Re: Growing up with Packard

Posted by Peter Hartmann On 2008/8/5 16:35:38

Todd - were you at E.C. Last's funeral ? If you were, you will remember me - I did the obit., and my Twelve led his funeral procession.

(for those of you who wonder who E.C. Last was, let me give a little background. Charlie bought a '37 V-12 right before the war; converted it to propane so Helen could get fuel (we had gas rationing during the war - since Helen wasn't an essential war worker, she could only get five gallons per week). He was one of our first members of the Classic Car Club of America. He was an aircraft hydraulic mech. during the war - after the war, he got a job at Pasadena Packard, and since he knew Twelves backwards and fowards, he wound up handling their Twelve service customers (lots of Twelves in Pasadena, Calif in those days-an upper income section north and east of down-town Los Angeles).

I met Charlie around '55, "apprenticed" in his shop in Alhambra.

Charlie finally closed his shop in Alhambra and went into semi retirement, but continued to do a little work out of a small place he rented (I forget the name of the street).

Charlie was a really swell guy.