At Mr. Allison's invitation, I rode around in the cycle car at the Packard Proving Grounds at the 1973 PAC National Meet. It was quite comfy. Don't think I'm in the video, however.

I noticed at the time that there were some parts on the car that appeared to be Simplex Service-Cycle and Whizzer Motorbike.

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Ahhh... but can't go by that.

? First, the thread discussion here was based on V8 Caribbeans... which, as previously stated were white here unless an unusual color scheme was factory done, then the color would be the same as the factory color on top outside of the fender.

? Second, since the photo shown here is a Clipper... this goes to a whole different direction. And again, what was the original factory color that was on the top outside of the fender? And what was the original factory mask color?

? Third, since this fender is undercoated who knows who, how and when the undercoating was prepped and done?

If looking for the original prime and under color of the stamped Packard and Clipper front fenders, it still would not have been gloss black, but rather dull black-no gloss.

Interesting problem. In all the years I have been around or done any work on V8 Packard engines, I have seen this condition occur once... and only once: when someone was trying to install a Caribbean dual-quad intake on a regular Packard V-8.

The fellow did not know that the dual-quad intake requires more clearance at the rear in order to sit flush in position. It would not seat for him despite repeated attempts to bolt it in.

What was happening in this case was the rear of the manifold was hitting the crankcase ventilation tube that comes off of the rear of the lifter galley cover. It held the intake up just ever so slightly and prevented alignment of the holes and seating of the intake.

On Caribbeans and dual-quad V8s this metal tube is flattened on top to prevent interference with the intake manifold. Only then will the intake sit flush in proper position to be bolted in.

Anyway, this is the one and only time I ever encountered anyone having a problem with seating an intake on a Packard V8-no matter which gaskets were used.

Just out of curiosity... this isn't a dual-quad intake is it?

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Hello... Nahhhh. The black you are seeing in this photo is almost dead certainly undercoating-WHICH was a big dealer option in those days-especially in the eastern USA. My dad never bought a car in Michigan that was not undercoated. Of course the trick was to get a dealer that wouldn't spray the durned stuff on the mufflers (which some did ON PURPOSE and it stank for 2 months afterward). Even dealers in areas like Southern California sold undercoating as a treatment, not just referencing the anti-rust benefits but claiming it made a car "ride quieter"...which was somewhat true. I had a 1955 Patrician delivered at Earle C. Anthony in Los Angeles... and it certainly was undercoated. Some people back then even thought this raised the resale value of a car.

Otherwise, the wheel wells were painted white. The splash aprons inside the engine compartment were also the same Dover White as was on the fender tops. OF COURSE, if it was a Caribbean with special body colors... say black... then that special color on the outside top of the fender was in the wheel wells and engine compartment side of the splash wells.

This gets complicated for earlier non-V8s done by Mitchell-Bentley where SOME were actually masked and painted. ANd, of course, the pre-conversion Packard convertibles delivered to M-B were indeed originally with front fenders painted in black primer. But ... I have numerous original factory photos of even these Caribbeans (as finished) with white wheel wells... AND the Conner Avenue V8 Caribbeans normally were white in these areas.

By the way, my old friend, Joe Clayton-who was legally blind-was the first I ever knew to actually take measurements on just how far the white paint went down on the splash well and fresh air housing on the inner passenger side fender! The factory actually kind of "fogged" the white over this housing. Joe could feel the end of the lacquer spray with his fingers!

People of today forget or never knew that most cars were not undercoated in the 1940s and 1950s-even in places like Michigan where I grew up. I always paid very close attention to details like this, even as a youngster. And like I said, my dad always, always paid extra to get his cars undercoated.

We used to have a little game that we played in the 1950s when driving around Detroit: you could usually tell if the new car in front of you was undercoated by looking for a shiny silver gas tank and mufflers. Some maniacs used to shoot undercoating all over mufflers in the mistaken notion that it made them last longer. Fact was, most mufflers then were rusting from the inside out-not the outside in. Anyway, undercoating on mufflers usually smelled bad for a couple of months after you bought the car!

