Owen_Dyneto wrote:
Quote:
It was saved many years back by Larry Dopps on the West Coast, given a bit of a restoration by him...
I think that's a bit of an understatement. The Request was in miserable shape when found, back in the early 1970s. It had suffered from more than one accident (and heard one or two shady stories about that). Among the many challenges of bringing the show car back from the brink, I believe all but two of the vertical grille bars were broken and incomplete; new ones had to made made, going by just the two remaining example as a basic pattern. One of the huge cast bronze front bumper bars was broken in two, but was heli-arced and replated. That's just a couple of things that come to mind.
The rest was detailed in an issue of the
The Packard Cormorant that was published some time in the late-1970s, as best I recall. Initially, Editor Langworth expressed doubt that the car was the "Real McCoy", but quickly backpedaled from that stance after further consideration.
IMHO (and only going from many color pix I've seen in a variety of publications), Dopps did an amazing job, given the limited tools and techniques that were available at that time. Else, the car might not have survived well enough for Mr. Marano be able to provide it with a full restoration.
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