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Was informed that Randy Berger has passed away awaiting details he had been sick for short time. I visited him a couple of days ago asked me to post on Packardinfo his passing. For me this is a difficult thing to do as Randy and I have spent many summer days at car events. He had great pleasure telling people about Best Other and its features. He will be missed by my entire family as we considered him one of us. His knowledge of 55 56 Packards was only exceeded by his knowledge Ives trains. I will miss my friend

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This is terrible news. The Packard automobile people have lost a good friend.

ac, it's with a heavy heart and with the news still fresh in my mind about the passing of Ole Book that I now read your message about my dear friend Randy. We'd been friends for many years, in fact first making mutual acquaintance on this very forum back almost in its infancy. We enjoyed regular phone calls and did several Packard club tours and national meets together. Randy was a fine gentleman, a very knowledgeable authority in both of his hobbies, and will be sorely missed by all who knew him.

I am sorry to hear of the passing of Randy.

I met him virtually through this site, but also physically at a couple of PAC National meets.

The man in black will be missed.

Al,

I'so sorry to hear of Randy's passing. I met Randy initially through PackardInfo and then on 2 of my US trips. On the first of those trips he travelled from his home near Pittsburgh to the National Packard Museum at Warren Ohio. Talk about going out of your way to be welcoming to an Aussie tourist! And he did it in "Best Other" which we went to lunch in. I'll be eternally grateful for a mostly long-distance friendship, to my "namesake", he called me that, seeing we share the name "Malcolm".

Vale Randy - A true gentleman. You will be sorely missed.

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Met Randy at Hershey in 2012. A true Packard nut and all round good guy. No one else is allowed to die in 2020...is that agreed? Peter Toet.

Agreed. No further deaths will be tolerated. Is there a Mrs Berger or other family to whom one might send a card?

I'm sorry to hear of his loss. I never met him but he was very prominent here on PI especially his knowledge of 55 & 56 models.

Al, I just found your post this AM, and I could only think of a few other people whose passing could weigh so heavily on my spirit.

I first made Randy's acquaintance, online, in the wee small hours of the morning, in a live chatroom, prior to the establishment of this site - perhaps even prior to our previous use of the AACA Packard DF. I had actually seen his 56 Four Hundred, in the absence of its owner, a few years earlier - on the lawn of the Trumbull County Courthouse, which is where the Warren Museum's annual meet was held prior to the establishment of its present location. (It was much later, I believe, that the car came to be known as "Best Other".)

In 2003, I met Randy face-to-face (when he still sported a beard), at the Warren Museum's All-Packard meet, on the South Lawn of the Packard Music Hall, where he kept me hydrated (literally, with water) there for hours. I took a picture of Randy standing next to his 400 that day - an image that he like so well, he used it as his avatar.

Some years later, Randy told me that his wife had passed away, but long before she did, she had made it a point to tell him to make sure and restore that car.

One time, he drove all the way from Pittsburgh to meet me at the Perrysburg meet, and before we left for the day, he asked me to have dinner with him and then went ahead and paid for my meal.

Yet, Randy and I had some memorable contact outside of meets.

Back in the fall of '06, he had been attending a train auction about half an hour away, and afterward, he went out of his way to look me up, here at home, and I gave him the $0.05 tour of my offsite storage.

The following year, Randy e-mailed me (confidentially) with pix of a 56 Caribbean convertible for sale down in FL - that is, shortly after he struck a deal. After the shipper finally delivered the car, he invited me to come down to Irwin and see it. Though billed as partially restored, I think Randy ended up taking just about everything back apart and doing it right.

Although the car had been stored offsite, in a local shop, he also invited me over to his house to check out his train collection. Two and a half walls of his basement were covered from floor to ceiling with shelf after shelf of complete trains - locomotive, tender, freight/passenger car, and caboose. In the middle of it all, there was his extensive layout, which also he used to compose his annual Xmas photocard. Behind the Wizard's curtain, there was a workbench where he repaired trains and even made parts. In addition to boxes and shelves full of Packard and train parts, I also noticed several shelves full of old 45rpm records, but time was growing short that day. I later learned that he also had a working jukebox to play them.

Unfortunately, as my parents' health declined and problems became more frequent in more recent years, I fell out of touch with Randy. However, I must say it was a privilege and an honor to have been friends with such a great hands-on Packard owner. Yet, my experience with Randy is only a tiny fraction of his remarkable journey through life.

Godspeed Randy Berger!

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Sad news indeed. Though I didn't personally know Randy, I've enjoyed and learned from his many post over the years here on the Forum. His enthusiasm for V8 Packards was manifest.

My condolence as well to Randy's family and many friends on here. We're all richer for his affects on our lives.

Steve