Packard: Ask the Man Who's Driven One

Packard's old advertising slogan used to be, "Packard: Ask the man who owns one." I happen to be a man who's driven one.

Driving someone else’s fully restored, concours-quality automobile worth about half the value of your house is a great honor and pleasure! Driving it through modern stop-and-go traffic while trying to change lanes is not.

And yet here I am, behind the wheel of the most incredible 1934 Packard Eight convertible that I’ve ever seen. You’d think that with it being painted such an extroverted two-tone green, other drivers would yield to your movements. But instead, I’m having to maneuver around some guy in a Nissan pickup who just has to have that particular spot in the line of traffic, and the woman in the Kia who just ducked into the lane in front of me and stood on her brakes. Hey lady, 4500 lbs of car doesn’t stop on a dime, you know. It’s obvious she doesn’t have a clue.

It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with on my daily commute to work, but today, I can’t help but sweat and worry a little, albeit with a huge grin on my face.

In a car like this, you’re somebody. You’re no average schmo driver. You’re the guy that adults wave to. You’re the guy to who kids point. “Whaddup, Al Capone!” yells a group of teenagers.


I could do this all day.

In fact, that’s exactly what I’d been doing all day. The owners were asked to show the Packard at a classic car show (along with some of their other cars), and needed it driven there. I’d spent about an hour driving it this morning, five hours fielding questions from bystanders, and was on the return trip when we ran into traffic.

In 1934, Packard introduced several improvements to their lineup and called the new cars the 1101 series. They were built on 136” wheelbases (in the case of this car), and powered by a 320 cubic inch straight eight engine producing 120 horsepower. The car I’m driving is a standard Eight model referred to as a convertible coupe. It’s color, a slightly yellow mint green with emerald green trim, is indeed a real Packard color combination. The cars featured such modern technology as a self-lubricating chassis, suspension ride control, and automatic choke. The transmission is a three speed, but only second and third are synchronized which means you don’t dare put it into first gear unless you’re at a complete stop. The flywheel on these must be massive!

Much to my surprise, it’s relatively easy to drive. You climb in over the running boards, and take your spot on a springy, leather bench seat. Despite the car’s massive length, you can easily reach over and touch the passenger door, so it’s only about as roomy as something like a Miata. Most of that space is taken up by an enormous steering wheel that probably measures two feet in diameter, and doesn’t allow for much knee space for leggy guys like me. Its thin rim and shiny black finish feel great in your hands, but the horn button and one of the three spokes completely block the speedometer positioned down by your right knee.

The gauges are lovely ivory pieces with beautifully machined grandfather clock-like indicators. You’ll find gauges for speed, oil pressure, engine temperature, voltage, and a large clock. The ignition switch is all the way to the right.

When you reach over and turn that key, a slow starter silently turns over the engine, which starts with little drama. The mechanic has set this car up wonderfully, and there’s no need to use the spark advance or choke adjustment levers located on the steering wheel.

I’ve been told that this car doesn’t like fast shifts, so I take great care as I reach out to find the black rubber knob on top of a very long shift lever. The clutch pedal goes to the floor, and I slowly move the lever all the way to the left, and back towards me for first gear. Through the shifter, I can feel the straight-cut gears aligning, and I give it a slight tug to get it fully engaged.

I let out the clutch, give it some gas, and the clutch releases in a very soft fashion. Despite the size and fairly lazy 7.00:1 compression, the engine revs pretty well. First gear is pretty short, so I reach for the shifter again, push down on the clutch pedal, and make the dogleg towards the dashboard for what I’m hoping is second gear, and not reverse. On the way there, I let the engine revs come down slightly, and slowly push the shifter into second gear. I’m thrilled when I let out the clutch and find that I was right! Third gear comes up quickly again, and the process is repeated once more.

Once moving, the car is relatively easy to drive. The cabin is filled with a mechanical song that is a combination of eight cylinders and gear whine, but it’s not offensively noisy. The large steering wheel made steering light and responsive (albeit with about 4” of dead space in the turn, and about 20 turns lock-to-lock), and the engine developed enough torque that I could leave it in third gear for pretty much the entire time, except for a dead stop. At one point, we were travelling an indicated 57mph down an interstate highway, and the car seemed happy to have maintained that pace for hours.

