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I have purchased this car last year as the fallout with big three was inevitable. So this car serves as the replacement of my '95 Cadillac Fleetwood. (I have the Fleetwood since early college years and it becomes more symbolic in recent years as the car becomes older and more as an antique than a summer daily car)
Among the more feasible replacements, options were Daimler DS420, senior Packard, Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire or Studebaker President (some of the lesser feasible considerations include Jaguar XJs, GAZ-13 Chaika, GAZ-12 ZIM, ZIL-115, ZIL-41047, Nissan President PGF50, Mitsubishi Debonair, Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, AMC Ambassador, etc)

Daimler DS420 was ruled out as upon a closer assessment, as driving it seems to be highly unpleasant. Studebaker President was ruled out due to their current market price (50k USD) and platform sharing with far cheaper models. The remaining two seems to be rather straight-forward for choices. (Even though I quite like Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire a lot since a 5yo, upon seeing it in a car show)

The car is in an excellent mechanical condition, albeit not driven much for 20-25 years. It seems to me, after the restoration in the '90s, the car spent most of the time symbolically, until the owners seemed to pass away during the COVID. The auto broker loved the car so he kept it for a while until someone else wanted to buy it (and turned out the person is me), next to a few Mercedes SLs, Messerschmitts and few more Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs (identical model like my Fleetwood, with different exterior colour and a vinyl roof. Condition isn't as good due to the softer leather and cosmetics)

I currently drive it locally when the weather is good (at least when I head out) and other driving purposes have other cars taken place.

I do notice most current Packard owners seem to be far older than me.








In the first picture, I managed to buy the factory blank keys and got them cut for use. The keys came with the car were older, generic. And I have to buy a few hubcaps as some of them were a bit too dented.
The underneath is one of the best I've seen in my life, strangely. I wonder how.

Taken during the last days I drove it last year.



About where I grew up, it is a bit obvious in this photo.

You may well be the youngest owner/driver. The car looks great!

Don't worry about the other Packard owners being a bit "grey" around the edges...please engage your own car-savvy friends, give them rides, show them all the quality ways that the Packards were built...then get a few of the really interested ones to join you (Please sign up and join the Packard "tribe" to come to the National meet in Kansas City in Early June 2025...specific dates will be set; see my other info at:packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb ... 450&post_id=273681#forumpost273681; it goes Sunday through Friday of the week). We had car nuts of all ages (22 yrs, 30, 40's, plus us old geezers) at this years meet...

We had lots of fun talking, fixing (field issues can occur and you have the best group of knowledgeable mechanics at the meet) and had after-parties out at the hotel fire pit this year. We want to pass our knowledge, parts and cars onto the next generation so you will find uncommon generosity and that comradery abounds...you will be immediately welcomed and included (don't sweat that). The swap meet is small but focused on Packard, so its a great way to meet the Packardonians.

You probably are the youngest Packard owner I have met in a long time. Personally, I was 13 (back in the mid 70's) when I bought my first car (41 Packard) so I know what its like to feel younger than the crowd around you at Packard events (everyone back then also seemed like they were in their senior years) but you will build lifelong friendships (your years being longer than our remaining years) and there are many fellow engineers and technical people in the group.

Also, your back-home friends will definitely know you have the coolest car.

AFAIK the youngest out there currently is 14 with a 1955 Patrician. There was a segment in a recent Cormorant issue about him. But the median age of Packard owners surely is somewhere in the early 60's.

For what it's worth, the "young guys" I know personally are mostly in their 30's.

Orange-Lark, welcome to PackardInfo.com.

We do not know how old you are. -> How old are you?

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By the way, I know of at least one ZIL-41047 in the USA. It was -> for sale some time ago.

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The website with history of that ZIL in the ad is now defunct so no answers there but as rare and hard to buy -- even for Russians -- as the high end prestigious ZIL cars were I am kind of curious how that car got here and stayed. I recall a TV show a few years ago where they featured the defunct ZIL factory and showed and interviewed people that helped hand build the cars. After the Soviet collapse they had tried to get the factory going again but had so few parts left or materials to make more that it didn't look to happen. It was enlightening to see the handwork and finish the guys were doing on the one or two cars they were able to build. There was a piece destined for trim and they showed how it started not as a stamping but as a rough welded up piece and progressed to a guy sitting and filing on it for days to the matching piece on the other side and what it would look like when finished. Amazing work.

Was the for sale ZIL property of an oligarch that stayed when the Soviet Union collapsed or was the car imported like some other non US spec cars that were brought in by entrepreneurs in a time when they could bolt on a few US legal items so they supposedly became able to be registered. Sad thing in that scenario is those "grey" cars were often disowned by mfgs and legitimate US dealers. With the flags you would almost think it was a diplomatic car that somehow didn't get back home but that also seems unlikely.

Thank you.
How has the time changed! (young people occasionally own older luxury cars, so many young people owned them long time ago. but obviously not the case anymore)

Thank you! (I have joined the club too but I have to retrieve the membership number somewhere)
Indeed, the reactions tend to be a bit surprising from others.

Yet, the perception of luxury cars seems to be a bit different among younger people (especially those born after 1995, those who are too young to remember the 20th century), the luxury car market is too dominated by the German OEMs and the traditional, flamboyant, or serious type of luxury cars gets a bit difficult to resonate among the generation in a different society. (they tend to be the same unable to understand why ZIL limousine was an upscale class of cars) Also, I have a few Dinky replicas, it doesn't resonate very well neither.

It must have been quite a feeling to own a Packard at 13yo! That was quite young to own a car at all, more so for a Packard. (and Packard 180 was still used in formal occasions outside of the US at the time, especially in Eastern Bloc and China, where they had to hang on to their old vehicles. Also, a senior military general was using a ZIS-110 into the '90s somewhere in China too, it might be the longest serving official car of such model, especially as everyone switched to "Western" automobiles after the fall of the USSR except very very few hardliner members. I learned from a young age to be cautious coming to situations like this)

Some friends in China thought my Packard was a movie prop. They didn't realize I own the car, drive it occasionally when more photos come up a year later!

Of course, just for fun, I don't believe there is any running Packard in China anymore (nor Delahaye, even though 7 were registered in the French Concession) but at least a Nash is running somewhere in Shanghai for movies (among few other American cars, and a lot more Soviet cars)










And Shanghai World War I Memorial replica is in the same place too



I wondered about it for more than a decade and eventually I knew where it is. Unfortunately, most people who have seen it may not know what it is, and most people who know what it is may not easily find where it is! Strange world

I am sure that is one of a kind 14yo! His life shouldn't be uneventful.

(because it is rare for a kid to know Packard at all, and coming to ownership, it takes quite a personality)