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

Almost but not quite, West. Our car had the seams for the trunk and front fenders leaded smooth. Unless the Dietrich in your photos has the same in the back. Can't tell from the photos.

Well I'm glad for you that you straightened out the provenance for your car. Maybe you could sell it to the guy that has the late judge's 1940 Sport Sedan.

I am surprised how much vitriol my comparisons with the Lincoln Continental seem to bring on. Is this possibility any less remote than Bill Mitchell supposedly being inspired to do the 63 Riviera after a trip to Europe, or the new Sting Ray after a shark attack in the Bahamas? The Riviera looks a lot less like a Ferrari than the Continental looks like that Packard. And good designers don't go home for the day just because they don't happen to be full of original ideas.

Once when I was in the middle of nowhere Africa I stumbled upon a Custom Packard Town Car. "What the hell is this doing here?" El Baldrige was driving around rural France and spotted a Custom Packard under a tree next to a chicken shack. Once in Florida I found a Packard sitting unused outside a bar. It had six super rare wire wheels.

Sometimes strange things happen.

Tim,

You know the location of the LaCosta 1940 Packard? I was just talking to LaCosta III's widow about that car today.

When we bought the convertible victoria, we also got a LeBaron towncar (didn't have the pontoon fenders though). The body has completely wasted away on that car though, so we are turning it into a hot rod version of the conv. vic with twin superchargers... and we elongated the chassis by 13 inches. It has artillery wheels, which I think are immensely cool.

Dave, how can I get a hold of Jim?

Is the Sport Sedan to which you refer the Rollson that Russel used to own? Light blue in color?

I believe so, yes. It was a pinkish mauve when La Costa II owned it. I have an article on it that the La Costas faxed me, if you want me to scan it for you, West.

What's a fax?
Bob Russel died a few years ago. I'm not sure where the car is now. I'll try to find out, though. I don't think it has ever been sold, and is still in his estate. I doubt they'd be interested in buying your car.

One detail that had escaped my attention before. The custom fenders didn't permit the use of stock tail lights; looking at the right-side tail light it appears to be affixed to the frame end-cap where the bumper iron attaches, and probably has a twin on the other side. But the right-side one also has the window for the license plate light (stanchion missing). Quite unusual for the license plate to be right-side mounted on a LHD car. The light bucket itself looks much more like a 1935 and up style, certainly not the 1934 variety. Assuming a late 1934 build, these would have already been available.

PS - it would also be interesting to see how the gas tank filler neck was altered, as it would have normally been intergrated with the left-side fender-mounted tail light housing.

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Dave,

What production date came up when you looked up the anti-theft code?

I never even thought of the license plate being on the right side. Perhaps that was a standard in Puerto Rico at the time? Or it could just be that when we put all the parts on it for photographing the car, whoever put the tail lights on might have swapped their places.

Here are closeups.

Edit: Yeah, one of our employees simply put the lights on incorrectly. The photo we have of the car when it was new shows the license plate on the driver side.

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If I remember my history the U.S. took possession of Puerto Rico as a territory as a result of the Spanish-American war of 1898; thus it would seem unlikely (though possible) that they had by then adopted the US convention of license plate on the left. As you suggest, it's more likely they lights just got swapped around as you rough-assembled the parts.

Is that the gas tank filler I see on the rear apron just behind the other tail light? Dark semi-circle?

As to your body dash number, we don't know enough about how and when they were assigned and stamped and how production might have been scheduled; hopefully that will come with time and more effort. Thus there is no data to relate the # to a production date. We do know that the correlation between the # and the vehicle number is less than perfect, occasionally an early car will have a # after some later numbered cars of the same chassis and body type. We can say that total production was 8000 units, and your thief-proof is about 1000 numbers less than the highest-known number. I only have data on one other 1108 sold as a chassis, #1108-5X and it was completed as a formal town car (EDIT - LeBaron). It's thief-proof is about 253X numbers prior to yours.

You all might find this interesting, this is a letter from Ed Blend to my father regarding our car. This should answer some of your questions, Dave and Tim.

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