It’s no speed demon, though. Sixty miles per hour probably takes 25 seconds or more, and I couldn’t help but wonder if a tall 4^th gear would have been a great addition to newer cars.

The whole time you’re driving it, you can’t help but be aware of the size, though. There’s no zipping through traffic in this machine, and while the small side mirrors mounted to the spare tires are pretty, they’re virtually useless. You find yourself counting cars and colors via the inside rear view mirror, and making mental notes like, “After the second white car, I can change lanes.” And even then, you do it slowly lest you don’t see some idiot in your blind spot and punt him off the road.

Ventilation consists of two small doors, about the size of an envelope, cut into the cowl. Make no mistake, it still gets very warm in there. I tend to think the car did this to me on purpose, as it forced me to roll down the windows. Once I did, all that mechanical noise disappeared. I could hear the low rumble of the engine with a slight note of valve clatter, and it turned into the road-going machine that it was meant to be.

The car seemed to be talking to me, and together we channeled the spirits of those who had driven it over the last 77 years. I peered out over the long hood, and imagined myself pulling this stately car out of the Packard dealership. It was once someone’s dream car, and I hoped that somehow, their spirit still knew that someone was enjoying the car as much as they had all those years ago.

I know there was at least one spirit with me on that drive. My father’s two true automotive loves were MG TDs, and pre-war Packards. He never owned either one, but I know that, somehow, Dad was riding shotgun with me that day. Out of the corner of my eye, I could occasionally catch a glimpse of him wearing his tweed slouch hat, his elbow out the window, and through his thick beard, he was grinning even more than I was.

As I write this, the last of the dirt accumulated from the drive is probably being cleaned off, and the car prepared for winter hibernation. And while the car’s memories of this trip are being washed away, my memories of a day with this great car will stay with me forever.

I feel truly honored to have been asked to watch over this lovely piece of art for a while during its history, and I can’t thank the owners enough for allowing me the privilege to do so. 

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The Road That Used to be a Racetrack

The weather today in central Maryland is chilly and rainy. And, like any terrible parent, I'm standing outside our parked car with my 6-year old on a dead-end road in the middle of rural Carroll County.

So why am I subjecting us to this misery? Because we're there to listen to race cars. There's a great field of entrants today, and the sound of flathead V8s, modded small block Chevys, and Offey-powered dirt cars are enough to make any car guy swoon.

There's a great crowd on hand for today's racing action, too, and the smell of cheap hotdogs and soft pretzels wafts across the grandstands in a delicious haze.

Then I feel a tugging at my jacket. "Can we go now?"

Suddenly, the cars stop running and the crowd quiets. I open my eyes and, once again, I realize we're still standing out in the rain. I start looking around for the stands, the pits, all the modified race cars. But they're nowhere to be found. All that I see is a McMansion with a manicured lawn.

Where we're standing is the approximate location of what used to be turn three at Condon Raceway, just west of what is now Eldersburg, MD.

Years ago, I was talking to an older gent who mentioned there had once been a race track in that general area. Over the years, I never came across anyone else who knew about it, much less its true location, and it got shelved in my mind. A recent conversation with a car-guy friend reminded me of it, and I went in search of more info.

Condon Speedway was a third-mile dirt track oval that ran modifieds from 1953-1959. No one particularly famous ever raced there, yet for almost seven seasons, the men who brought out their cars and ran along the knife-edge of adhesion that is dirt track racing were heroes in their own right. Names like Mullinex, Morgan and Culp are still well known in the area, even if their history, and that of Condon Speedway, is not.

Sadly, the last remnants of the track have been long since erased from the landscape. But if you park along the gate of trees on Gina Court, take pause. If you squint through the daylight, you'll see the ghosts of a mechanic tuning a carburetor, a young man selling programs, and the sound of vintage cars powering their way to victory.

But if you smell hotdogs, odds are it's just one of the neighbors having a cookout.

Special thanks to Larry Jendras, Jr. for his patience in answering all my questions, and helping to keep alive the motorsports history of Maryland.

Arial view of Condon Speedway vicinity, 1995.
If you look closely, you can still see the oval's outline through the trees.

Photo courtesy of Google Earth.

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