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I'm currently reading '"John Dillinger: The Life and Death of America's First Celebrity Criminal" by Dary Matera.

In 1934, Dillinger and his criminal gang used a Packard sedan as a getaway car when they robbed the Security National Bank and Trust in Sioux Falls. Although, the author doesn't identify the model. But knowing Dillinger's proclivity for fast powerful cars, it was probably the most powerful and fastest Packard available in 1934.

After the heist, Dillinger and his cohorts piled into the Packard with hostages held at gun point on the running boards. The Packard was about to hit top speed when a police officer put a slug in the radiator. Amazingly, the Packard made it another four miles before seizing up.

as always
Garrett Meadows

I have a hard time glorifying these murders, crooks and hoodlums. They need to be called what they were, law breakers. And, who gives a damn about the cars they drove? Having a Dillinger or Capone car is like having one from Hitler or Stalin. Sorry - if I offend - but these were bad people and need to be treated as such. Take care and stay well.

JW - well stated!

I, too, fail to understand the fascination with cataloging criminals in fancy cars. No offense Gumby.

The account I read had the radiator shot out while leaving the scene. How fast can they be going with people standing on the running boards?

Meyer Lanksy's gang used a stolen 27-28 Eight and outran the police in New York City at 80-85 miles per hour. It's a wonder they didn't broadside somebody and get killed.

As I mentioned somewhere else, the police did a great job of wiping those bums out. They also saved a lot of money in court costs, appeals, and incarceration. Today we have the Manson family and various serial torture killers getting free medical care. Why should the Unabomber get any medical care?

Packard as a company did not count on these people as they did not buy cars but stole them. The type off customer Packard wanted were a little further up the social ladder

First off, I GET the distastefulness of 'glorifying criminals' and am the first in line to call them what they are and put them in their 'rightful place' in historical sequence, but I do also think that good, bad or indifferent, history is history and it is part of the past, with all it's warts and foibles. Ignoring it because they were 'bad guys' seems somehow 'sheltered'. I was in Gaspe Quebec a few years back, sitting in a marina waiting on weather to head south. A fellow sailor told me he wanted to show me something and we hopped in his truck and drove to a local boatyard a few miles away. There in the yard, on stands was the 62 foot sailboat 'Helgoland', which had been owned by Hitler. It was a magnificent thing, full of teak and mahogany and, I thought, a real 'timepiece' of history. A couple of guys had gotten a hold of it and spent a significant amount of money restoring it. That it had been owned by one of the worst monsters in modern history didn't make any difference to me - it was a beautiful ship and IT certainly didn't choose it's history! Same goes with these scum-bums from the American Gangster era, if they drove a Packard, then that's Packard history, not John Dillinger history and should be viewed as such. He might have been human sewage, but the car wasn't, and if these vehicles ended up with bad owners or being stolen and driven as getaway cars by thugs, they were still fine Packards that don't need to be vilified along with their abusers. Chris.