Custom bodied Packards

[Dave Mitchell]

Dietrich coupe

Edited March 10, 2011 by Dave Mitchell (see edit history)

[Dave Mitchell]

40 Darrin sedan

[Dave Mitchell]

41 Rollson

[alsancle]

40 Darrin sedan

I really like the Darrin Sedans. Is this the prototype car? I'm know that it is different from the 2 or 3 production cars but I don't know how.

[Dave Mitchell]

I really like the Darrin Sedans. Is this the prototype car? I'm know that it is different from the 2 or 3 production cars but I don't know how.

I think this one was started in Hollywood, if not finished there, and is the first of the three. It was found in Mexico and was in tough shape. Charles Blackman owned it for many years and Mike Ames did a great job restoring it. There is one more 40 and one 41 sedan that I know of.

[Dave Mitchell]

34 town cars

[twin6]

1936 super 8 convertible Victoria. The Dietrich name is there, but by then wasn't this built in Murray's shops?

[keiser31]

34 town cars

Photo 1 and photo 2 are the same photo.

[Mahoning63]

1936 super 8 convertible Victoria. The Dietrich name is there, but by then wasn't this built in Murray's shops?

Yes. The multitude of literature says that Packard continued to use the Dietrich name as a marketing element.

[Mahoning63]

41 Rollson

Dave - is this the 148" wheelbase or 138"? Looks like the long one with custom long doors, but looks can be decieving...

[twin6]

The Holbrook is a clean, simple design that was undoubtedly expensive in its day, authentically restored and the blackwalls look good. Were the appointments inside unusual?

See more of car, including inside appointments, here.

[Dave Mitchell]

Dave - is this the 148" wheelbase or 138"? Looks like the long one with custom long doors, but looks can be decieving...

It is the 148" wheelbase.

[Dave Mitchell]

1936 super 8 convertible Victoria. The Dietrich name is there, but by then wasn't this built in Murray's shops?

Yes, I would call this a cataloged semi custom I guess. The open cars did often carry Dietrich tags up to 1936. I think that they were probably designed by Werner Gubitz, as Ray Dietrich had moved on by the time these were designed, but Packard still had the rights to the name. The standard open bodies were very good looking cars I think. I especially like the 35 - 36 roadsters and phaetons. I don't know if the roadsters carried the Dietrich tag, I am pretty sure that the convertible victorias, phaetons, and convertible sedans did. Even the 36/37 120 convertible sedans had it I think.

Why not include these semi customs here?

[Dave Mitchell]

Photo 1 and photo 2 are the same photo.

I noticed that as I was posting them, but thought that the one that isn't cropped was interesting to show the photo studio, but the other one showed the car a little better, so I posted both.

[alsancle]

This Rollston bodied 31 is for sale. Anyone have a period picture? Great looking car.

I guess I should be paying more attention. This car was sold by RM at Arizona back in January for $220,000. Here is a link to the catalog description.

They provide a history back to the 1980s:

In the 1980s, this car is known to have been part of the collection of the late Sam Vaughan. Following his death, the next owner acquired it from the estate sale. Under their ownership, the Packard was carefully maintained, and it was reported to have performed flawlessly, requiring nothing more than routine maintenance. Since acquisition by the late John M. O'Quinn in 2006, the Packard has benefited from proper storage, and it has seen limited use.

[Dave Mitchell]

I guess I should be paying more attention. This car was sold by RM at Arizona back in January for $220,000. Here is a link to the catalog description.

They provide a history back to the 1980s:

In the 1980s, this car is known to have been part of the collection of the late Sam Vaughan. Following his death, the next owner acquired it from the estate sale. Under their ownership, the Packard was carefully maintained, and it was reported to have performed flawlessly, requiring nothing more than routine maintenance. Since acquisition by the late John M. O'Quinn in 2006, the Packard has benefited from proper storage, and it has seen limited use.

Seems like a reasonable price for a special car, but auction photos can flatter a car. Sometimes when a car is part of a huge collection, it just sits there almost neglected whereas it would be a star in a small collection and get better care.

[Dave Mitchell]

Hmmm, the Rollston would be something of an American Cab C...

[alsancle]

Hmmm, the Rollston would be something of an American Cab C...

Yes indeed! However, I'm on a life long mission to upgrade myself to a Cab "A".

Like I said before, I really like the car in question but if I was a buyer I would probably like to know a bit more about the car's history.

[Dave Mitchell]

I think that you can get build sheet or at least original owner info from the family on Long Island that owned Rollston.

