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

Found this at Jalopnik, interesting Packard racer from South America:

"HISTORY Our records and documents state three twin-six chassis and two 8-cylionders engines were shipped to Argentina between 1916-1919 to a group of automobile enthusiast It appears through the letters and correspondences acquired thus far, shows that this may be the last of the group found. Its ownership could be traced back to Mr. Mariano de la Fuentes and/or Mr. DePalma.

Information shared between pass owners suggests that Chassis # 321568 was race in the Cordoba region of South America and had many voyages to and from Europe during the 1920 to the 1930's. The next 30 years leaves a hole in this racers history; there is no documented history on chassis #32168 till 1962, when this Runabout was purchased by William Humphries with the intent to restore it. A High level executive for Shell Oil, based in America and Argentina, Mr. Humphries realized the project was too specialized for his abilities and decided to sell the car to Mr. Frederick Douglas.

Mr. Douglas, a fellow executive at shell had plans to restore and to import the Packard back home to Midland, Texas. He would preserve its story and it could be a very special piece of Packard race history. The problem came when government officials of Argentina refused the exportation of what they claimed was a national treasure. In the next 12 months, Mr. Douglas hired, a Mr. Columbo to essentially camouflage the Packard by putting old pick up truck parts, some model T parts, and repainted the car green, red, and black to disguise the Packard. Mr. Douglas also shipped back the original parts to his home in Texas throughout the same time frame undetected. The Packard passed customs and made sail in 1964 to America. Mr. Douglas acquired information on servicing and reassembling the automobile, and even ordered copies of its manuals which still existed. Mr. Douglas became ill and passed away in 1968 before he even began restoration of this Runabout.

The late Mrs. Douglas had no interest in keeping the Packard and sold it to Mr. Elwood Hardman in 1969. Elwood Hardman, like others past, had a wish to restore the Packard; however his job and family left him no time to restore the Packard. He stored the Packard in his home in a room with no windows and no way out. He wanted no one to know he had the Packard. In 2001 Mr. Elwood finally sold the car to Mr. William Eyler and Mr. David Rosenwinge, a restoration manager. Pictures still exist today of when the wall in Mr. Hardman home had to be removed so that Mr. Eyker and Mr. Rosenwinge could retriever their newly purchased Packard. Rosenwinge immediately began striping the car of parts that did not belong and quoted "as we expected, there I a racecar under here and I'm going to find it!"

In 2003, after complete restoration, the Packard made way to Mr. Antony Reed, and Rick Eagen of Specialized Motors ports. From there the car has been shown at the national Packard Museum and other events, such as the 2005 Pebble Beach Motoring Classic. In 2006, the Current owner, a Houston collector, purchased the car from Mr. Eagen, and since then has been stored in THE VAULT, a climate controlled storage facility, in Houston, Texas; and has been shown at many Concour Events such as Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance and Classy Chassis."


More info & pictures here.

Wow! This is just the sort of history and info I have been looking for! Does anyone have any additional info on this car - particularly what it was up to in Europe during the 1930s???

Also I notice that it reads that this is based on a 1916-19 chassis - but did the cars of that era have 14" front drum brakes?? Might this have been a change inspired by ongoing development during the 1930s?

I would ring and ask the price - but I have a horrible feeling that the answer would scare me...

Cool car! It didn't sell at auction in November 2008. It ONLY bid up to $175k.......
Anyone know what happened to it?

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Only $175k???
Perhaps I didn't look hard enough, but it appears to be basically a "bitsa" car, made up from a bunch of parts. I'm always curious when pre-restoration photos are not presented. Again, did I not look deep enough?

Hello,

The auction estimate was over $200k......

I agree.... that's why I said "ONLY".. I think that's a lot for a big fish story. It does appear to have some provenance, and at that price I hope it does!

Definitely a modern fake. No 1920s or 30s car was built that low not even a racer.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way.
Most good fakes today at least look real, but this car doesn't even seem to come close to looking real.

I bet Turbopackman will build you one for only $100,000 ha ha

It's hard to say without more information, but this 'could' be a genuine car. If you accept that it was used in Europe during the 1930's, then ongoing development in that part of the world could have created a car of this style. You have to remember that GP rules of that era varied a great deal and that this was the period that cars such as the Alfa P2s and P3s were at the pointy end of European racing and other cars such as the early Merc W series racers and the legendary rear engined V16 Auto Unions were being developed. In fact the features that I see on this car would have been considered quite 'low tech' even in the mid 1930s.

So no - it is definitly not a car of the mid to late teens, but it could be one that started life in this period and evolved into what we see here.

Having said all this though, I thought that the quote credited to one of the cars restorers that read something like "we knew there was a race car under there somewhere" does make it sound like they were desperate to create something that they already had in mind. That is, of course, something that none of us can know for sure unless someone has the documentation to prove the provenance of this car or otherwise.

I would love to see it's full history, but none of my searches thus far have revealed anything other than the sales pitch we have already seen.

There are some new racing related photos in the archive that are part of the NAHC collection. There are under the packard racing category.

packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/myalbum/viewcat.php?cid=83