The coupe version of the car I would own after 20+ years of dreaming. 1955 Packard image from Old Car Brochures.
What 30 something dreams of owning a 61 year old luxury sedan from a marque that most people have no idea even existed? This one.
A Dream
I first became aware of Packard as a child. My father had taken me to a car show and that’s when I saw it. The rear end of a 1958 Packard backing up right at my face. It was grey and seemed like it had fins pointing every which way – all capped by those glorious, slipper tail-lamps. It all felt so menacing and fantastical.
My father only let me pause a moment. I was dumbstruck.
Imagine seeing this coming towards you, right at eye level. Image from Daniel Schmidt Co.
I read everything I could about Packard, quickly learning the last “real” Packards rolled off the line in 1956. The more I read about these final Packards the more I was hooked. I love a good last, best effort story – it’s always where things get interesting. I had to have one of those last “real” Packards.
By 1955 Packard was on the skids, so much ink has been spilled on that topic I won’t rehash. But to summarize: Packard pulled out all the stops at the last possible moment, delivering a new and innovative self-leveling torsion bar suspension, the first automatic transmission with a lockup torque converter (ok, an evolution of the 1949 Ultramatic), and the industry’s largest, most powerful V8. If all of that wasn’t enough to make you drool, what they were able to do to a body shell introduced in 1951 for the 1955 model year was astounding. I had to have one and in 2016 the time had come.
The greenhouse is an obvious carryover, even with the wrap around windshield, but Richard Teague’s efforts to hide a 1951 body in 1955 are – to my eye – masterful. Top picture Macs Motor City Garage. Bottom, my own.
To Reality
By the holiday season of 2016, we were preparing to get the details of an impending relocation to Belgium. This was a dream come true for me, being asked to take on an international assignment and possibly get EU citizenship in the process. It all came crashing down when the details were presented to us and the numbers just didn’t add up. I was presented with a bum deal and no manner of financial acrobatics would make it work.
I saw an opportunity. One evening, after crying, my husband asked if there was anything he could do, I looked up and said:
“Can I have a Packard?”
This was a common question in our relationship, but mostly as a joke as I always knew the answer was (rightfully) no. I was shocked when he said, “Absolutely, you’ve earned it.”
I found my car at the shop of a well known person in the Packard community – it was part of their personal collection. I won’t mention their name because you know what they say about meeting your heroes? Well, it’s true.
This 1955 Packard Patrician was solid black, in a year where solids were definitely out, and was last registered in 1972. It hadn’t been run in years, and the paint was starting to show wear – but the provenance seemed like a sign – this was it. We made a deal. The car would be put in running/driving condition, and be delivered the following month.
He stuck out so much we had to have bump-outs cut into the back of the garage for the dagmars. We dubbed the car Mr. Price because it was black & white & campy.
False Awakening
Upon delivery there were still some serious running issues and a ticking lifter. The seller-who-shall-not-be-named said “Oh you’ll get used to it, just drive it and enjoy it, there’s nothing wrong.” My local guy found the fuel system choked up with sediment, old fluids and all the rubber shot. His theory on the ticking lifter was that the car sat so long it was stuck and should free itself up with some driving. So I drove it.
Waking up early in the morning, crossing over the old Lincoln Highway Bridge into PA and driving along the Delaware felt like living in a different world. It was just me, the cyclists and the early morning mist. I loved the burble of the V8, the floating of the torsion springs and the gentle “push” when the transmission locked up in direct drive. Oh I was in heaven, and the lifter tick became intermittent after I had an improved oil pump installed.
My own picture after one of my early morning drives. I can still smell the unburnt fuel.
On one outing my husband and I were so engrossed in a conversation that we nearly missed a deer that jumped out in front of us. As I slammed on the Easamatic power brakes I quickly did the permutations of what this was going to cost me. But the Packard didn’t dive and obliterate the animal. Instead it squatted and halted. We were both dumbstruck with how stable it stayed. One of the benefits of that torsion bar suspension. I couldn’t stop grinning.
Image from PackardInfo.com
Arise
A year later we were plucked from NJ by a company out in Utah. The Packard went to a specialist to give the transmission a once over.
After many months it joined us, however, during the time with the specialist it was stored outside. The paint went from patina to failing and surface rust. After 60+ years that paint didn’t owe anything to anyone. My husband urged me to wait before I did anything and to enjoy the car. So I drove it.
A few last photos before I dropped him off to be completely stripped and repainted. It was worse than it looks.
We drove up and down long, 2 lane farm roads into the vast emptiness that is Utah. Bugs covered the car and the lifter tick got worse. But I didn’t have time to worry about that. I was traveling 3 weeks out of the month, internationally, and we were in the middle of adopting our son. My attention was elsewhere.
This was a great cruising road even if Utah was the kind of place that made me grateful for wherever we ended up afterward.
I went for one last, long joyride when I decided to finally have the car repainted. I headed for the highway, alone. The Packard flew, building the speed like a locomotive. I watched the speedometer climb – 50 – 70 – 90, and it wanted to keep going. Now, the lifter tick was like a mini jackhammer.
My travel schedule meant I didn’t have time to rebuild the engine myself and I couldn’t find anyone willing to take it on. More than one shop tried to convince me to drop a crate engine in –sacrilege. The engine would have to wait.
I couldn’t get over how smooth they made him, probably smoother than factory actually was.
The Wasatch Front was ideal for the Packard’s new paint and gold emblems. But that tick was now a constant tapping, something out of a Poe story.
It may as well have been a bomb. By the start of the New Year, my position was eliminated.
Honestly it was a relief.
I had time on my hands, COVID19 shut down everything, so I decided to bite the bullet.
My god did he shine.
