Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

I was just looking at the information here on the 1946 model 1651 which is listed as a "Custom Super Clipper Eight Limousine" while the 1650 is listed as a "Custom Super Clipper Eight Long WB Sedan". Aren't these reversed? According to the Parts Manual, they are.

Also, the photo used to depict a 1651 looks like a custom body to me (no rear quarter window).

Same applies to 1947 2150/2151



Whatever model it is... I wouldn't mind making room for one.

Maybe this one would be a better representation:

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I believe the car pictured above belonged to a late member of the now defunct Eastern Packard club.It is a 47 Custom Super that was custom built for some southern Governor.the original 356 was replaced with a 288 cui engine.I believe Owen may have more info on the car.

GTO has it correct if it's the car I'm thinking of and it was the only one like that I'd ever seen, and supposedly a one-off, post sale, modification of a factory car. The photo was taken at an Eastern Packard Club picnic at Doc Crecenzi's estate in Westchester. The owner for many years was Bob Skop of Fanwood, NJ. There never was any documentation about the modifications for a southern state government (TN was mentioned), but in any case it wasn't done as professionally as Henney might have done it, you could still see a faint sheet metal outline of where the rear quarter window was blanked in. And yes, it no longer had the correct engine, the 356 being replaced with a 288 as GTO indicated.

Mr. Skop was a long-time Packard collector and admirer and had many over the years. I don't recall the disposition of the car after his passing but could probably find that out, his wife is still active in the local PAC regions.

Some of his other Packards were a pair of 22nd series Custom 8s, a convertible victoria and a sedan, a 1941 LeBaron town car, 1940 or 41 Darrin convertible which was for sale at Warren 2 or 3 years ago, and a 1933 Super Eight sedan which later passed to Richie Fass at Stone Barn restorationa and then to a gentleman down south (Florida I believe) who I've heard from a few times since though I can't recall his name.

Dear JD:

OD is right, Skop told me the car was modified for some state governor (I don't remember which) and that he (Skop) paid too much for it. Unable to get his money back he gave it to the Packard Museum.

Most of his cars deteriorated and he should have gotten rid of them. The Packard Town Car was a beautiful original purchased from Jack Bean who had the money to store it properly. At one time I saw the thing sitting in an open shed. "What the hell is that?" I asked. "That belongs to Skop." It was pretty awfull and the termites were having a field day.

He also had a Custom 8 Convertible that sat outside in the weather for a year because he didn't pay his garage bill. The car was one of three rough Custom 8 convertibles in New Jersey and made roadable by combining two to make one. Everybody knocked Marty Beron's paint job because it cracked after 25 years. But it was a budget restoration and would have done better in enamel paint. The donor Custom 8 was owned by a guy named Tony Catrone, who I believe, sold Ralph Marano his first Packard.

He had another car the belonged to Gene Beardslee and was an early CCCA special interest class car. It was a 40 120 conv. sedan with a running board delete done in California.

I could go on as to the present situation of the cars, but will leave that in confidence.

Everybody knocked Marty Beron's paint job because it cracked after 25 years.

Tim, Marty Beron repaired and painted the fenders on my 34 more than 30 years ago - no cracks yet. And the metalwork repair (of mostly broken beads) was excellent.

UPDATE: I've just been informed by a good source that Larry Helton of Norwich NY did the body work (blanking off the rear quarter windows) on what subsequently became the Skop car. The owner of the car at the time the work was done was a Bill Walker, also of Norwich NY.

JD in KC wrote:

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Looks like the titles merely got reversed by mistake. I'm not responsible for creating those particular pages, but I've now fixed that.

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Can't help with that one, as I'm not the source of those images.

The rest of the data looks to be same, between the respective models - except for WEIGHT and MSRP. I left those alone, suspecting that the limo would be the slightly heavier and more expensive of the two.

I also noticed, and corrected, missing ground designation (+) for all 47 models. Suspect this was another result of a boilerplate technique initially used to quickly put some meat on the bones of the feature, where a mistake propagates throughout closely related pages. Had previously found some Su8 data entered for some years of V12 models. (Just found '7.0x16' tires, and even some '7.0x15', listed in the 40-41-42 pages and am now cleaning that up, page-by-page.)

I can correct simple errors when I find 'em (and as time permits), but I'm no expert on all years of these cars. So, thanks for bringing this into public light and providing supporting evidence.

To OD:

Well that pretty much explains why Skop told me he paid too much for it. He must have found out it was a fake, or knew it was when he bought and continued/or concocted the story. I knew quite a few back in those days whose ploy was to tell people they paid an outrageous price and then offered to sell at a loss.

As for Bill Walker I didn't know him personally but knew of him when I was living in Upstate New York. He went way back to the early days and had a near mint 38 Brunn that was at least partially original. People told me I should go see Bill Walker and talk about Packards. That's not my style. In those days there was too much demand for cars and nosing around was not a good idea. I preferred to use he stategy of Nick Caraway because I wasn't in any postion to buy the stuff, so I might as well get to know people for who they were rather what they had.

Brian,

Thanks for patching that up. I really appreciate the amount of work you and others have put in to make this the 'go-to' site for Packard information.

The Packard Service Index is excellent.