My mother bought our first family car in 1948. I say mother bought it, even though Mom would in fact never drive a car in all her 94 years, because she was the family controller, CFO, and treasurer. So, after I had pointed out ad nauseam that everyone owned a car but us, she authorized me to see what could be bought for a reasonable price, by which, I sensed, she was talking about $200 or less.
The car I found was owned by a man a few blocks away, and at $150 I thought that Mom would agree to buy it. She did, and within a week a car was sitting in our driveway – where, as far as I knew, no car had ever sat before.
It was a red 1929 Packard convertible, with a rumble seat. The body was in perfect condition, and the eight-cylinder engine ran passably. The leather seats (including the rumble seat) were in good shape, but the convertible top was ragged. One of the features was a lever under the dashboard which, if pulled once a day, would lubricate various parts under the hood. That was the theory, at least.
A fuzzy line separates the two automobile categories “old” and “antique.” Motor vehicle registries use arbitrary minimum ages in authorizing special antique plates, but collectors have their own ideas on the subject. In 1948, a 1929 Packard was not an antique; it was just an old car, just as a 1987 car would be today. In 1948 they were still making Packards, which were upscale cars, like Cadillacs. There was no way to know that the Packard automobile would disappear from the landscape a decade later and that old Packards would become prized by collectors. (Moral: Save everything.)
Since the car had been bought at my urging, I bore the responsibility for improving the appearance. First, I painted the entire body black, adding a thin red stripe along each side. It was an amazingly good paint job for a non-painter. (I had guessed, correctly, that you couldn’t go far wrong with black.) Then I arranged for a local garage to replace the worn top with new black canvas. When the facelift was complete, the Packard looked like a million dollars (which, if I had been smart enough to mothball it, is not far from what it might fetch today).
Our first family drive in the Packard was a day trip to Hampton Beach. Dad drove, Mom sat beside him, and my kid sister and I sat in the rumble seat, praying that it would not rain. (If it did, we would be only slightly wetter than Mom and Dad, since there were no windows, only snap-on side curtains.) This was long before the interstate era, and we drove up Route 1, through Ipswich and Rowley, up and down the long, steep hills. The ups were barely manageable by the car, its eight cylinders straining to haul almost two tons of steel up each grade, but we made it to New Hampshire, where the grown-ups took in a band concert while the children headed for the penny arcade. Then the Packard carried us home in style, and I felt that my campaign to persuade Mom to spring for a car was vindicated.
Dad used the car to commute to work in a town west of Boston, and one day, on Commonwealth Avenue in Newton, a fellow driving a Ford made a major error in judgment when he tried to make a quick left turn in front of my oncoming father. It was no contest. The Ford was destroyed (the driver unhurt), while the Packard hardly had its hair mussed, the only visible damage a crooked bumper. It was an unfortunate occurrence, but my Dad took a perverse pride in our car’s imitation of a Sherman tank.
Not long afterward, the Packard died on Dad, this time in a Newton residential neighborhood, and that was it for him. He left it by the side of the street, took the T home, and announced that, as far as he was concerned, the car could rot in Newton. Next day, my friend Dan and I made our way to the abandoned Packard, and I raised the hood to inspect the situation. (I knew nothing about automotive mechanics, but I thought this was the thing to do – sort of like getting hot water when a baby is being born.)
In no time at all, a man who lived in a nearby house was at my side, asking if he could help. (Even then, a 1929 Packard convertible was irresistible to car buffs.) He guessed that a gasket on the fuel filter was leaky, but he figured that he could make a replacement out of cardboard. He ran to his house and came back with cardboard and a pair of scissors. Then, using the old gasket as a template, he fashioned a new one. I got in the car, turned the key, and presto, the motor was purring.
One problem: I did not have a driver’s license. Neither did Dan. But I had occasionally been given the wheel on Sunday drives, and I felt sure I could navigate the dozen or so miles home to Dorchester. And I did, presenting my parents with a conundrum: Should they be furious at me for driving without a license, or should they be grateful to see their Packard back in the driveway? Gratitude won out, as I figured it would.
Shortly afterwards I got my license (renting a Plymouth for the test), and we turned the Packard in to buy a brown 1937 Hudson sedan, a fine car that carried me and Dan to college every day, reliably and comfortably. It even had a radio, a luxury the Packard lacked, But that Packard had class, more in fact than any of us recognized at the time. I sometimes wonder what happened to it. It could have wound up in a scrap heap, a crushed cube of steel. Or it could be the centerpiece of an antique auto collection, somewhere in California or Saudi Arabia. One thing’s sure: They don’t make them like that any more.
