Re: Packard wins Best of Show at Pebble Beach

Posted by su8overdrive On 2013/8/20 15:03:14

Say it, Rev. Bumble. Can I have a witness? Hallelujah. I like Darrins as well as the next fellow, esp. the 1938-40s on the One-Twenty chassis, which are the ones Dutch preferred and was quite vocal about it in later years. Darrin owners admit the factory jobs are better automobiles.

Darrin early on used Terraplane door handles picked up at
junkyards merely as he liked them. 1936-37 Cords were marvels of getting by on a shoestring. Novel cars to be sure, but strictly front-drive Auburns, and Auburns, other than the woefully underrated V-12, certainly one of the best bargains in automotive history, were Hudson/Buick-class cars.

But Hudsons and Buicks can be fun and have their merits.

Dutch Darrin, Ralph Roberts (LeBaron), and Raymond Loewy
were all good at turning on fake French accents if it helped
seal a deal.

Duesenbergs are impressive, tho' they were obsolete within two years of their debut and it took eight years
to sell almost their target 500 a year production. For sextuple the price of a lovelier Chrysler Imperial or Packard, they should've been lavish. For that extra money you got four fewer main bearings, a lesser transmission than the Chrysler or Packard, twin overhead cams, a long timing chain that stretched at high engine speed upsetting valve timing, a front u-joint a little on the skimpy side, and a cuckoo clockwork box of gears that flashed periodic lights reminding you to change oil, check battery water, that the chassis was being lubed. In a Packard, you had to make the heroic effort of pulling daily the Bijur handle.

BTW, it was never lost on me that my late Pebble Best of Show-winning friend owned a janitorial supply business, and
wound up with a conga line of hoi polloi Gallic and US luxe
from the '30s by buying and trading up, it all starting in
1972 with a '57 T-Bird.

Of the dozens of exotics he owned; Packard Twelve, Marmon 16, Auburn 8 & 12 speedsters, Lagonda V-12, Delahayes, Delages, Hispano-Suiza K6 & J12, Talbot-Lago, Bugattis, the ONLY car he ever had an emotional attachment with, loved, was a '53 Nash-Healey, which he sold and bought back four (4) times.

Why any of us are even talking about the lame inevitability of Pebble when we've got genuine marvels like Packard Info mystifies me. I only want to defuse Pebble,
put it in perspective, so the rest of us can enjoy our wonderful cars without feeling like second-class citizens.

And Mr. Sarcux, every one of us here knows what it is
to restore a car. Impressing us with the number of billable
man hours doesn't wow us.