Re: packards in tv and movies

Posted by Peter Hartmann On 2008/10/26 15:23:29

RE COLOR
The very pretty Young & Rubican advertisements of "senior" Packards during the classic era showed some pretty fantastic colors and color combinations.

Factory photographs of the production line tell a far different story. With VERY few exceptions, "senior" Packards went out the door solid colors, typically VERY dark blue, or green, when they werent solid black. And VERY few were delivered with white-wall tires.

It is hard to explain to people today just what "conservative" meant in those years. White-walls and flamboyant color combinations were rarely seen on the big "super cars" of the very rich, that we now call "classics". My recollection is wasn't till '41, (after Packard "down-sized" its big cars & no longer built car bodies), did they start offering two-tone colors.

Now, in answer to your comments & questions, I got bored with my car's original solid black ( it was getting shaggy anyway) so I took it apart (that's the way the cars were painted in production - apart) so there'd be no masking tape lines, and "shot" it with silver fenders, VERY light blue body, and got a WHITE top. (skilled hunters know how to track down the elusive Great California Naugha, kill em, skin em, dye their hides white...)

After about 15 years, got bored with that. Tired of being told that was MOST inappropriate for a Formal Sedan.

About that time, then new (late 70's) Cadillacs had what was called an "Elk Grain" option which was and remains the closest simulation to the REAL leather Packard "senior div." Formal Sedans and Town Cars had on their tops. So I had the top re-done in that material, color silver to match the fenders.

But I got tired of that after a while, and re-painted the silver top with black fabric coloring. The fenders are now DARK ("Packard Blue") blue, the body is a medium blue.

A couple of weeks into shooting the second "Salvage" show, I happened to have to leave the set for a major trial - Griffith gave me assurances he would not let anyone drive my car, so I took off for the day. It was supposed to be a "statinory" shot. But the production people decided they wanted my car turned around. Griffith "got into it" with some union reps about him driving my car. He wasnt about to give up my keys! Griffth is a pretty big guy, so he got to win the argument, ( with the help of a tire iron he had in his hands, which, fortunately, he didnt have to use!).

I should explain - most production company's union contracts & rules required ONLY Teamsters member to drive cars on screen. Griffith was a SAG (Screen Actor's Guild) member, not Teamsters. No love lost between them.

Anyway, as a result of the big argument, my car and I was gone. Part of that was because a guy in production had a buddy with a really beat up '39 Packard 12 sedan (not a formal). He painted his car to LOOK like mine, & he got the rest of the job. I recall in the rest of the series it was pretty obvious it wasnt my car. "Quickie" paint job. Dont know what happend to that 12 - never saw it again. Werent too many 5 passenger '39 Twelves around, then or now.

CLosing comments on colors on classic era big Packards. Fact is there were some TWO and even THREE tone orders accepted by Packard up thru the end of '34 production

But they were pretty conservative colors. From '35 on to the end of "senior" production in June '39 , to my knowledge, the factory never again accepted two-tone color orders. Best they would do is offer different colors on the stripes and wheels. With this qualification - obviously, if a guy wanted his new "big" Packard painted like a pink zebra, and the dealership knew that is what it would take to make the sale, you can BET that somewhere out there are some pretty wild '35 - '39 "senior" Packards that went out the doors of the dealerships in less-than-conservative paint schemes.