Falling Back Asleep
I didn’t have the capability to safely remove the engine and rebuild it. Deciding to scale back my ambitions I chose to replace the lifters and pushrods. The shop manual showed a rather straightforward procedure, so I went in.
All day & late into the night, it was me, a space heater and an amount of blue language that I don’t think had ever been heard in all of Utah County. Our teenage son even helped, a moment that made my heart sing – this was the moment I wanted with my own father and here I was having it with my son. It was awesome. Eventually I sent him back inside to go to bed.
At 10pm the moment came. It was all back together. And I fired it up…my husband and son came running down to the garage because they could hear the car and me screaming and shouting. The Packard never sounded so good.
A lineup of the lifters that came out of the engine, the engine stuffed with shop towels, printouts of the shop manual as our map and all of the parts.
It lasted a week, and the tick came back. I was sullen. Suddenly I got another job, clear across the country in PA. I had to be there immediately, they were making disinfecting products and we were in the middle of a pandemic. On top of that, we had to make sure our son finished school in Utah and be settled across the country in time for him to start school there. Time was of the essence.
Dream Displacement
“I’m selling the Packard.”
My husband and my son were agog. It was time. My priorities shifted, I had to be realistic and focus my efforts on doing what was best for my family. Dragging a money sucking toy across the country, mid pandemic, and trying to find a house that would fit it seemed like the wrong thing to do. It didn’t help that I had soured on the car so much I didn’t even want to look at it.
I connected with Parker’s Packards out in Massachusetts – a wonderful fella, truly. His client was looking for a 1955 Packard sedan -in Dubai. So he was sold. By now I was across the country and my husband was closing things in Utah. He sent me a video of the Packard being flat bedded away to the carrier. My heart hurt for a little bit, that is until the shop in MA told me the car arrived and when they opened the trailer the entire exhaust system had let loose and collapsed on the floor. That’s when I thought it had to be a sign so I said “So f’ing long!”
There’s another Packard in my future, in another dream.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1955 Packard Patrician – Proceed To The Lifeboats
I have the same feeling for these Packards. (Packard – what a classy, expensive-sounding name!) “This is it. One last push, boys, and we’re saved. This is your hour, honor or death, do or die”. Onward – and then, the guns are silent. But the legacy is what’s remembered above everything else that they did.
Of course, these aren’t the most magnificent things that that company ever made – 1942 Clipper, please – but they do represent a magnificent defiance in the face of probable doom. Go quietly? No way!
I can’t help but think that the original front screen would’ve looked better than the then-fashionable wrap-around, but the whole is still heavily lovely.
I completely understand you not even being able to look at the car after The Big Fix. I think plenty of CCers have been there and done that after spending much time confident we’ve nailed a problem, only to be nailed ourselves.
A very nice post. Btw, I presume the electric whizzbangery was working on your car’s torsion system?
The torsion level did work, surprisingly. Had I had it longer I wanted to replace all the bushings in the system.
Interesting story, T.!
First, to your first line, I’ll add “This one too.” I spent much of my 20s working at my large state university, and one of the perks was being able to spend nearly every day’s lunch break deep in the stacks of the 20+ floor research library. There I developed a passion for 1950s lifestyle magazines (such as House Beautiful) and their celebration of mid-century life. And there I fell in love with car ads of the time, and ultimately decided that I needed one of those beautiful high end 50s cars. It was the Packard Caribbean that really caught my eye. Especially one with the 3-tone paint. That black and orange accent strip was amazing. And sure, why couldn’t a nearly 30-something person dream of acquiring 1 of 276 cars (I wanted a 1956 convertible) produced? The fact that I was driving a VW Rabbit diesel at the time only helped fuel the fantasy.
Ultimately, I turned that interest into a graduate degree in 20th century American History…also courtesy of the large state university and its free tuition for employees.
Second, I’ll give you kudos for apparently driving your Packard as a daily? In 2020? That’s dedication. I’d love to read more about the day to day work of driving a 65 year old car on modern roads and traffic.
Third, I think that there’s a subtext to your story that has to do with the Pandemic and the kinds of choices – in this case mostly related to work and living situations – people made…and in a way that we’re still living with as a society/culture. That’s probably a whole other discussion but I’ll just say that the last half-decade has made a big difference to the stability of many people’s lives and the rapidity of how people have had to make decisions related to work and location.Sometimes for the better, sometimes not (and surely for some not at all). I think that younger generations than mine (i.e., yours) have been particularly affected.
Interesting times, and I look forward to reading about what comes next.
I spent way too many hours in my own university library paging through back issues of LIFE magazine from the 1940s through the 1960s. The ads were as good as the feature articles.
I probably have enough to tell about driving the Packard on modern roads and traffic for another article. The long and the short of it; you get really good at anticipating what someone else is going to do, 5 cars ahead of you lol
Definitely right on with the subtext about what we had to do when the pandemic hit, and frankly, I feel like we’re still dealing with.
This story really resonates with me, because the 55-56 Packard was a car I have always loved. There was a time earlier in life when I would have loved to own one as a daily driver. But your story splashes my face with cold water – DDing a car like this is an expensive and time-consuming proposition. I want to tell myself that I would have kept it and fixed the engine had I been in your place, but I would probably have sold it just like you did. But what a great story!
Stories & experiences are really the only things we keep in life, and I’m glad I have this one. And I know there’ll be another classic in my future, eventually.
For the record, *Last Days In The Bunker* gives a great account of Packards efforts to survive and thrive. Also, the beautiful and classic Cathedral taillights were created by Dick Teague in a weekend after James J Nance ( head of Packard) told him to DO something about those damn BULL BALL taillights on pre 55 Packards. As to Caribbean and Patrician, an effort to emphasize aspirational names referring to Elegance and Luxury. Oh how the world has changed to bloated SUVS, crossovers and melted jelly beans badged with letters and numbers.