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Gushca: Thanks for posting the links and sharing the information about Swiss coachbuilders.

John F. Shireman

Guyz -

Let's not let things get out of hand. Remember, we're not running some "tea parlour society" here, nor are we following Robert's Rules of Order.

Fact is, casual conversation often drifts off-topic, and when West brought up Rollson, things naturally went into pre-war from there. Now, Owen is merely trying to get the thread back to topic he opened with. I'm guessing he sees enough interest in prewar coachbuilt that he suggests another thread be started - just as he started this thread to breakaway from what started out as a thread on the Monte Carlo concept.

You know, the idea of starting a new thread under the subject of prewar coachbuilt does make it easier for viewers to find threads of interest. Just keep in mind that this site, unlike some others, has an archival nature, with structure for future followers.

I agree with Brian. Whomever starts a thread is really the defacto-host of it, and there is nothing wrong with that person policing it to keep it on topic.

So please be respectful too all, and lets try to keep the thread hijacking (intentional or unintentional) to a minimum.

Thanks!

BIGKEV: When I asked Goscha the question about Graber there was no intention of high jacking the thread. When I have time today I am going to be sending you a pm which will request that certain posts from here be moved into another thread which will be started by me.

John F. Shireman

Owen,

I, for one, am fascinated by the subject of post-war coachbuilt Packards. There are evidently more of them than are commonly known.

Lloyd, glad you've enjoyed this thread, it's interesting to me as well because its the absolute final end of the coachwork era. Somewhere I've got a photo of the (only one to my knowledge) bathtub era (48-50) Derham which you've now spurred me on to try to locate.

Here is a good site I found that talks about the Derham built cars. Nice pics there too.

http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/d/derham/derham.htm

"The article also included the names of a number of Middle Eastern dignitaries and heads of state who rode in Derham creations. They included King Farouk of Egypt, Bechara El-Khoury - the president of Lebanon, Atla Bey Ayoubi of Syria, King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, and King Abdullah of Jordan. Derham's most famous Middle Eastern commission was a 21?-foot-long bright red 1947 Packard convertible sedan they built for the Sheik of Kuwait.

I wish I had a picture of that Packard! I bet it was beautiful.

You'll find a (poor) picture of that car or it's twin earlier in this thread; two were built, both photographed by Derham at their plant in Rosemont PA and I have copies of those photos somewhere.

Yes, coachbuilt.com is a terrific site.

Owen,

My interest is enhanced by the fact that, after retirement from the military, I worked for someone who was in the modern equivilent of the coachbuilding business. He was retired military as well but his brother had worked, for years, for Cotner-Bevington and, after his retirement they went into business building VIP cars, ambulances and speciality cars. He had several businesses and I worked in another but was fascinated by the process involved in building speciality vehicles, especially the VIP cars. They used GM chassis and, when I quit, were trying to figure out how to stiffen the, "new," front wheel drive GM product so that they could stretch them. One of the most memorable things that I learned in my visits to their workshop was how to bullet-proof a radiator.

I understand that, somewhere, there's a Derham Formal Sedan built from a 56th Series Patrician. That would be interesting to see if it exists as I have always admired the catalogued early fifties Derham Formal Sedans and thought that the 55th and 56th series cars would be readily adaptable and attractive in that style.

I have perused the coachbuilt.com website extensively and hunger for further knowledge, especially of those few enterprises that survived into the 1950s and early 1960s.

Lloyd, the little I know about the V8 Derham formal (don't know if its a 55 or 56) I stated in the opening post of this thread. There is no doubt it was built and still existed some years back, whether it still exists is unknown. We don't even know if it was a factory-sponsored car or just an individual owner who wanted something different though I'd suspect the latter.

I believe Derham's records exist at the Gilmore Museum or some other such repository, maybe AACA or CCCA. Perhaps someone would be willing to locate the archives and see what they can find out, I think we'd all be very interested. Derham was quite consistent in photo-documenting their cars so we'd stand a good chance of at least seeing a picture or two.