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Our local club is mostly senior citizens. If we do not get younger people interested, all but a few Packards will fall off the map.

Clearly we need to do something to perpetuate the brand, as our legacy.

Which brings me back to the main question: If you are under sixty, how did you get interested in Packards.

If you are over sixty, kindly do not answer the question. I want to see what the young sprouts have to say when they are not influenced by us greybeards.....

For me I wanted something that was not the run of the mill Big 3 or VW that infests all the cruise nights and car shows around here.

They say you don't find cars, they find you. I was into cars in general and a Packard collector (with a couple shovelnoses...one convertible and one hardtop, amongst other cars) was a friend of my father in laws. We were looking at his collection and he mentioned he'd sell the '50...too new for him.

The rest is, as they say, history.

Well to keep a rather long story short, for my birthday in 1969 my father gave me a Matchbox Yesteryear 1930 Packard Victoria toy car. After I opened my gift, my dad, proceeded to tell me that when he was a boy, (just my age that day) the car that he wanted most in the world was a Packard. He could not however tell his father that. you see, my grandfather worked for Cadillac, and to have
his son tell him that he didn't want a Cadillac was as treasonable as telling him that he was a Yankees fan, not a Tiger fan. That toy became my favorite from that moment on, and was the only Matchbox that never let anyone else play with. Growing up, the Packard name was tantamount to nirvana. After my dad passed, I used some of his insurance money to purchase my Clipper in his memory.

I had some $ to spend and was looking primarily at Lincolns and Fords, Pontiacs.

I nearly bought a '59 Lincoln, a 56 Starchief (after the Lincoln measured out too large for any garage near me, and I really was hoping for a 56 Fairlane Victoria Sedan but it sold before I had cash in hand, so the'53 Packard Clipper came across my eyes and the price was very affordable compared to everything else I saw, it was a sedan which I needed because I wanted to be able to easily travel with kids (my wife was about to give birth to our first child) and after researching Packards (via this site and specifically the blog post from Ken's 53 Clipper), We chose the Clipper and the rest is history.

After that, I knew kind of wanted a 120 next, which I bought earlier this year. I do like other makes but I feel that the Packard name, build quality/price and relative ease of replacement parts combined with the fact that they are just rare enough to not be seen everywhere but not so rare that you'll never get parts-all of that keeps me interested in Packards. The knowledge and passion of the older folks is what really endures me to know more and I hope to be a conservator of these cars as the Packard owner population ages. Really, all we are is conservators, all of us. You can't take a car with you when you die. And a car is either going to be loved and presrved or its going to get parted/scrapped and cease to exist. I mlove Packards and am trying to pass that love to my son who is now 2. We have names for our cars, "Virginia" is my '53 and "Josephine" is my '40. We call her "Jo" and my son walks up to the cars when he comes to the garage and fake kisses them, so maybe something is sticking!?!?!?!

I just happen to have exceptionally good taste.

Seriously, my grandfather, a physicist that spent little time worrying about the material things that life offered, often talked lovingly of a Packard that he bought used when he was a young man. While he never mentioned the series or model of the car he owned, I did hear repeatedly of its quality, its reliability and the respect that it commanded when on the road. These sentiments, coming from a man that spent that much of his life working through mathematical equations, always impressed me and imparted me with a lasting respect for the Packard marque.

Sometimes I think that the elder statesmen of the hobby try too hard to perpetuate a love of the marque. As long as the cars are out there a certain segment of the car hobby will always gravitate to Packard. However, as a 35 year old with three kids with whom I'd like to share my love of cars, I do see three big problems facing the hobby. One, a reasonable supply of surviving examples of the brand must remain available and accessible to young hobbyists. If we continue to view a majority of these cars as "investments" or objects d'art, young guys won't be able to afford to get "in the door." And, being priced out of the marque, they'll move on to other brands or even leave the hobby prematurely. Second, Big Brother in Washington, D.C. ("Clunker" programs, emission/safety regs, gas taxes, forcibly removing certain necessary chemicals form the market, etc.) poses an especially big risk to those of us actually interested in driving our cars. We must remain vigilant and continue to support organizations that will lobby effectively on our behalf. Lastly, our culture no longer seems to place much emphasis on teaching kids to work with their hands. How can we expect a new generation of "car-guys" when we aren't taking the time to show our kids how to pound a nail or change a tire? Address these issues, and the next generation will find Packard on their own.

I'm WELL under sixty, nineteen to be exact.

To be honest, I have a deep appreciation for things that are old. And the car I stumbled upon at a salvage yard just so happened to be a 1952 Packard 200 Deluxe. Loved the look, and bought it a few days after seeing it. Naturally I did some researching on the "Packard Motor Car Co.", and was very intrigued. Now after working on one and truly understanding the car, I'm hooked! It's an honor to say, "I own a Packard".

"Ask the man who owns one", that's me! How cool is that? I haven't even driven my car, but I love it. I've been working on her for a little over a year and a half now, so I've grown attached. Being that it is my first car, there will always be a soft spot in my heart for Packards.


-Garrett

Great topic! Being a "boomer" not too far away from being sixty this thread immediately caught my interest. My first cognizant memories of any automobile that my parents had was a 54 Packard Clipper hardtop. It was a beautiful car that had a green top and white body and dad always kept it clean, I don't ever remember it being trashed or dirty. Dad would always take me down to the garage with him when he was checking under the hood. I would take my plastic tool belt with me complete with plastic hammer, screwdriver and pliers. Dad would assign me the tasks of checking the tires and looking for rust. I always looked forward to this. Somewhere around 1962 dad got rid of it for a 55 Buick Special which really got a workout but thats another story. I remember coming home from school one day and noticing that there was a big crack on the grill just above where the hood release was. My mother was scared to death. She was trying to hide it. She was moving a little too fast and the street was slick with the fall leaves and could not stop in time before hitting a tree. When dad saw it I remember he stomped around and did some swearing but it was all over and there was nothing he could do except buy a new one. The grill was still cracked when he sold it. I guess what appealed to my boyish interests was that huge grill and distinctive front end. There were no other people in the neigborhood that had a 54 Clipper, that appealed to me also. That is when the bug bit but it took decades to achieve the current Packard ownership I now enjoy

I'm in the "boomer" category too, lol... ...

My dad liked Packards, so our family car was a 1947 Clipper (this was in the late 50s - early 60s). It was gray with a green interior. He bought a '48 that was running and drivable, pulled the engine from it, and had a local garage install the engine in the '47. He also had a running/driving '40 110 sedan, and a '37 115 sedan that never ran.

In 1966, he stopped driving it because he'd bought a brand-new 1965 Checker.

All of the Packards were traded in the late 60's toward a running/drivable Renault (of all things!) in 1968 or so.

In 1982, he bought the '47 back. Sitting outside for 14 years didn't do it any favors. After he died in 1986, my stepmom sold what was left of it to some guy in Pennsylvania near where she lived.

As for me, I've always liked the independent makes anyway, and have very fond memories of that '47....

i grew up with them all my life and when my Grandfather died in 93...it pretty much stopped..and later in life i went on a hunt to find his old cars....so i figured it was time to start it up again and not just look at the pretty stuff from Packard hanging on my walls. now i'm infected by the Packard bug and i want to buy just about every one i see and i want to own just about every year you can imagine.

Hank