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Friends who went to the PI show said their was a 38 V12 that won best of show. The owner was stating he spent $750K on the restoration. They were questioning why someone would spend that much when on the best day at a auction, the car may bring $300K tops.

I said, look it's done every day. We all know people who have $40K into a car worth $20K. This is just a scaled up version of that. Anyway, if I was going to spend that much on a factory made Packard, it would be a 32-34 V12 or a 37 V12. However the car I heard was exquisite though it had the dash incorrectly woodgrained which seems to me a very major defect after spending all that cash.

Lot of money for sure. One thing I would be curious about would be the details or documentation of what was incorrect about dash. PI people are usually pretty thorough & knowledgeable and if something was visibly not right, I would have thought one of the judges would have flagged it rather quickly or at the very least someone there --possibly with a correct car that lost a prize-- would have brought it to their attention. For best of show, I guess it is always possible the car was so spectacular in all other areas that any points deducted for the dash would be minor details.

I think the car scored 247 out of 250 points. It was pretty amazing car and detailed in every way.

My thought process is a woodgrain dash in a 38 senior packard is a major flaw. To me that's is like painting the hood primer black and only losing a few points for it and yet winning best of show. I'm not complaining, just curious what is the diffeence between a primered hood and a incorrectly painted dash?

However am I wrong and some 38 dashes were woodgrained? The PI magazine has the 38 as a feature car and one of the photos before the restoration shows a correct dash.

Knowing that someone spent 3 or 4 times a vehicle's value on a restoration kind of spoils it for me. I always think that for that kind of restoration, I better not find even ONE flaw. So I end up looking for the smallest of things rather than appreciate the beautiful car.
That said, Ken, I agree that if there isn't some solid documentation on that dashboard, it's a major flaw!! Can someone post a photo of the exact car, please?

West, what bothers me even more when I see a car like that (not saying it's the case with this one) is the statement that sometimes accompanies them like "restored from a nearly perfect original".

I find it almost unconceivable that a 1938 Packard Twelve could require $3/4 million in restoration cost. I would love to see photos also. I see there are 2 1938 Twelves for sale at Significant Cars website. One has a painted dash and the other a woodgrained one.

Is this the car? It is in the Winter 2009 PI Magazine. A beautiful automobile but I admit I wondered about the woodgraining also.

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I told that is the car in the latest PI mag.

Well, I've heard of that kind of money spent on cars that were that bad.

In Comparison: A near-perfect 1939 Twelve convertible sedan just sold in Scottsdale for $275,000. One of six known.