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Heads up, Larry~! 1930 birthdate for this Packard... 1910 birthdate for the driver....

80K views 301 replies 60 participants last post by  Brimjolt 
#1 · (Edited)


A PAIR Margaret Dunning of Plymouth, Mich., is 101 and her Packard 740 roadster is 81. She will be showing the car at the Concours d’Élégance of America this month.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/automobiles/packard-81-is-a-youngster-to-its-driver.html


Here is the video embed (finally figured it out)

:p




PLYMOUTH, Mich.

WHEN Margaret Dunning was 10 years old, she lost control while driving the family’s Overland touring car and careered into a barn, fracturing several boards.

“I hit it, and it didn’t move,” Ms. Dunning, who turned 101 last month, said.

“That car had a mind of its own,” she said. “And I’m not a very tall person, so I had trouble getting onto the brakes with enough power to hold that engine down. It just got away from me.”

Soon enough, though, she was back at it, rumbling around the back roads of Redford Township, just west of Detroit, where her family owned a sprawling dairy and potato farm. By then she had already been driving for two years.

Before the barn incident, Ms. Dunning’s father had often let his young daughter steer while he operated the other controls. One day he let her do it all, but not without a stern lecture.

“Do you know what you’re controlling here?” she recalled him asking. “Do you know the power that you’re controlling?”

“He explained to me how, for some jobs, it was better to use multiple horses,” she said. “But the minute you lose control, you’ve got wild horses to deal with.

“And that’s how he taught me about horsepower,” Ms. Dunning added. “And it stuck with me.”

After that, Ms. Dunning, an only child, drove everything on the farm that was drivable, she said, including a Maxwell truck and eventually, tractors.

When she was 12 her father died, and his Model T Ford became hers.

Once her politically connected mother, who had arthritic feet and could not drive cars, finagled a driver’s license for the 12-year-old Margaret, she drove her mother everywhere. Her mother drove the farm’s four teams of horses.

“If you had just a little knowledge and some baling wire and bob pins, you could keep the thing going,” she said of the Model T. “It was the little car that made America.”

She cherished her time in the car alone, reaching into the wind for roadside stalks of fragrant sweet clover. “I’d see a few friends or race past a blind pig,” she said, using the euphemism for Prohibition-era drinking establishments. “Before I could get home, people would be calling saying, ‘I think I just saw Margaret, with quite a dust pile behind her.’ ”

In those days there was something else in the air: the excitement spawned by a burgeoning auto industry. Henry Ford not only led that wave, but to the Dunnings he was a friend and neighbor who lived minutes away.

“Dad would come in and say, ‘Well, Henry’s outside and I’ve asked him to stay for dinner,’
” she said. “Mom had made huckleberry pie and offered Henry some.

“He said that was his favorite pie — I think he was being polite, but he was marvelous just like that.”

She added, “He always wore a hat with a sizable brim and a black band, and he’d push it off his face when he talked to you, and looked you right in the eye.”

Ms. Dunning, who never married, attended a private high school in Wellesley, Mass., before enrolling at the University of Michigan, intending to study business.

“When I was little, Mom asked me what I thought I wanted to do for a living,” she said. “I told her ‘to buy and sell.’ I think that surprised her.”

She dropped out of college during the Depression to help at her mother’s real estate business and later had successful turns in banking and retail.

All along she supported her beloved town of Plymouth, where she has lived in the same home since she was 13. In the 1940s she and her mother donated property to establish what is now the Dunning-Hough Library. She has also donated more than $1 million to the Plymouth Historical Museum.

Her love affair with vehicles never waned. She drove a truck as a Red Cross volunteer and has owned a parade of classic and antique cars. At her home, she also keeps a 1931 Ford Model A, a 1966 Cadillac DeVille that she often drives to car meets, a 1975 Cadillac Eldorado convertible and her everyday car, a 2003 DeVille. A battered Model T steering wheel is her garage doorstop.


But her real love is a cream-color 1930 Packard 740 roadster, which she has owned since 1949. She plans to show the Packard at the Concours d’Élégance of America in Plymouth on July 31 .

“I saw a for-sale picture and I was a goner right then and there,” Ms. Dunning said. “The guy said his wife had told him they had to get a closed car if they were going to have children. It was raining that day in Detroit when it came in, I remember it well. It sat in a carrier all by itself.”

Ms. Dunning cannot recall how much she paid for the Packard, and said it was unclear how many miles were on its in-line 8-cylinder engine. The Packard had not exactly been pampered, she said, before it was fully restored by a friend.

