Classic car collection featuring a 1936 Oldsmobile
A car enthusiast in New Port Richey, Florida, shared photos of his classic car collection despite selling some of his cars due to illness.
Fox – 13 News
- The 1934 Packard LeBaron all-weather cabriolet was designed to be driven by a chauffeur.
- Packard was synonymous with luxury goods.
Kevin Unger’s 1934 Packard LeBaron All-Weather Cabriolet is a “huge car” and runs incredibly smoothly.
That’s thanks to its 12-cylinder engine. This engine is the type that has powered many prestigious machines from an automaker known for its innovation and high-end products. The Packard name was once synonymous with luxury cars, and the cars were built in a large factory on Detroit’s east side.
“These are motors that will last a dime while you’re driving them. They sound like an electric car. You can barely hear them,” Unger said, describing the vehicles’ condition as near “stock condition.”
Although Mr. Unger knows quite a bit about this rare Packard, he would like to know more about who would buy this type of car, especially during the Great Depression.
“It must have been a very wealthy person who originally ordered this car,” he said, noting that the car was designed to be driven by a chauffeur, and it’s unclear whether its compartment was covered with a canvas top.
“It has a pretty luxurious cabin for passengers, but it’s not a car you’d jump in and drive to the grocery store,” Unger said.
The car has an unusual history, at least Mr. Unger, a 56-year-old medical executive from Fort Collins, Colorado, is well aware of, most notably having appeared in several Mexican films. However, ownership can only be traced back to June 1953 and has had several more recent owners, including the late noted car collector Mark Smith who purchased it in 2007 and returned it to the United States.
Unger bought the car from Smith’s estate at auction in 2023 for $123,200.
Mr. Unger has another Packard, a 1933 Phaeton, in his collection and would like to uncover the early history of his car, which has been difficult.
A plate on the back of the engine shows the date the car was delivered from Detroit to New York: April 11, 1934. Its history from then until 1953 is a mystery.
That’s no surprise to Robert Signom III, executive director of America’s Packard Museum in Dayton, Ohio.
He said many Packard records no longer exist because they were destroyed a few years after Packard merged with Studebaker in 1954. This has led to its own speculation about what was going on with the company.
Museums have unique challenges in researching Packard.
“In some cases, you hit a wall,” Signom said, suggesting some owners may not want their stories known.
While many people may know the name today, they may not fully understand what the Packard name once stood for.
“Packard was the most luxurious automaker at the time. Many people said Packard was America’s Rolls-Royce,” Signom said.
But 1934 happened to be one of the company’s lowest production years since 1920, Signom said.
The price of a car like Unger would have been considerable. He estimated the all-weather cabriolet’s new price at $6,435, which would have been more expensive than the average home and certainly more than the average annual income.
“At a time when this country’s economy is in tough times, the prices for these Packards are amazing,” Signom said.
Eric D. Lawrence is senior auto culture reporter for the Detroit Free Press. If you have any tips or suggestions, please contact us at elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.
