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And now, the design masterpiece: the 1940 Packard Darrin Sport Sedan. At every Hershey, I have a mental list of rare and wonderful coach-built cars I hope will appear,

The last time I laid eyes on this magnificent Packard, it was a shell on the chassis at the 1999 Centennial Magnum Opus. In the meantime, it has received the thorough restoration it so richly deserved.

Thanks to Ralph Marano for giving us the opportunity to briefly enjoy it again in person.

Steve

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Steve, attached photo is from the 1999 Magnum Opus. Is the Darrin sedan partially shown just to the right of Bill Hirsch's '40 Darrin the car you mention above as just being a shell on a chassis at that time and now the lovely Marano restoration?

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Dave. Yes. You are correct. That is when Charlie Blackman still owned it. In fact, if I remember correctly, the new owner took possession of the car right after that meet.

The car is basically a convertible sedan with a roof added. During the restoration, the top had to come off to replace the wood structure of the body.

A little history on the 1940 blue Packard Darrin. This car was owned by David Darrin, Dutch's brother. The story told to me by Margaret Darrin David's wife when the Darrin was at Just Packards in 2009-2010 for some mechanical work.They were driving south and stopped for gas at a station in northern Fla.and spotted this Darrin with a forsale sign, and David said "My brother built that car, and I'm going to buy it".This happened around 1950.The car was later passed on to son Tim Darrin..............

Hi Dave

Here's what the '40 Sport Sedan looked like twenty years ago at the Centennial. It and the Darrin convertible sedans are absolutely design masterpieces. More correctly they are Art Fitzpatrick design masterpieces enabled by Dutch Darrin.

Whereas the convertible Victoria design pushes the envelop for visual impact which it has in spades, the sport and convertible sedans deliver that through an elegantly integrated wholeness that greater length enables.

This encounter checks off one more coach-built car from my bucket list.

Steve

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And next to the sport sedan in the photos is the second generation 1940 sport sedan by Darrin. I believe two were built, whereas just one of the first generation was built.

Steve - thanks for posting all the wonderful pics! Love the 840 and 745. Was introduced to Packard when I saw this vintage at the Crawford museum in Cleveland in the late 1980s and will always associate the marque with them.

While only a few Darrin sport sedans were built, the advertising for them was perhaps of greater value to Packard as it hurried to design the Clipper. The '41 LeBaron series also helped bridge the gap. The company had overnight fallen behind Cadillac with launch of '38 Sixty Special, style of which drove all this custom activity. It is most unfortunate that Packard launched all new bodies that same year with traditional styling. Had the 138 wb chassis appeared in '38 or '39 instead of '40 we might well be enjoying a few additional custom sport sedans with 16th/17th series grill.

flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/10239633053/in/photostream/lightbox/