Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

I was alerted to the possible existance of a 55 Derham by the editor of PAC's The Packard Cormorant; I do forget if he said he had actually seen it and had a picture, or not but I seem to recall a photo of it in a garage buried under mountans of junk. The story went that it was owned by acommercial livery company in Chicago. All of this goes back perhaps 15 or 20 years.

Trivia question, what was the last Derham "upgrade" or conversion?

I have been trying to get in touch with the son of one of the Ostendorf brothers of the Ostendorf Packard dealership here in Buffalo to see if he remembers anything about the Derhams. I figure he would probably remember the Derhams, his dad and uncle sold one of the first ones, which is now mine. The car was delivered to original owner on Feb 28, 1953. O_D supplied me with the Briggs build date, which I believe was late November 1952. (Could you please resend that bit of info to me Dave?)

The following quote is from Enos Derham in a letter reply to the late second owner of the car (I bought the car from his wife who went to school with the Ostendorf son).

"We converted the standard Packard Sedan into the Formal Sedan Type. 25 of these were done for the Packard factory and about 5 or 6 for export. My recollection is that the upholstery used in all of them was the standard Packard fabric. We have no records." This quote was an answer specifically to the 1953 model.

I remember seeing these codes when we did the Material Swatch Project. Interior codes that I believe ran 1951-1954.

801-dark brown broadcloth combined with tan broadcloth
802-dark green broadcloth combined with light green broadcloth
803-blue broadcloth combined with gray broadcloth
804-gray broadcloth
805-blue broadcloth
807-dark brown broadcloth

Also a 145-pound weight difference on the 53 spec sheet between Derham and Patrician.

I was thinking about what Howard posted earlier regarding two interior color paints. A possible explanation might be 801-803 goatskin/grain to highlight the two color fabric combination. 804, 805 and 807 solid paint color without grain for solid color fabric.

here's what I got from Grain-it Technology:

"The Packards that I have documented and restored with the Goat Skin Grain are a 1949 Custom 8 Convertible, a 1953 Model 2631-2677 Mayfair Hardtop and a 1953 Model 2602-2672 Cavalier.

I don't think the Goat Skin was used on your car (51 200) I believe the dash and moldings were painted.
I documented a 1951 model 2401-2498, 200 Business Coupe with a painted dash and moldings
and a 1952 model 2501-2592, 200 sedan with a painted dash and moldings."

These guys are a great source for wood graining tools.

The bit about the 49 convertible being goatskin is interesting. I was under the impression goatskin came later. Don't remember ever seeing a dash that was not either plain paint, woodgrain or burl prior to 51.

Most convertibles had plain, painted dashes; woodgrain has notoriously poor resistance against the elements such as are often encountered in a convertible.

Gene Tareshawty in Ohio has two 49 (23 Series)Super Deluxe convertibles with the original goatskin grain on the dash. 22nd series convertibles seemed to have painted dashes.

51 and 52 300s and Patricians had either silver-grey or tan dashes with a sort of burlap or basketweave pattern on the glovebox face and the panel just to the right of it. The door window reveals were painted the same as the dash, but the lower raised panel of the reveals had the same basketweave on them. Always thought it looked a bit incongruous.

The 200 sedans were all silver grey in 51 and gunmetal in 52 with window reveals to match.