spring at the shows. This would be the late '90's, I think. It attracted a lot of attention from us as we didn't know it and it was flawless. Not only was it in very good shape but everything was absolutely correct. I remember talking with the owner once or twice. There was a story about it I don't remember, I'm not sure he realized what he had.

By the next spring it belonged to Dan. He had slowed down or retired and had sold his Custom Eight, so he needed a Packard. By the the annual EPC picnic in August it had the 356 in it. The hood was open the whole time with a crowd around e car.

I asked him about it.

"Oh , I went out back one morning into the garage and looked the engine in the corner and then the car. i wondered if it would fit"

"How much work was it?"

"A lot more than I though it was going to be".

"Did you change the front springs?"

"No. it's OK"

"How does it drive?"

"Like nothing I've ever driven before !"

I'm glad the car has turned up and is being taken care of. The EPC fell apart after the founding generation all died. Perhaps the best explanation is the club expired of a broken heart. I miss them.

There is an example of Dan's work in Packard, the Pride, by Juile Fenster. The 1937 Super Eight Victoria Coupe belonged to his sister in law Gloria Malumphy. Dan restored it. Gloria did the upohlstery. It was at every Annual Dinner and would some sort of award every year. I wish I had the funds to track it down and purchase it. We all loved that car.

It was originally black. The maroon it is now we called Malumphy Red. Unless a customer of his was strong willed, he would advise painting a car that color when it went through his shop...

Regards


John Harley