packard eight discovery barn find
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Barn Find: Packard Eight in Salamanca

Practically every fan of classic cars knows, like this beforehand Mysterious Packard Eight from 1938, some good piece unfairly forgotten. We have probably all "pursued" to the owner of this or that interesting car stored in some attic or garage collecting dust ... that despite this he refused to part with it. This could have been the case of the enormous classic of photographs, which since it was released until a few weeks ago belonged to the same family.

And yet the discovery of the Packard was the simplest: A sold property that had to be evicted, a couple of phone calls to find the right person, a little negotiation, and in less than a week the car was saved and on the way to the garage of a good fan.

packard eight discovery barn find
A Packard Eight emerging from the depths

Saving Packard: The 110, 120, Six and Eight

Without a doubt, a stroke of good luck for a car that throughout its life has enjoyed the care it deserved. Packard is one of the noblest and recognized American manufacturers, and it is precisely the range to which this car belongs was the one that saved the brand in the hard times of the Great Depression. Specifically belongs low-end or cheap -All an understatement if we take into account the dimensions and size of these cars- which had been presented in 1935 with the denomination of Packard 120, with 8-cylinder in-line engines.

In 1937 a new model was presented practically the same but with a 6-cylinder engine -the 110-, and these Packard 110 and 120 were in production from 1935 to 1941, but just in 1938 they disappeared from the catalog. And it is not that they stopped being manufactured; It is only that that year, in addition to the redesign -or update- of the bodies, they were renamed according to the number of cylinders. Thus, the discovered car is a Packard Eight from 1938, although the following year the brand returned to recover the name 120.

packard eight 8 1938
Let's see how everything has been ...

The 1938 Packard Eight Discovered

The copy of the photos, it seems, was originally purchased in Portugal by a family of bankers and ranchers from Salamanca and was registered there. We do not know if it remained in the neighboring country until 1945 or if it spent several years circulating through Hispanic lands with Portuguese license plates, but the truth is that the beautiful Salamanca plate The one that now looks is from the mid-40s.

As far as we have learned, its original owner had a great fondness for the automobile, so all his cars were meticulously maintained ... and little used. The Packard shared a garage -in the center of Salamanca- with a Rolls Royce and several Mercedes Benz and BMW, almost all of them preserved today in the hands of different fans. The Packard was driven from its lifelong Salamanca garage even a rural shed about ten years ago, and there it has remained until now, on some studs.

The Packard must have had a residual use until the 60s, and the only testimony to this is the word of the descendants of that first owner and those non-original front turn signals. Otherwise the car is totally and absolutely original, including paint and upholstery. The first is salvageable and is very well preserved, except for some chips on the wings on the left side, probably caused by their proximity to the windows of the shed where it was stored. Under these chips you can see the different layers of protection that Packard gave to all its vehicles, the deepest greenish and the upper blue.

The upholstery however has suffered the attack of rodents, and especially the one on the roof is totally destroyed. The seats and carpets are in better condition, but they fray on the slightest touch, which can currently be considered useless. The dashboard however remains intact, and includes two options of the time such as the radio and the heater.

The chrome - except for the bumpers - are in very good condition and a cleaning will suffice. Even the brakes were not locked despite the long years of inactivity, and the state of conservation of this Packard Eight is so unusually good that it is advisable to be careful preservation restoring as little as possible, especially in the aesthetic section. Anything else would be to commit such a restoration improper as unnecessary, with which the car would also lose part of its value.

What do you think?

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Written by Francisco Carrion

My name is Francisco Carrión and I was born in Ciudad Real in 1988, a place that was not at first akin to vintage cars. Fortunately my grandfather, dedicated to the automotive sector, had friends who owned veteran cars and participated in the annual rally that was held (and continues to be held) in my hometown ... Read more

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