Re: Four Packards

Posted by 58L8134 On 2014/1/22 9:17:35
Hi

Oh, I knew those poor lost Packards. That deposit of mostly V8 models was forty miles from here. I heard about them for years from other car guys, finally located them on the Turnpike Road four miles from Bath. This would be spring 1990. They belonged to a man named Dickinson who lived in Georgia, were stored at his daughter's place. He was involved with the aircraft business and a pilot, had some of the cars "stored" inside a hanger. The day I saw them, it was raining inside that hanger as much as outside. Only a few were borderline restorable even then but showed signs of having been decent original cars at one time. The cars had obviously been there quite a while, were sunk into the soft soil with weeds grown up around them. As anyone who knows what wet earth and vegetation does to wick moisture up into body structures, would know those cars were quickly being turned to parts cars.

Here's the list of what was there:
Inside the hanger:'56 Patrician, black & white 70k miles, '56 400 pink & white 74k miles, '57 Clipper Town Sedan black, and a '54 Clipper sedan, light green.
Outside the hanger: '56 400 pink & white 75k miles, '55 Patrician black & white 69k miles, '55 Clipper hardtop and sedan, '56 Clipper sedan, the last three rough parts cars.
Unfortunately, I didn't get the serial numbers off the data plates, the doors were impossible to open because of junk around them. That and I was soaked by the time I returned to my car. According to the daughter, there were more of "dad's old Packards" scattered out at the end of the grass runway if I wanted to walk out for a look. With the heavy rain I didn't.

I called the owner. It was the same old story, he had bought the cars cheap in the '60's and '70's when he lived in Pennsylvania, liked them for their advanced engineering and ride quality of Torsion-Level. He brought them to New York with him when he transferred to aircraft work in the area. Subsequently, he left to work in Georgia, stored them because there were too many to take with him just then. In the course of the conversation he told me someone had offered him $3,800 for one of the 400 hardtops which was about the price of a nice driveable 400 at the time so it was a typical bogus offer. But he had turned them down because he was about to retire, to be 62 shortly, and was going to "restore all my Packards". I had to suppress the urge to say; "only if you live to be a hundred years old and spend millions". According to other Packard guys in the area, no one who had contacted him had been able to buy any of them.

What happened to them? I drove by the place four-five years later and everything was gone. Again by anecdote, heard the owner came took some of the 'better' ones, sold the rest for junk, which by the time he did, they were completely ruined by weathering and rust. What a shame, some of us would have enjoyed those cars if the owner wasn't so selfish.

Steve

P.S If this is a recent picture, I'd like a general location so I can go look them over and report on them.

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