On the other hand, dealers (including Packard ones) merely viewed the situation as another opportunity to make additional cash by selling an undercoat job to the new car buyer. So... as bizarre as it may seem today in the 21st century, cars (including Packard) sold in rough weather areas like Michigan back in the 1940s and 1950s indeed were normally and often sold with no undercoating, just paint. It was up to the owner and dealer to do any undercoating.

And... this is how companies like Ziebart and others were born!

Almost everything eventually finds its way onto eBay.

I am presuming here that the subject being discussed for sale are photos of a smashed 1956 Four Hundred with a Yankee Pacesetter mirror. These were apparently taken in 1957. I don't see anything in the back seat in the 4 photos I've seen so far. But yes there is someone in the front seat barely visible and mostly on the passenger side. The head of this person ended up appearing to be in the rear seat simply because the front seat biforcated under the compression of the body caused by the side impact. In other words, the front seat was mooshed and literally folded in the middle. This pushing the backrests to a position where they folded toward one another and dumped the upper portion of the driver almost into the rear seat as they sandwiched her.

Since this vehicle quite obviously slammed into a tree sideways and at a very high rate of speed, it would follow that the person off on the passenger side was likely the driver. When a vehicle is hit from the right or impacted somehow on the right, the tendency is for the (unbelted) driver to pushed in the direction of the impact. Thus ending up (in this case) on the passenger side. If the impact had been on the left, it would have been the reverse.

Despite today's safety countermeasures, the same kind of damage and possible death could still be a possibility under such extreme conditions. That's a pretty severe, violent crash even for today. And with a car that big and that heavy... sustaining the level of damage seen here, it was really moving! But... had the driver been belted-especially with lap and shoulder belts, properly positioned, the odds of survival would have been greatly increased. If there was a death here (and it appears so) it likely occurred from secondary impact inside the vehicle when the body and head were slamming around after the initial impact.

Anyway, there are lots of possibilities for the images having been taken. Law enforcement, fire rescue, or news photographer. Yes, they took such photos, even though ones showing occupants were rarely published in those days-unless it had to do with mob activity.

The general public does not realize that photos like this are taken all the time, even today. Many end up being reviewed by automotive engineering and safety people in hopes that they can find new ways to prevent or minimize damage and injury to vehicle occupants.

As an automotive professional who has seen more than a few such images over the years, yes, they are grisly, but often such photos have revealed ways to improve vehicle safety and construction. No comment on selling them over eBay, but I've seen worse on there-especially years ago.

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Yesss, agreed, Owen. But the errors (even the critiques) when involving Packard somehow tend to be so severe. Mystery.

My favorite was the pictorial write-up on a Packard that was supposedly specially prepared and sold to a celebrity owner via Earle C. Anthony dealership in California. So... they show this nice, shiny data plate for the car. And there... very proudly stamped into the metal plate of this special car, sold by a special dealer, to a special customer are the words: "Earl C. Anthony"... wow.

I can assure you that Mr. Anthony spelled his name "Earle" (with an "E" on the end) not "Earl" and no Packard for a special customer would have EVER been allowed to leave ECA, Inc. with the boss's name misspelled for all to see on the data plate. That one is hard to swallow. Even harder to understand is why the magazine bought into it. Harder still is the amazing thing that they didn't seem to like the correction. If it was a simple mistake made when repopping the data plate (and this is certainly possible-even if weird), then why proudly display a photo without even noticing the glaring error?

The car magazine biz today is an odd one... still a great one, but odd now. The magazines have one foot into the internet (which is a good thing in many ways) and the other into the auction world. And everybody running things is infallible. Unlike in years of old, they now proudly acknowledge info supplied by auction companies as if it is the pinnacle of accuracy.

This is what happened with the car hobby handed over the reins of being "historians" to auction companies... who continue to give us gems like the gray Packard Panther with the outrageously convoluted "history"...STILL amazed over that one and the magazines and internet "sources" that were only too eager to repeat the "history" of this car. Wow.

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Hello,

A quick comment here. Very nice profile on Mr. Marano... and well deserved. A great gentleman and incredible cars.

However, some captions regarding the Packards in this Hemmings Classic Car piece are quite a bit misleading...

