Packard Forum Index » General

O_D,
Silver fenders / silver soft top. The show seems like it was kind of a neat concept. It is actually called Salvage 1. Bits of the pilot can be viewed on You Tube.

Pete,
I assume you must have re-painted your car since renting it to that production company; as I remember last few times seeing your car it having black fenders and a black top. It looked good with the silver fenders / silver top in the scene I saw on You Tube. What prompted the color change?

Jim

RE COLOR
The very pretty Young & Rubican advertisements of "senior" Packards during the classic era showed some pretty fantastic colors and color combinations.

Factory photographs of the production line tell a far different story. With VERY few exceptions, "senior" Packards went out the door solid colors, typically VERY dark blue, or green, when they werent solid black. And VERY few were delivered with white-wall tires.

It is hard to explain to people today just what "conservative" meant in those years. White-walls and flamboyant color combinations were rarely seen on the big "super cars" of the very rich, that we now call "classics". My recollection is wasn't till '41, (after Packard "down-sized" its big cars & no longer built car bodies), did they start offering two-tone colors.

Now, in answer to your comments & questions, I got bored with my car's original solid black ( it was getting shaggy anyway) so I took it apart (that's the way the cars were painted in production - apart) so there'd be no masking tape lines, and "shot" it with silver fenders, VERY light blue body, and got a WHITE top. (skilled hunters know how to track down the elusive Great California Naugha, kill em, skin em, dye their hides white...)

After about 15 years, got bored with that. Tired of being told that was MOST inappropriate for a Formal Sedan.

About that time, then new (late 70's) Cadillacs had what was called an "Elk Grain" option which was and remains the closest simulation to the REAL leather Packard "senior div." Formal Sedans and Town Cars had on their tops. So I had the top re-done in that material, color silver to match the fenders.

But I got tired of that after a while, and re-painted the silver top with black fabric coloring. The fenders are now DARK ("Packard Blue") blue, the body is a medium blue.

A couple of weeks into shooting the second "Salvage" show, I happened to have to leave the set for a major trial - Griffith gave me assurances he would not let anyone drive my car, so I took off for the day. It was supposed to be a "statinory" shot. But the production people decided they wanted my car turned around. Griffith "got into it" with some union reps about him driving my car. He wasnt about to give up my keys! Griffth is a pretty big guy, so he got to win the argument, ( with the help of a tire iron he had in his hands, which, fortunately, he didnt have to use!).

I should explain - most production company's union contracts & rules required ONLY Teamsters member to drive cars on screen. Griffith was a SAG (Screen Actor's Guild) member, not Teamsters. No love lost between them.

Anyway, as a result of the big argument, my car and I was gone. Part of that was because a guy in production had a buddy with a really beat up '39 Packard 12 sedan (not a formal). He painted his car to LOOK like mine, & he got the rest of the job. I recall in the rest of the series it was pretty obvious it wasnt my car. "Quickie" paint job. Dont know what happend to that 12 - never saw it again. Werent too many 5 passenger '39 Twelves around, then or now.

CLosing comments on colors on classic era big Packards. Fact is there were some TWO and even THREE tone orders accepted by Packard up thru the end of '34 production

But they were pretty conservative colors. From '35 on to the end of "senior" production in June '39 , to my knowledge, the factory never again accepted two-tone color orders. Best they would do is offer different colors on the stripes and wheels. With this qualification - obviously, if a guy wanted his new "big" Packard painted like a pink zebra, and the dealership knew that is what it would take to make the sale, you can BET that somewhere out there are some pretty wild '35 - '39 "senior" Packards that went out the doors of the dealerships in less-than-conservative paint schemes.

Pete,

I think the silver fenders, silver top looked good. Your present paint scheme & top color looks nice too.

Did you ever run across a fellow named Bud Ekins in your studio exploits? He was an old motorcycle / car collector pal of mine who Did an awful lot of studio work / stunts and so on.

Jim

JP:

Calendar Girl is actually the movie that got me started on the road to begin the "Packards in the Movie" roster. I have not watched the whole movie so I am not sure how many other scenes the car is in, but I saw the beginning where the car drives by the window of the Pharmacy/soda shop.

I guess everyone has different experiences with cars in movies. Mine was in 2. A made for T.V. movie about the bus boycott in Birmingham/Montgomery, and "We Were Soldiers Once and Young". My car was involved in stationary shots in the first and in 2 drive-bys and 1 driveway scene in the other. It was fun.

Yah - in answer to your question, Bud Ekins had a motorcycle shop on Ventura Blvd, somewhere out near Sepulveda. Damn - that was MANY years ago. Wasn't my thing, as he was primarily a dealer in Brit. bikes. But I was in that store from time to time. I dont know when he closed down his operation there.

If people are interested, then I can add an online "Packard's In Movies" DB here on the website where folks can keep adding to it.

There was a great looking Bath tube convertible in the Back To The Future trilogy. It was the car owned by the professor (played by Christopher Lloyd), basically taking second fiddle only to the DeLorean featured in the movie. I believe there were a few 51 - 54 cars in the movie as well.

Kev, A Packards in movies DB might be a neat addition.

who remembers the "bath-tub" on the dam-scene at the end of the movie DR ZCHIVAGO...that was supposed to have taken place just after the war....oh well...picky picky....!

I know of 2 Australian movies which have Packards featured in them. The first is an old movie called careful he might be watching. Note: there is an adult rated video with a simillar name. This one doesn't have the Packard in it. Also, the latest movie due to be released in cinemas next month "The Australian" features a 1939 Packard.