[alsancle]

I think that you can get build sheet or at least original owner info from the family on Long Island that owned Rollston.

Is Rudy Creteur still around? I know up until a few years ago you could email him. I believe in the case of the Rollson 2 door "sedan" we pictured a few pages back he provided all the original drawings.

[Owen_Dyneto]

Don't know if it's Rudy or not but a friend contacted a Creteur recently about his Rollson. I don't know if he got any info, but he was told that some car collector who was given access to the archives had pretty much trashed them and left them an unorganized mess, thus his reluctance to be cooperative.

BTW, I just began reading Jon Stroeman's "Swedish Coachbuilders" which, although many of the chassis pictured are European, there are some photos of some Packards with Swedish coachwork. You might want to see a review of the book at PackardClub.org • View topic - Swedish Coachbuilders - new book

Of course it's copyrighted, so no scanning of any of the photos.

[K8096]

I was told that "the incident" with the Rollston files took place back in the 1960's when the several part CCCA magazine article was written about Rollston. I was told some materials were taken and not returned, and the perpetrators, when confronted about it later in life, denied any wrong doing. It would be Rudy's son that has the material now. If you think about it, Rudy himself would be at least 100 years old now if living. The person who writes "Coachwork Lines" for the CCCA magazine would know all the details. Perhaps the CCCA or AACA museum should delicately approach the family about potentially donating the material for proper preservation.

[Dave Mitchell]

I contacted him about 20 years ago and he was very helpful. It would be great if copies of the records were at staffed research libraries like ACD or AACA. That is the sort of thing that it would be great if someone would donate money towards a project of copying them and paying those who have them for that privilege.

[alsancle]

I assumed that perhaps his son had the same name as the contact up until 5 or 6 years ago was Rudy Creteur. I was thinking that or he was a very spry 90 something year old.

Btw, I can't think of a Rollston body that I don't like. There are some later high hat Rollson ones that are not my cup of tea but in general I like them all.

[Dave Mitchell]

Rollston/Rollson did a lot of great cars and because of that outlasted most coachbuilders. I wonder how many Packards they did. They even did town cars on the Jr chassis from the mid thirties to the early 40s.

[Dave Mitchell]

One thing this thread has made me think about is whether more custom bodies were built on Packard chassis than any other. What do you think? Cadillac did their best to keep most customs in house with Fleetwood, so if we equate Fleetwood with the in house "body by Packard" and flat windshield Dietrichs, what do you think? Most European cars were built in much lower numbers, even if they were all custom bodied (such as Hispano Suizas). Also Packard's conservative styling worked well with custom bodies much later than it would with other chassis. Packard also made bare chassis (or with fenders and cowl etc) available and even published prices for them. They also encouraged customs by ordering small series of bodies and sometimes even putting them in their sales catalogs or printing catalogs just for those semi customs. How many other car companies did this?

[K8096]

For American cars you're probably right. I'm sure there were more than 480 or so full custom Packards built, so that puts them past Duesenberg. Every single Rolls Royce built before WW II had a full custom body, so I think if you count European marques, Rolls would have to win. By the way, I don't count the flat windshield Dietrichs or Fleetwood Cadillacs as customs either.

[Dave Mitchell]

For American cars you're probably right. I'm sure there were more than 480 or so full custom Packards built, so that puts them past Duesenberg. Every single Rolls Royce built before WW II had a full custom body, so I think if you count European marques, Rolls would have to win. By the way, I don't count the flat windshield Dietrichs or Fleetwood Cadillacs as customs either.

I will have to look up Rolls production numbers, but you could well be right. Wasn't Park Ward an in house or owned shop? Perhaps that wasn't until post war.

[West Peterson]

Dave

When you say "body by Packard" are you also referring to the ones that say "Custom by Packard"?

[Dave Mitchell]

Dave

When you say "body by Packard" are you also referring to the ones that say "Custom by Packard"?

Right. Wouldn't you say those were in house bodies? I would certainly say that they were semi custom cataloged bodies though, not normal production bodies. Where do you think they were built? You can tell on the speedster bodies that trim parts were numbered for the car, just like a custom body.

Just to clarify, I think of Fleetwood as a true coachbuilder, but with a different "status" as they were owned by GM and therefore "in house". My Fleetwood town car is a cataloged semi custom, but certainly built to special order.