“It had been through the boot camp at some Army places during the Second World War,” she explained. “In those days soldiers wanted something to drive from camp to their new city, and they loaded them with other soldiers and ran the dickens out of them.”

Since it was restored, the Packard has mostly been a show car, although Ms. Dunning used to drive it more often than the three or four times a year that she takes it out now. “It’s always been a car that I’ve kept separate from other cars,” she said, adding that she has owned other Packards.

“They’re just made out of such fine material,” she said. “I love the engineering that went into it. There’s just a lot of very, very fine workmanship.”

Packard, an upscale brand produced from 1899 to 1958, ushered in several innovative designs, including the modern steering wheel. Ms. Dunning’s roadster was built in Detroit in an Albert Kahn-designed factory complex, now abandoned, that covered 3.5 million square feet and once employed 40,000 workers. In addition to the luxury vehicles, the factory turned out engines for World War II fighter planes.

Ms. Dunning still changes the oil herself, but mostly relies on a small maintenance team that includes a 90-year-old friend. “His hands are just magic,” she said.

Her car has black fenders and a red leather interior with a cigarette lighter, map light and glove compartments on each side of the dashboard. The windshield pushes outward, and there is a rumble seat and storage compartment in back. The transmission is a 4-speed — manual shift, of course.

All these years Ms. Dunning has kept her Packard’s original key with its elaborate crest. For her recent birthday, some friends duplicated the prized key.

“I was thrilled to death to have another one,” she said. “If I had ever lost the one I had, the locksmith would be out here for a week, and I still would not have that crest,” she said.

Ms. Dunning, who belongs to several car clubs, including the Michigan Region Classic Car Club of America, said the Packard has never given her much trouble, although there were times she had to deal with vapor lock, when the gasoline gets hot and evaporates before making it through the carburetor.

“You wait until the car cools off, restart it and off you go,” she said.

“I’ve never run out of gas with it,” she said with a chuckle. “That’s the famous thing to do with old cars. You’re so busy trying to keep everything else in shape, you forget about the gas.”

She said she was looking forward to the concours because she had not shown the car in years. “And it’s just such a pleasure to revive old memories, people I haven’t seen in such a long time.”

Having experienced the horse-and -buggy and Model T days, Ms. Dunning is amazed by the technology and styling of contemporary cars, she said. She is considering buying another vehicle, but she does not know what yet. “It’s just so much easier to drive now because of power steering and brakes,” she explained.

“With the older cars you have to use what I call arm-strong steering. But cars like the Packard make it all worthwhile. I love that car a great deal. I mean, I honestly do love it.”
 
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#168 ·
^

Nicely stated and does take the Concours more down to earth for the rest of us. And happy to understand now that the Hawaiian shirt is your calling card!

Seems there was some pic of you dwarfing your MarkII wearing that signature bit of clothing.

Can't find it right now.

At any rate, great explanation for the whole mix of what happens in the outdoor setting and thanks a bunch for that.

 
#175 ·
^

Nicely stated and does take the Concours more down to earth for the rest of us.
I am the rest of you. I earned my fortune one light bulb at a time. I'm an electrician that has an 8'6" reach, flat-footed. I was the guy that pulled rope through the attics of what seemed like a million new homes in the building boom of the '70s. I got to hang all the light fixtures, as I didn't need a ladder. My boss hired a helper for me when I was still a young apprentice, to clean up after me and keep me supplied with things that kept my hands up in the air.

I started this lighting installation and maintenance business 34 years ago. My claim to fame is that I've been in business that long and have never been sued. Changing light bulbs has been very, very, good to me.

The beauty of the Concours experience is that you get to rub elbows with the rich and famous, without being either.
 
#170 · (Edited)
Speaking of the Flyer. Nice to see Lady Wolk in the news again.



Barry and Glynette Wolk, of Farmington Hills, will return to the Concours this year with their 1933 Continental Flyer, built by the Continental Motor Company, which is now famous for its aircraft engines.
The car was only built for one year with about 1,700 made. Valued in the scrap drives of World War II because of its unusual all-steel body, most were destroyed. There may be 10 of them left in the world.
“This is a 50,000 mile, unrestored ‘survivor’ in excellent shape that my husband, Barry, has been driving on a regular basis,” said Glynette Wolk. “Although it’s a very small car, the original owner was 6-foot, 9-inches tall. We are the third owners of this 77-year-old beauty.”
The Wolks, in prior years, showed their 1956 Continental Mark II convertible and their ‘55 Porsche Continental cabriolet at the Concours.
“We’re excited about having another opportunity to participate in the Concours and hang out with ‘car people,’” said Glynette
http://www.hometownlife.com/article...-revs-up-Concours-d-Elegance?odyssey=nav|head

Man, that car is in excellent shape and gorgeous. You've really shined it up!

