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The Warren show may not have equaled Gettysburg in size but it sure matched it with heat. 94F with humidity so thick you could cut it with a knife when I left for home at around 1PM.

The museum addition is quite nice and their collection is impressive for a smaller institution.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

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Congratulations on the new Packard! I've driven a 'just purchased' '74 Fiat Spider from Cincinnati to Cleveland without major incident (unless no windshield wipers in a rainstorm on the freeway counts as major), so you ought to be fine in a daily-driven Packard.

As for driving US 20, I'd make sure to plan an alternate to that route when traversing the Cleveland area. US 20 in and around Cleveland will take you through neighborhoods in which you REALLY don't want to break down (or need any type of assistance)! Find an alternate south of the city and enjoy sightseeing through our much safer suburbs.

Good luck and I look forward to hearing and seeing of your adventure.

Mexican jumping bean.

This might be a bit off topic, but would someone explain to me why we in America continue to treat anything old as anathema? As I look at Big Kev's picture, I can't help but notice the "1907" and wonder why a building less than 110 years old could be simply "discarded" as this this one has? I realize this is no church, government building or other structure steeped in cultural meaning, but it's certainly a well built facility that should be adaptable for some positive use (or failing that, "moth-balled" until a use could be identified). I'm not naive -I live in Cleveland where similar sites are prevalent- but I have never understood why our nation so easily and so often disregards our own history and traditions.

Maybe one of our European friends who frequent this site can chime in on this. They in Europe manage to preserve a fair number of useful structures that are far older than a crummy 103 years.

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There you have it...class. Post-war America's taste in luxury was quickly changing from an aesthetic of class, style and grace to one of flash and excess. Packard, founded on and remaining committed to excellence in motor coach building could no longer compete with the likes of Cadillac and Lincoln who had abandoned a "high-brow" notion of luxury and began peddling glitz and glamour to the newly wealthy.

That of course trickled down to lesser models which were more within the reach of the average consumer. Couldn't afford a flashy new Cadillac? Then buy a flashy new Chevy. That aesthetic of excess remains today in both the new car market (Cadillac Escalade, anyone...yuck!) and in the collector car market, hence the popularity of the '57 Chevy.

The Packard V8's were wonderful cars for those with more traditional and discriminating tastes. Too bad they struggled to find an audience in the fifties and faces an even harder time finding classy people today. (Of course, I, too, have a difficult time find classy people nowadays!)

As an aside, Ford outsold Chevrolet in 1957 with a car I've always felt was executed in much better taste than the Chevy. It's just too bad more of them didn't hang together to compete with the shoebox Chevrolets for the admiration of today's enthusiasts.

A '71 Pontiac suffering from poor design. Imagine that...

Great work salvaging the '50. While some might grumble about the merits of modifying Packards, any Packard that can hit the streets is an opportunity to keep the marque's heritage alive in the minds of the public.

By the way, the taillights look an awful lot like the fog lamps from a '70 Mustang Mach 1. Where did you get them?

Where's Geraldo Rivera when you need him? He'd figure this mystery out. Heck, he'd probably buy the car and put it with the empty beer bottle he found in Al Capone's safe...

Just for fun...

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