Quote:

Yes, I know this fact very well. I drove past the Packard Plant in the 1940s-50s-60s all the time with my dad for many, many years. All the time. Sometimes daily. My dad owned commercial property on Mt. Elliot, just a few blocks from here. So I very well know how big the plant was.

At one point in time, the eastbound Edsel Ford Expressway ended here (westbound started here). And if you were traveling across town and no longer wanted to use the old antiquated route of Grand Blvd, you jogged north from the Boulevard on Mt. Elliot to get onto the hot new expressway!

This is the uncropped version of the same photo shown earlier. But the plant still extended farther south (past the top of this photo) and farther north past the bottom of this photo. If you look to the right of the houses in the lower part of the photo you will see buildings leading to the foundry areas and other parts of the plant that do not exist today and which have long been forgotten.

And again, before we go back into the same territory that another thread covered a few months ago, note the lot with cars in it on the upper right of this photo. This lot was Packard Nu-Car Driveaway where new Packards were stored and loaded on trucks to be shipped. It is also where the Nu-Car Driveaway office was located on the Mt. Elliot side. This had nothing at all to do with individual customer driveaway programs. Nor was it where a customer would take factory delivery.

Quote:

The date of this photo certainly is known. I have the original in my collection but it was actually much larger. It was taken in 1946, but the photo version shown here has been severely cropped off both at the top and at the bottom.

What you are seeing here is Looking generally south. The street in the lower portion of the photo was Harper Avenue... before they eliminated most of it here to make way for the Edsel Ford Expressway. Now known as the Edsel Ford Freeway, it whacked off the parking lot to the lower left of the plant and almost all of the street you see here and about a quarter of the plant building to the right of the railroad tracks.

In the original photo that was not cropped, the lot in the upper right-hand corner with all of the cars was the Nu-Car Driveaway lot-where new Packards were stored and shipped out-mostly by truck rather than individually driven as many today have presumed. It has been cut out of this view. But it is obviously the same photo with cars in the same position on Concord Avenue and Harper Avenue.

Quote:

Take a look at the photo of the Hotel Packard in Havana, Cuba I just posted...whatever happened to it?

Quote:

Heaven help us if this is the case. But I agree, it very well may result in another so-called "clunker" bill.

A few points for those who do not know:

? The last so-called "clunker bill" took in thousands upon thousands of cars that were hardly clunkers. Many of them were collector quality. Many were simply older luxury cars that did not have big dollar values at that moment, but were very nice cars. And I know of at least two 1956 Packards that joined the death march. These were running cars, mind you. A neighbor turned in her garage-kept, fully loaded Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz just because "the Bluebook on it is less than what the clunker law will pay me...and I never use the car anyway"...So help me. This was the reasoning. And folks... THIS was a low-mileage, totally rust-free car... with beautiful red leather upholstery that had NOT been sun-baked/fried. It even had the glass moonroof. Had I known she was planning to do that, I would have bought the car myself.

? These cars were certainly not all crushed as people believe. Some of these very nice cars quickly began to appear at junkyards all over the state like "Pick-A-Part"... but the engines and trans had marks and labels all over them indicating they had been purposely sabotaged and could never be used again. One tag claimed that the engine had been run with either metal filings or sand in it until either it conked out or several minutes passed. Some cars with nice interiors had huge "X" letters cut across the seats with a blade.

? Gasoline in most parts of California is already sky-high in price. And has been for decades now. Frankly California's gas prices (and I check them) can be two or even three times higher than other parts of the country. A couple of years ago I was forced to pay OVER $5 a gallon for premium off of the interstate in NorCal. Most people alive today have never paid that much for a single gallon of gas in the USA. The price was so ginormous that I saved the receipt! Parts of L.A. and parts of the Bay Area were likewise going in this direction for a while. Merely crossing the Arizona border on I-10 and buying gas in Arizona can save you as much as 75-cents a gallon or more over California prices!

The problem here with these bills is that the politicians behind them rarely understand the long-term and technological aspects of what they are doing and promoting. Just the knee-jerk-feel-good part. Like the L.A. City Councilman who stood up at a press conference several years ago and announced that he would force 10% of drivers into electric cars by 2005. This drew great applause from enviro-types, but what nobody ever mentioned was...
A.) At that very time, California was already having rolling brown-outs with electrical service shortages. They were telling us to shut off the air conditioning and avoid using the washer and dryer. Can you imagine 10% of Angelinos coming home from work and all plugging in their electric cars each evening?
B.) AND what fossil fuels were going to be used to generate all that extra electrical charging power requirement? And how much?
C.) AND since the majority of the electric cars referred to at the time of the speech were using lead-acid batteries (and we were already trying to remove lead from the environment)... WHERE was all this extra lead AND toxic electrolyte fluid going to go when all these batteries went kaput?

Even the supporters of these slash-and-burn bills are so bent on the feel-good aspect that they don't realize they are often simply shooting themselves in the foot. Or in a combined state of denial and technical ignorance.

In the final analysis, this is the really scary part.

My records in 1956 don't show any deliveries to Cuba. One did go to Dominican Republic and several to Mexico. But nothing listed for delivery in Cuba.

Will check my 1955 records later.

Remember that back in those days there was a ferry line that ran back and forth to Cuba from Florida and you could take your car with you-as many American visitors did. So even if a Caribbean ended up in Fidel's country, it might very well have not been delivered there originally.

It would be nice to know the serial number of the 1954 Caribbean that is there.

Oh... and since we're on the subject of Packards and Cuba and since there is mention of the old buildings still being intact (hmmm)... what ever happened to the Packard Hotel there and what does it look like today?