[K8096]

Another car we're forgetting here is the Lincoln K. By the late 1930's, there were only a few body styles (all sedans) actually referred to as standard Lincoln bodies in the Lincoln sales literature. A majority of the bodies in the Lincoln K sales literature were "cataloge customs." For example, 1935 - 1939 Lincoln K coupe & conv coupe bodies were all built by LeBaron and delivered to Lincoln "in the white" and Lincoln finished them with paint & upholstery to the customer's order. I believe the same goes for the Brunn victorias. There were quite a number of Willoughby & Judkins sedans built for Lincoln as well during this time period. These consisted of a couple series of sedan bodies where a couple hundred of each were built. Then on top of that some snazzy ones were made as well, such as the Willoughby sport sedan, or the Judkins 2 window Berline, of which maybe a dozen or two were made. These more limited production bodies may have been trimmed at the coachbuilder instead of Lincolns shop. Do we consider all of the above mentioned cars customs or not? If we do, then Lincoln might out number Packard too in the number of custom bodies placed on their chassis. Edsel Ford is well documented to have played an intergral role in custom coachwork on the Lincoln chassis.

Edited March 18, 2011 by K8096 (see edit history)

[West Peterson]

Not an easily definable line. According to Hugo Pfau, Packard had no facilities for the custom body work, and leased a portion of the Murray plant. This company owned Dietrich, and was also building the the Packard standard bodies at the same time as the full customs. Also, LeBaron-Detroit built cars, such as the 1934 LeBaron coupes, but were badged "Custom by Packard."

Also, didn't Packard own the Connersville plant that built the Darrins from 1940?-42?

One problem that I've always had with Hugo Pfau's book is that it actually creates more questions than it answers. Too much wrong or bad information can and has been read between the lines. I wish that whoever edited that book would have asked some more questions.

[Packardbarry]

Go to the Packard Club site Packard Automobile Classics, Inc. - The Packard Club to their SHOWROOM - Salvage section and take a look at that wrecked '28 thats a 2 dr club. Cant remember ive ever seeing that in the Packard books. Similar to a STUTZ ive seen photos of.

[alsancle]

Go to the Packard Club site Packard Automobile Classics, Inc. - The Packard Club to their SHOWROOM - Salvage section and take a look at that wrecked '28 thats a 2 dr club. Cant remember ive ever seeing that in the Packard books. Similar to a STUTZ ive seen photos of.

I agree. I would link it but the way the website is setup there is no way to do it.

[Restorer32]

Wonder how many American built Rolls were built? Thinking Brewster and Locke.

[Mahoning63]

One thing helping to up Packard's custom count were the continued strong sales into the early 40s. Darrin and LeBaron alone were responsible for quite a few. If the Lincoln Continental is classified as a custom, that would probably change the numbers in Lincoln's favor.

Here's a '41 Darrin. Fabulous design.

[Dave Mitchell]

Not an easily definable line. According to Hugo Pfau, Packard had no facilities for the custom body work, and leased a portion of the Murray plant. This company owned Dietrich, and was also building the the Packard standard bodies at the same time as the full customs. Also, LeBaron-Detroit built cars, such as the 1934 LeBaron coupes, but were badged "Custom by Packard."

Also, didn't Packard own the Connersville plant that built the Darrins from 1940?-42?

One problem that I've always had with Hugo Pfau's book is that it actually creates more questions than it answers. Too much wrong or bad information can and has been read between the lines. I wish that whoever edited that book would have asked some more questions.

Unfortunately the Pfau book has a number of errors. Ralph Roberts told me stories about Pfau and thought he did good work, but that a lot of his information came from period magazines or personal memories which weren't always accurate.

If we accept that Packard didn't have custom body shops, then all the semi customs came from outside the house, which makes the numbers even higher. Where do you think the 34 LeBarons were really built? If they are badged Custom by Packard, then we have to wonder where any of the Custom by Packard bodies were built. Maybe it didn't matter to Packard, especially since the numbers were so low, they would sell no matter whose badge was on them. The 734s were certainly done in low numbers, but the 745 open cars carried Custom by Packard tag also didn't they, and far more of those were built, so does that mean they are Murray? Perhaps the "Custom by Packard" refers to the design being done in house. I wouldn't be surprised by that, even for the 34 coupes. I have read that those were built after Ed Macauley saw an autobahn courier 500K on European trip.

[West Peterson]

I wasn't aware that the 745's had "Custom by Packard."

[Packardbarry]

[Dave Mitchell]

I wasn't aware that the 745's had "Custom by Packard."

I have seen the tags on one original roadster and one phaeton. Since you can buy the tags, I am not sure you can count on what you see on restored cars.