? Page 60: Caption states ..."...open car, second from the left, is the Henney-bodied Pan American of 1952, with its disappearing convertible top..." Since there were six Pan Americans, there is no such thing as "the" Pan American... and the particular one shown here was one of the later ones made-not the original. And gotta grin since the last time this same car was featured in a car magazine, they swore it was the original Panther #1 and said it never had a top! Then got upset when I corrected them (I know... it does indeed have a top).

? Page 61: Caption states..."...Packard in the center is the Request concept car of 1955, the last such vehicle that Packard ever designed. To its right is one of four 1954 1/2 Panther design studies..." First, the Request was certainly NOT the last Packard concept car designed. It was followed by the Predictor....all designed in-house. A friend of mine was one of the people who constructed the original scale model of this car...at Packard on East Grand Blvd. in Detroit.

As for the 1954-1/2 Panthers there were only two... and they are both in this photo and both now owned by Mr. Marano. While there were a total of four Panthers, there were only two 1954-1/2 versions. No one would know this better than I-especially since I knew these cars since new. And I was the very first to accurately chronicle their history exactly thirty years ago. I did this for the Packard Club in their Spring, 1984 issue of The Packard Cormorant magazine.

Likewise, I knew the Request since it was first built and knew people who built it for Packard in Detroit. Other friends of mine restored it in the 1970's. (see attached photo of me with the Request back in the 1970's in Yakima, WA when it was first reassembled). I supplied some of the parts used in the original restoration.

Offered in the spirit of Packard automotive historical accuracy,

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I am certain that in all the time the first post was up on "Tschaika" that someone should have caught it. Either way, the black limo listed as a "Tschaika" in the very first posting of this thread is actually a ZIL-111. Of course, the most recent photo (from Finland) is indeed a Chaika.

I always viewed the ZIL-111 as the senior series and the Chaika as the junior series. Like V8 Packards, these two share much of the same bodies, but the ZIL is the counterpart of the senior Packard whereas the Chaika is the counterpart of the junior Clipper series.

And yes, the Chaika name translates roughly to a sea bird...which... HMMMMmmmmm what is a cormorant or pelican? And where does a "clipper" go with a seafaring helm as a symbol? Even the names sound similar with two syllables... Chaka...Clipper.

As for the trim on the ZIL, it was very similar to 1956 Packard... except the side trim was a bit 1957 Ford Fairlane...the windshield was certainly 1955-56 senior Chrysler/Imperial style, etc. etc. The rear bumper exhausts were flattened like SOME 1956 Ford. Instead of running ribbed stainless down the sides like Packard, the Russians wrapped a chunk of it over the headlights and on SOME versions from certain years, shove a dab of it on sides of the tail lights flowing out of the Caribbean-esque angled vertical trim.

I have kept files with news clippings and photos of these cars since the 1950s-1960s. Somewhere I still have a Pontiac brochure that shows a Chaika and asks the question' "Seen the new Chaika?" or something to that effect. Of course the moral of the brochure is that if you lived in Russia at that time, the most/best you could do for a car would be to dream about owning a Chaika that you would never have. Meanwhile in the USA, you could buy any one of a whole array of beautiful Pontiacs...and so on...

There is/was a black Chaika limo in the collection of the LeMay family in Tacoma area of Washington state. I am unsure if it is still with the family or if it was transferred over to the LeMay ACM Museum in Tacoma. Either way, it is a decent one and running last I knew of it.

By 1977 I saved a news clipping of the descendent of the ZIL-111 and Chaika. The GAZ-14 was a combination of Imperial, Cadillac, Mercedes, Lincoln and a few other goodies tossed into the soup. Note the news caption...

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Yes... agree. Perhaps Owen can get this whole thread bumped over to the V8 section?

Or perhaps Big Kev can transition this tread over to the V8 section?

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Yes, SOME did... others did not. My dad had a Pontiac with automatic... but no PARK setting...only NEUTRAL. Yes there were PARK functions without an actual setting... as for how many users clearly understood this is open to question. Packard was one of the first to take a lead in this area, though not credited as such today.

And selector quadrants were not standardized until decades after Packard was long gone. REVERSE on GM and possibly others was wayyyyyy down the path. My 1964 Oldsmobile Starfire had reverse in the opposite position of today.