The address was 51 Prado Blvd, Havana. I have attached a photo of how it looked in the 1950s.

Attach file:

---

  (33.60 KB)

Quote:

Again... 1953 Caribbean tops were white. The pads were white. The topstack bows/framework were white.

I did not specify shades of white simply because there are 2 jillion different shades of "white." Having worked in an OEM automotive design center for a good part of my life, I can assure you of this fact.

Even today's common vinyl convertible tops with diamond pinpoint grain have numerous shades of white-ranging from snow white to oyster. Point is that whatever shade you choose, the original Orlon tops were white-inside and out. And neither the material nor the frames were snow white. But for sure they were not black.

And if you were to ask Mr. Nat Danas, who waa the Godfather of auto trimmers and convertible tops about me, he would have told you I know my stuff on tops.

I also have big convertible top fabric sample books going back at least to the 1950s. Indeed I was responsible for specifying convertible top fabrics for several OEM convertibles-including some that when into production.

Personally I can tell you that even if you could find white canvas (and it is findable, but at grand-theft dough prices), it would never have the stain resistance of Orlon. Bad choice.

And yes, Orlon today would be tough or next to impossible to find today-although I suspect there just may be a trim wholesaler with an unloved bolt left in the back of a warehouse somewhere.

This said, a top made of conventional white vinyl with a white (or at least light tan) inner face at least puts you in the ballpark and keeps the spirit of the original look of the 1953 Caribbean tops.

Black pads may be quickie solutions, but they just don't belong on a 1953 Caribbean top. Any good, competent automotive trim shop ought to be able to make proper pads up for your top that look correct.

Yes. "Polychromatic" is yet one more term out of a cornucopia grab bag of terms that appears and then goes away, only to re-appear again. Each time a new meaning seems to be attached.

I have a 1945 movie from the U.K. that refers to "polychromatic colors." And yet another reference that calls a painted silver-aluminum surface "polychromatic." And still more references to two-tone and three-tone cars as "polychromatic."

The problem with all this stuff is that each new generation and source makes up their own meaning/definition for the term and there you are. Tower of Babel time.

This is why it is always so important that the history of terminology is known whenever a person or company decides to name some new thingie, idea or substance.

Anyway, again, Packard has indeed been doing metallic paint finishes since a long, long way back. Certainly by the time of the Packard in question.

It is important to remember that names/terms used to describe automotive paints over the years were not always what the paints actually were. Nor did such terms accurately describe the appearance in a way that could be understood in 21st-century thinking of today.

The confusion of terminologies and what the paints actually were goes on today-largely because the terms used were just plain inaccurate.

In the late 1930s there was a widely used term "pearlescent." There was another term widely used called "opalescent." But what these terms were really describing were what we today would call metallic paints.

Also in the 1930s and even back to the 1800s there was a translucent dark red that was described variously as "ruby"..."rubescent" and other names. Decades later this same color and paint type was described as "flamboyant red"... and then "candy apple red" (people who don't remember-or never saw-real candy apples have run wild calling jillions of different reds "candy apple" today). And worse, people in the 1960s thought "candy apple red" was new. In reality, the only thing new was the name and the different colors being used under it. But it was all translucent red... and while the appearance may have altered depending on what was under the layer of paint, it was basically the same stuff.

Also in the 1960s came "metalflake" paint... never to be confused with mere metallic. Metalflake indeed used huge flakes of metal (usually aluminum) and resulted in a sometimes blinding, almost garish finish. It still turns up on occasion at hot-rod shows today. Aftermarket fiberglass car components, boats and motorcycle pieces came for a while with this finish under the gelcoat.

The fish scales mix paint that created a mother-of-pearl true iridescent pearlescent look really only came to vogue in the 1950s. And this was largely because of Rinshed-Mason and a company called Creative Industries of Detroit that used this specially-mixed paint on numerous dream cars it built for the Big-3 and some for Packard...like one of the Panthers, the Packard Request and... (via their recommendation) the Packard Predictor.

Creative Industries of Detroit also helped to develop what they called "chameleon" paint that changed color and tone depending on lighting and angle of view. This was in the 1960s, but those who don't remember or never saw it then think it is "new" today.

By the 1980s, people were fudging the terms again and calling yet another paint "pearl." This paint looked metallic and some people today are further confusing the issue by calling it that too. But this paint was not metallic at all... nor was it iridescent pearl. It was mica.

The appearance of the finish was-and is-metallic, but the particles in it are made of mica.

As for Packard using real metallic finishes... indeed they did...and were one of the first to use and promote it. And for sure by the early 1930s. Ed Macauley's ever-morphing car was painted his favorite color: root beer metallic brown...and as such, acquired the name "Brown Bomber."

And as a closing note... the very last finished scale model built at the Packard plant was finished in metallic black. It was a 1957 Four Hundred coupe that disappeared when the plant closed. The whereabouts of this model to this day are still unknown. The color was similar to what GM years later would call "Firemist"...

Quote:

The 1953 Caribbean didn't use canvas as the top material. It used white Orlon with a white inside facing.

And unlike a very well-publicized, expensive Caribbean seen recently on the internet, Caribbean convertible top frame and bows were also white, not black.

Quote:

Ahhhh... yet another perfect description of what happens when one has a perforated flex hose on the fuel pump. A condition usually caused by age and dry rot. First, the hose get hairline cracks, then perforations. Then mysterious conk-outs and power losses. An easy fix if this is what it is. Sure sounds like it.