(and of course, Lady Wolk looks great as well)

:wave:
 
#173 ·
If you watch the Stout Scarab video VERY closely, you can detect the slight lack of straight-line stability that one might expect from a car with a severe rearward weight-bias, likely a very far forward center of pressure, a narrow track, a solid front axle, and bias-ply tires running at high pressure. The driver looks like he's almost veering from side-to-side a few times, almost as if he's driving an early VW Microbus at top speed. :laugh:

Jeez how I love rear-engined cars, warts and all! :)
 
#174 ·
If you watch the Stout Scarab video VERY closely, you can detect the slight lack of straight-line stability that one might expect from a car with a severe rearward weight-bias, likely a very far forward center of pressure, a narrow track, a solid front axle, and bias-ply tires running at high pressure. The driver looks like he's almost veering from side-to-side a few times, almost as if he's driving an early VW Microbus at top speed. :laugh:

Jeez how I love rear-engined cars, warts and all! :)
heh, heh... that's funny, Larry and I believe you are right about the video.

I thought it was part of the whole "other worldly effect" that was being highlighted in that presentation. That and the jerky movie frame jitters of the era.

I didn't even consider the damn thing might have been on the verge.......early VW microbus!!!???

Whoa.. now you talking some serious drivability challenges.

And I can't say I really love that rearward weight shift. Sort of like driving something attached to the hammer of Thor in the back and it keeps wanting to throw you off center like it's got a mind of it's own.

(at least the Scarab wouldn't have had the additional problems of cross wind barn door status that the microbus had)

:D

 
#176 ·
Back OT.

My wife and I were in Birmingham, MI for a public sculpture unveiling in front of a building owned by our financial management group. At the feast they provided we started talking to an attorney that is on their board of directors. It turns out he's also her attorney, and lackey. He's been in that Packard many times. She's had as many as 21 cars, buy now just has 7.:rolleyes:

He told me to drop his name when introducing myself. I will do so. Maybe I'll catch some video I could post. He said she is quite the lady.

 
#177 ·
He said she is quite the lady.
At 101 years, that picture, and her body language, tell the whole story. She must be one helluva lady.
 
#180 ·
Jeff James,

I notice that you live in Jacksonville. You should make it a point to attend the Amelia Island Concours in March. I would say it's tied with the show this Sunday as the second-most prestigious concours in the country. Bill Warner finds the best race cars and mixes them in with all other means of transportation. It would be the best $20 you'll ever spend.
 
#181 ·
Thanks much. I was noticing that the Amelia Island tag seemed to come up a lot on the Image tags.

Appreciate the recommendation. And now that the Concours shows have been discussed and elaborated on, I can see that this would be quite playground of paint, metal and style. Beauty contests are just what I could appreciate.

And just so I don't push my noob status by talking too much, here is my contribution to OT.
Published today and gives some local color to driving back in the day.

Ms. Dunning likes the finer things in life that you can put your hands on, feel and touch.



Margaret Dunning unlocks the storage compartment in her classic Packard.

Car talk: Concours d'Elegance of America brings classic autos and their stories to Plymouth


You'll hear facts and figures, stats and stories from classic car owners Sunday, July 31 at Concours d'Elegance of America on the grounds of The Inn at St. John in Plymouth.

But Margaret Dunning may be the only exhibitor who can tell you firsthand experiences about driving a classic car back in the day.

“I had a 1930 Packard. Mine was a sedan. When I thought of wanting a show car, I said it's going to be a Packard,” said Dunning, 101, explaining why she bought the cream-colored 1930 Packard 740 roadster that she'll show at the elite auto show this weekend. “I love Packards. I'm a staunch supporter of them. It's the fine mechanical engineering of it and the excellent quality material it's made from. They only used superior parts.”

The Plymouth resident will show her 1930 convertible classic Packard at the elite auto show, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. In addition to the Packard, which she bought about 60 years ago from a family in New Jersey, Dunning owns a 1966 Cadillac DeVille, which she drives in the Woodward Dream Cruise every year, a 1975 Cadillac Eldorado and a 1931 Ford Model A.

She belongs to the Classic Car Club of America, which defines classic cars as fine or distinctive autos produced between 1925 and 1948.

