My Imaginary Packard

As mentioned in a previous blog, in 1965 my father bought me a 1951 Dodge "B" series pickup truck.  It was a well-used farm vehicle and I was kept busy looking for used parts, nominally better than its existing components.  This necessitated outings to junkyards filled with interesting vehicles of all description, as well as farm and industrial machinery.  Expeditions to these emporiums of cast-offs were as enjoyable as any amusement park.  I was able to find and remove the parts desired, and had the opportunity to “salvage” fair bit of pocket change.  While scavenging parts, I would run my hand through the space between the seat back and bottom of the old bench seats and usually come up with a bit of coin---not to mention the odd bit of filth.

While my friends were interested cars like the '57 Chevy, the Mustang, and even the Corvair, I had a penchant for anything odd, massive, and quirky.  For that matter, I still do.

In one salvage yard near Carthage, NY, there was a smallish 1920's fire engine that the owner said he would sell for $300.  The red paint and gold lettering were still shiny, the chrome bright, and it was replete with a bell and a chrome radiator cap with a glass thermometer.  The only thing it lacked was ladders.  Unfortunately, $300 was no more easily available than $3000.  Sometimes one has to be content to admire from afar.

My old Dodge was reliable.  It ran as well at 15 below zero as it did at 85F.  Most problems were not difficult to resolve and it would run fine with the cheapest grade of gasoline available, which was sometimes as low as 74 octane.  The truck was meant for work, not for youthful bravado.  It wouldn’t "burn rubber"---except in reverse.  Never the less, it was all mine and just the ticket for fishing or rabbit hunting.

The single most annoying problem was the gearshift.  The "three on the tree" had an "L"-shaped crank at the bottom that operated the shift linkage to the transmission.  The serrated hole in the crank, that secured it to the shift column, was stripped and it would slip, no matter how tightly I torqued the nut, leaving me stuck in, or out, of gear.

Having saved up some money, working as a stock clerk in the Camp Drum Post Exchange, I finally decided to have it repaired.  The nearest garage was in the village of Black River.

Smelling of dust and petroleum products, with an exposed wood beamed ceiling, decorated with the usual "cheese cake" calendars put out by auto parts companies, and with well used tools hanging on the walls, it looked like a movie set for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.  My kind of place.

At the time, the owner/mechanic seemed old, though in hindsight he was probably in his 50's.  He was also friendly, helpful, and cheap.  After explaining that the part was no longer available, he said to give him a day and he would see what he could do.  When I returned, he explained that he had braised over the stripped out serrations in the crank and hand-filed new ones, charging me less than $25.  The repair worked fine.  Twenty years later, I benefitted from his explaining this field-expedient repair, using it to fix a similar problem on an arbor press.

While my Dodge, the mechanic, and the garage are all history, they are not the reason I recall the visit.  In the dim, back corner of that old garage, against the right wall, there was a hulking form covered by a dusty tarpaulin.  When I asked what was under the canvas, the mechanic took me over and removed the tarp.  It was a 1936 Packard sedan with a "straight eight."  The car was big, black, dusty, and had the ominous grace of a dreadnought.  That behemoth sparked my imagination.  I asked how much he wanted for it, laughable today since I had no  prospects of having funds and there is no way my father could have been talked into being involved in such a bit of whimsy.  The shop owner said it was not for sale and that it had a cracked block anyway.  The End.

Well, not quite the end.  From that time forward, I have had a nagging desire for a 1936 Packard sedan.  Marriage, children, jobs, age, and a singular lack of ability to focus on anything for any length of time, have all conspired to move me from "cool" and "fun" vehicles (in my eye, not necessarily that of others) to more reliable, and less interesting transportation.  I drive a Toyota Tundra, my spouse a Buick Enclave.  Both are good, solid transportation and more reliable than anything made in the 20th century.  Still, while our cars are good, I would not use "great" in any sense of the word.  That "great" Packard only exists when I daydream about what I would do, or could have done, if I were single and fancy free---about as likely as flying pigs.

There are two vintage cocktails, the Twin Six and the Packard Twins (yep, an engine not a pair of porn stars,) named for another masterpiece of Packard engineering, the "Twin Six," a V-12 engine which was to be later replaced in popularity by the “Single Eight”.  First produced for the 1916 model year, there were 24,000 vehicles with Twin Six Engines manufactured by 1920.  In that same year, Packard announced that they would double production of the Twin Six.  True to Robert Burns comment on the plans of mice and men, sales of the Twin plummeted between 1920 and 1924 with sales of about only 11,000 Twin Six equipped vehicles during that time.

So, let us raise a toast to Packard for giving us the stuff of dreams.

Fancy Drinks and How to Make Them, 1935

The Savoy Cocktail Book, 1930