Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

Quote:

From the SAE book:
"As Gregorie was thinking about designs for both Edsel's continental car and a replacement for the Model K, a concept popped into his head one evening in the fall of 1938 ... Gregory asked his right-hand man, Ed Martin, to pull out some one-tenth-scale drawings of a Lincoln-Zephyr ... [Gregorie] took out a piece of vellum, put it over the sketch of the Lincoln-Zephyr, and began drawing ... the new design that Gregorie sketched appeared even longer and lower ... to the ground than the Zephyr ... In less than an hour, Gregorie had roughed out the design that eventually became the Continental. ... 'When I tell people that I designed the Continental in 30 minutes or so, why, that's the honest truth!' Gregorie exclaims proudly."

Hi

To the design of the Lincoln Continental: Edsel Ford, who made many trips to Europe in the Thirties, visiting all the major auto show venues, would have imparted that knowledge and design preference to E. T. Gregorie, who was fully aware of the design trends of sporting European luxury cars.
Those could be characterized by low, long hoods, short rear decks, close-coupled passenger compartment proportions. Details such as full-length hoods, separate boxed trunks with rear-mounted spares, low, rectangular convertible-style window treatments are to be found on myriad coachbuilt cars there such as Bentley, Bugatti, Delage, etc.

Since Edsel had Gregorie design special personal cars for him throughout the period, the design was just the natural result of Edsel's desire to have a personal car of "continental" design. To his credit, he made it available to a group of interested customers

I have to agree with others the time frame given in the post regarding how the Lincoln Continental was designed would preclude this lovely Packard from having direct influence in the 1938-39 time period.

Apropos whether the original factory photo was discarded to prevent management from realizing they had allowed a sterling design to escape only to be used by other. By 1938-39, management was obviously far more interested in volume production rather than the peripheral market the Continental represented. While management seemed to embrace Darrin as one of their own in '40, recall the story of how Darrin got one of his early victoria presented to a Packard dealer meeting. Initially, management was uninterested in offering the Darrins through the dealer network until those same dealers had a look at one, albeit a damaged one. The force of the design sold the car, management came to that idea after the dealers showed great enthusiasm for it.

As I posted earlier in this thread: WHAT A STUNNER!!!!!!

Steve

Agreed. But I'd like to add that Gregorie was no stranger to Europe, either. The pair were like two peas in a pod in their design ideas.

I disagree, though, that the time period rules out Tim's theory. It actually made pretty good sense to me except for his facts.

I think the time period fits, too. The car was made in late 1934, and if LaCosta bought it early on, he likely took it home to Puerto Rico pretty quickly. Being a prominent lawyer, he would likely have gone to the big glitzy events in Puerto Rico, and with a car like that, how could he not have wanted to show it off? 1938/39 is just a few years after '34, I doubt he would have stopped driving it that quickly.

Are there no Murray/Dietrich records surviving in one of the museums, like Gilmore perhaps? I guess this is too obvious, that would have already been explored.

EDIT - but I keep thinking there is something more to this story because some who have knowledge of this car refuse to speak about it "on the record".

In its distant past, there was some legal problem as to who actually owned the car, other than that it's just a case of there not being any hard documentation on who, what, why, where and when.

I think what many "knowledgeable" people fail to understand is that at the very least, this car is a honest to God Dietrich V-windshield custom, one of only two known with twin rear spares (from the period 1932-34). However, because no one knows (yet) where the pontoon fenders materialized, they think it has a shady history. It is obvious, though, that these fenders were put on in the classic era, and the additional body work that was required is very professional (for the time).

The last perfectly restored V-windshield Dietrich sold for $3.3 million in a private sale.

West, I recall with clarity a 32 Twin Six V-windshield Dietrich convertible victoria with dual rear spares, green and cream as I recall. Back in the 60s it lived up in CT and came often to our local VMCCA shows here in North Jersey. At that time it was a fresh restoration. Might this perhaps be the other one you were thinking of? Or perhaps a third? Somewhere I have a slide which I'll try to get converted to a print. Sorry, can't recall the owner's name anymore. And West, I don't think anyone has any doubt the car in question here is a bona fide Dietrich.

Same car. Mint green with dark olive-green fenders, went by the name of "Dozen." Jim Kaufmann owned it for several years. I believe Mark Smith now owns it, or his former partner...

BINGO! That's it, thanks for reminding me. I've found the slide and am off to try to get a print from it.