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I am pleased to announce that the Packard Motor Car Foundation, owners of the Packard Proving Grounds, recently received a donation of a 1954 Packard Pacific hardtop (5477) in Carnation over Amethyst. This is a very generous gift by Jack & Merna Holmes of San Leando, CA and arranged by PMCF Trustee Bud Juneau.

This is a very rare car. It is only 1 of 5 produced and only 1 of 3 that are known to exist. One is owned by Gene Stout of Seattle, WA and another is owned by Keith Vail in Baltimore, MD. The amethyst paint scheme and trim pieces were the idea of (the late) Ed Cunningham, a 24 year old designer at Packard. Before his passing in 2012 Ed was known as a fountain of Packard wisdom and humor which he shared liberally.

I spoke with Gene Stout yesterday and he provided me with a wealth of information regarding these special order cars. In fact, Gene wrote an article in 2004 for the PI magazine when his car was featured as a salon car. "Packard was still a very conservative company when Ed Cunningham, the young manager of the Trim and Color Styling Studio, introduced the eye-popping Carnation & Amethyst color scheme for a limited number of Pacific hardtops."

In later years Ed recalled that five cars were painted in the special color scheme for management revue, each with the "R" paint scheme code and "324" trim code inside the sliding glove box. "I'm sure most, if not all of the cars, went to Earle C. Anthony," Cunningham wrote in a letter to Gene in 1998.

Besides the distinctive color scheme all of the trim pieces on the car are in amethyst instead of traditional Packard red.

We are grateful for the donation by Jack and Merna and hope you will visit the Packard Proving Grounds to see this wonderful car for yourself when we reopen next spring.

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What a generous gift! A beautiful car indeed.

Just by coincidence the 1954 Lacquer Color Supplement for the Carnation and Amethyst came my way the other day. Note the pencil notation about 50 cars maximum in that paint scheme, and apparently it was more like 1/10th that number.

packardclub.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3190

May I help you with a reading-glass?

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Hi

What a great contribution! Packard folks are intelligent and generous!

Wish they'd included these colors for 1955, love to see a 400 done in amethyst and white....wow!

Steve

"only 50 can [to] be painted that way"

In my opinion and from talking to Gene it took Ed Cunningham several years to lobby the brass that they should bring some snappier color combos and updated interiors to the market. So while 50 may have been approved only 5 were done this way. And if Earle C. Anthony had not been in Detroit for Ed's initial presentation about the color scheme and his commitment to purchase 5 vehicles, then there may have been only one painted in "R" code.

BTW, Owen, that photo in your example is our car - check the number on the black CA license plate.

Roger, you guys *do* have a sprinkler system in that building, right? Hate to see the goodies in there go up in smoke like everything at the Yankee Air Museum did.

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Well yes and NO. It depends on the building. And we are acutely aware of the fire that destroyed the Air Museum.

The Lodge will have the fire suppression completed by the end of November. All the piping has been installed and after a final test and hook up to the alarm system we should be good to go. Then we can turn on the heat in that building. Our auto collection is stored here.

Repair Garage was supposed to have the fire suppression system installed this year, but we ran out of funding and had to postpone the contractor from starting the work. We know we need to do this. But we can only work with the funds we have and it would take $47,200 to complete the work. If folks care enough about saving the PPG, then we could use their help.

Engineering Building also lacks a fire suppression system and that is also high on our priority list. However, we have not requested contact bids, so I cannot quote a price to do this. IMHO it would be more than $100,000. This is where we have our engine collection stored.

After we complete the fire suppression systems we would then like to add heat and air conditioning.

In a few weeks we will be sending out letters to prior visitors and donors asking for their help to fund our capital projects. If you would like to make a contribution, then please make a check out to the Packard Motor Car Foundation and send it to:

Bruce Blevins
Treasurer - PMCF
9157 Timberline
Grand Blanc, MI 48439

Good to hear that you are working on it.

Hope you can find the budget for wiring in the lodge as well. What I saw in there was pretty scary. Stuff in the walls is probably like what a coworker had in a house he was rennovating: individual wires running through ceramic insulators on adjoining studs.

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Hello Steve203:

I appreciate your concern. However, (very technically) "budgets" are not the issue - funding is the issue. We have had contractors, architects and estimators all giving us budgeted costs to fix this or repair that. Now we have to raise the funds to pay for those budgeted items.

BTW, those costs are for capital improvements and are separate and distinct from the $60,000 in operating expenses we need to raise each year just to keep the doors open.

As to the electrical in the Lodge Building - not to worry. We are NOT using any of the original wiring - much of it is still in place and it does look scary, which is why we decided not to use it. Anything requiring electricity is run from new wiring that was recently installed.

Again, if anyone is concerned about the future of the PPG, then your contribution will keep our team of volunteers working at this historic site.

Thanks, --Roger--

Roger,

Just browsing Bob Neal's new book. On pages 143-144 he discusses the Code R carnation and amethyst cars and states that after the initial 5 cars, 50 more were produced, consistent with the notation on the chip chart. The chart came from Neumann and Altman I believe which means it probably came from East Grand. Regardless of the numbers, beautiful car and wonderful addition to the PPG. (Edit - just guessing, the first 5 carried paint code R and following 50 were marked LE.)

I hope the PPG will be ready for my 56 Caribbean or 34 Eight when the time comes.