“It's a pretty big tub, I'll tell you. It's a very nice ride,” Dunning said Monday, as her friends and fellow vintage car owners, Dan Clements of South Lyon and Lloyd Leach of Northville helped to prep and polish the vehicle. “Nice appointments. That's what makes it different, nice appointments.”

INTERIOR

Behind the red leather seats, which were re-upholstered four times before Dunning owned the car, is a storage compartment that locks. The dashboard includes a clock, map light and glove compartments. Knobs, including the handle of the four-speed transmission stick shift, are fashioned in an ivory finish.

“These were all special when you bought the car. You had to dish out a little more. This is ivory, too, but I've had my fingers on them so many times they've turned black,” she said, indicating to a pair of knobs on the steering wheel. One regulates the gas in lieu of using the foot pedal and the other turns on lights.



The emblem afixed to Margaret Dunning's 1930 Packard indicates it was a first prize winner in classic car competition. “Those are handed out very gingerly,” Dunning says.
“All the cars had spotlights at the time, although you paid dearly for them.”

Jewels on top of the headlights glow green when the lights are turned on. A locking side compartment on the exterior of the car is perfect for golf clubs, Dunning said. A red leather covered rumble seat accommodates two additional passengers.

The driver can grease the suspension components from inside the car by pulling a handle to activate the Bijur lubricating system.

“Today they have neoprene bushings and stuff like that and they go on forever,” Clements explained. “Back then, you couldn't just change those. So you had to put grease in all the fittings.”

The “straight-eight” (cylinder) engine gave it power that many other cars of its day didn't have, Dunning said, adding that she was able to get “a little better than 90” miles per hour out of her own Packard 80 years ago.

YOUNG MOTORIST

Dunning began “driving” from atop her father's lap, helping him steer the wheel as they travelled the dirt roads around the family's farm at Plymouth Road and Telegraph in Redford. She was eight years old when she first drove on her own.

“I put it into the side of the barn once. I wasn't tall enough to get myself down to the brakes. It wasn't a real disaster. I My dad never said anything about it,” she recalled the accident.

At 12, she started driving on a regular basis in a Model T Ford. Her mother was in the passenger seat the first time she took the car for a trip to the Upper Peninsula and around Lake Michigan to Chicago, Ill.

Although families often took their touring cars out on summer evenings to cool off before retiring for the night, youngsters preferred to race on the area's gravel roads. In winter they'd spin their cars on icy Phoenix Lake near Five Mile and Northville Road.

“You were hoping nobody told on you while you were out,” Dunning said, with a laugh. “Mostly we raced. When you took Beck Road across and got to the railroad tracks, they were up quite high. The grading went up, very abrupt. We'd get up there at the top of that thing and shoot right off. We'd come down on all four wheels and we'd see how far we could go.

“Sometimes cars would tip over. Some got killed. It was kid stuff, but it was bad, bad business.”


Dunning encourages car show visitors to ask about her car, its history and her driving experiences. She enjoys sharing stories, but asks that adults and children keep fingers off the vehicle. Fingerprints leave salt which eventually can lead to rust.

“I like to look a the other cars. I'm always exhilarated to see something new. The people are very interesting and they are very nice most of the time.”
http://www.hometownlife.com/article...autos-their-stories-Plymouth?odyssey=nav|head
 
#182 ·
Thanks, Jeff.

Ms. Dunning. She looks like she enjoys herself. Sassy and classy.

Man, she's got some energy about her.

:p



Margaret Dunning will show her 1930 Packard — complete with red leather rumble seat — at The Inn at St. John's in Plymouth.
Concours d'Elegance of America
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, July 31
Where: The Inn at St. John's, 44045 Five Mile, Plymouth
Tickets: Include free off-site parking and shuttle, admission and souvenir program; $25 per person, free admission for children 12 and under. Buy at the gate or online at concoursusa.org
Details: More than 200 vehicles on display, including high performance “Super Cars,” a set of 1933-34 Auburn V-12 Salon cars, historic Indy racers, Lincolns, Ridler Trophy winners from Autorama, Continentals, the first 125 years of Mercedes Benz, scooters, mopeds and more. Auto-related art will be on exhibit. Contact: (248) 643-8645
 
#183 ·
And..........something different. The Ghost Car.

Featured at the 1940 world's fair. On display at St. John's

 
#185 ·
My mistake. It had been on display at Meadowbrooke back in 1996.

Arriving at St. John's for the RM auction.

