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Good Morning all...I wonder if a small cottage industry could be sustained if it simply decided to purchase and rebuild one Packard Model Year and sell them to those of us who would love to have a good reliable Packard but have more money than we have restoration skills.

Think about a shop set up to do the 47 Packard four door,as an example, with Air Conditioning added and the cars put into top notch condition. Disc brakes might be offered and the interior finishes could be of very fine materials so that the cars would appeal to many who find the finishes of new cars to be less elegant than our old Packard Automobiles.

I would think that a good HOT ROD SHOP could take on such a specialized additional product line and make it pay! Not unlike shops that crank out 1932 Ford High Boys one after another.


For me, the value of Packard is what was, not so much what a new machine might be along side other modern machines.

This is just a humble idea...but it might work in limited numbers.

Ernie

"I wonder if a small cottage industry could be sustained if it simply decided to purchase and rebuild one Packard Model Year and sell them to those of us who would love to have a good reliable Packard but have more money than we have restoration skills."

hee hee ... Along the same line of thinking, I've had a fantasy that if I had the $$$$ I would buy up every '56 I could find, restore it and sell it from a show room built to look like a Packard showroom might have looked at the time.

This is now happening in England. There is at least one small company that is retrofitting vintage Jags (Mk IIs, etc.) with updated engines,drive trains and modern convenience accessories (AC, etc.) to make them more acceptable to modern driving and traffic.

Restomods, vehicles with vintage original looking bodies on modern chassis with modern convenience accessories, are common place in the street rod scene. Peter Klute's work comes to mind.

I hear what Ross is saying and agree with him, but there is a small market for high-end luxurious automobiles. Both the revived Jags and restomods are expensive, but people are building and selling them.

Folks who post here about Packard modification projects doing something similar to what I have described above are usually met with a less than welcoming responses.

(o[]o)

"This is now happening in England. There is at least one small company that is retrofitting vintage Jags (Mk IIs, etc.) with updated engines,drive trains and modern convenience accessories (AC, etc.) to make them more acceptable to modern driving and traffic."

In a similar vein, both Porsche and Jaguar offer factory restorations. Quite $$$$, but the customer knows they will get a top-notch restoration.

It seems to me that if there were to be a Packard revival, it would have to be purposely low volume and aimed at the very top of the market such as the Mercedes-Maybach. That said, it would probably be difficult to make the business case for such a project.

My friend suggested that when we are asked who built Packard reply "I did".

"My friend suggested that when we are asked who built Packard reply "I did". "




In your case, Ross, that's the PERFECT answer!

Good Morning all...I'm sure many of you have seen Dan Neil's Saturday, August 20th Rumble Seat piece in the Wall Street Journal, however if you have not, go on line and read it. Dan is speaking about an Aston Martin Lagonda Limo! Aston Martin is building 200 of these machines that are 17.7 feet long and 6.3 feet wide with a 5.9 Liter V-12 with 540 horse power. The price tag is about $1,000,000. They are not even street legal for the United States. Dan states 'on the other hand it makes the Bentley look like a chrome plated bed pan!' He also points out that Aston is doing business like the pre world war two luxury auto makers and coach builders did business. Dan feels that the Lagonda is the most automatic 'classic' right out of the factory that he has ever seen.

PERHAPS THIS IS HOW A NEW OR REVISED PACKARD COULD HAPPEN!

I DO WONDER IF ASTIN MARTIN WOULD BE INTERESTED IN PICKING UP THE PACKARD NAME AND BUILDING LIMITED EDITION PACKARDS. EVEN IF THEY ARE BRITISH, ASTIN COULD DO THE PACKARD NAME PROUD...JUST A WILD THOUGHT! Ernie, caretaker of the 1949 2362 288 engine 'Miss Prudence'.

Ernie - I personally would love to see that happen. It has long seemed to me that any Packard revival would of necessity dictate that the car be in the very upper end of the market. Obviously the people building this new Aston were able to make the business case to bring the car to market.

Early Tuesday morning, I'll be posting on my blog 56packardman.com Richard Teague's design for a modern Caribbean that he did shortly before he died. I will put the link up here.