 
#187 ·
And I thought that it was going to be cool to watch my 74 year old father drive his 74 year old Packard when the restoration is finished this fall. It is really neat to see that she is still willing to drive a car that for all intensive purposes is pretty hard to drive, no power steering or brakes and a transmission like a dump truck, with most likely a curb weight over 4K. My dads 37 is a handfull just trying to get it turned around in tight spaces at 3600 lbs so I can only imagine what a longer heavier version would be like.
 
#188 ·
A '37. Best year for Packard to that point in their history, according to this article.

Would love to see pictures of your dad and his Packard (in what ever state of restoration or pre-restoration state you'd care to post)

Packard got all excited that year and it seems that they may have used this as one of their promotional pieces.

:D



A bevy of beauties flank and fondle the new 1937 Packard.
Seldom did the Packard Motor Car Company use swimsuit models
to stage new cars, but this rare shot seems to capture the fondness
the general public held for Packard in its best year.
Packard was riding high in 1937

1937 was a very good year for the Packard Motor Car Company. In fact, it was its best.

Sales were hot. Styling was grand. Appointments were superb. Packard was one of the most desired names in the public mind. The only other automotive name that grabbed the attention of the citizenry with any similar degree was Ford, a name relegated to the lower-price field of cars. Not so with Packard. If there was any name that represented royalty among cars, it was Packard.

More than a thousand distinguished families in America claimed Packard ownership for 22 years or more. Such impetus churned the public to covet a Packard. Didn’t matter what stratum of society a person inhabited. This was the car to adore and respect with legendary honors.

That especially was the case in 1937 when the Detroit-based company introduced its Six. With its launch, the Packard name was accessible to anyone who could afford to buy a new car. Priced below $1,000, the Packard Six carried all the design traits that the public demanded in a conservative, stately car. It was just smaller, less powerful and not as fancy. But it looked every bit a Packard. No one denied its lineage. If a buyer was contemplating a Ford, Chevy or Plymouth, less than a couple hundred dollars separated that choice from all the good graces a Packard Six delivered to the buyer’s curb.

Every new Packard for 1937 carried a frontal appearance that resembled timeless classic Roman or Greek architecture. Reminiscent of ancient columns, long grille louvers automatically opened or closed to regulate radiator temperature on senior cars that boasted straight-eight power and simplicity or V-12 elegance.

If a buyer craved more than the Six, the next step was a One-Twenty powered by the company’s smallest straight eight. The car offered huge benefits in the slightly more than $1,000 range. This was the car for rising executives and women of increased influence. It commanded respect on the road. Dealers made owners feel special as an investment on the future. With the sale of every One-Twenty, Packard officials hoped the buyer would be successful enough to soon trade it on the next step in the Packard stairwell: the Super Eight.

Priced at $2,300 on up, the Super Eight was a larger, roomier car, manly in most respects, but sufficiently outfitted to attract the longing eyes of women who preferred quality in fit, finish and tactile appointments. “Open the hood to sell the man; open the door to sell the woman,” ran a saying among Packard salesmen. The Super Eight delivered as much power and speed as most drivers of the day wanted and most roads of the time allowed.

Economy was not a major concern if you could afford a senior Packard, but it lingered as a small issue amid the up-and-down years of the economically challenged 1930s. A Super Eight, properly tuned and maintained, then driven conscientiously, could be expected to deliver 12 to 18 miles per gallon under good driving conditions.
http://www.oldcarsweekly.com/article/Packard_was_riding_high_in_1937
 
#204 ·
Plenty of eye candy in here! Anyone out here on the other coast ought to try to make it down for the annual Packards International show held each January in Orange, CA.

My favorites so far are the blue '34 streamliner and the following example (the split windshield really does set that design off!):



I know it's the wrong year, but I figure you all might like this photo I took a while back. You can get the full-res version by clicking the image.

 
#236 ·
If you ever get the chance, come up to the Forest Grove Concours some time. This years was 2 weeks ago. There are always several Packards there on display. They are astonishing to see in person.
 
#210 ·
Duly noted.

Barry, this is great. I'm getting an online education in something I've always been curious about.

Not the same as the real thing, obviously, but very helpful nonetheless.

If you've seen one Packard... well, you definitely haven't seen them all

:p

The photographer in me wants to know what you were shooting the pics with and whether you were using any filters. Looks like somewhat difficult shooting in strong sunlight but that's when the show is happening and you probably shoot when you can.

And you have shot an awful lot of Packards. Thanks!

Love the red.

 
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