1954 Packard Cavalier
So heres the story. My uncle buys some farm ground from his inlaws. On the farm ground is a barn. In the barn is a big ole Packard. The uncle doesnt want it. The inlaws cant remember where it came from, they think it probably belonged to a now deceased relative. No title. Nobody is sure how long it has been in the barn, but the plates are from 1969, so probably about that long. My hetero life partner and i couldnt stand to leave it in there. First we were going to swap in a 6.5 diesel and a 5 speed. Then we were gonna swap in a jag v12. Then we were gonna swap in one of the sbc's we have sitting around. Then we said berkeley it, get it out of here and posted it to CL.
So what you have is a 54 packard cavalier with a junk 327 thunderbolt straight eight and an auto trans. I have no idea if the tranny or brakes would work. It doesnt appear to be missing anything. I think all the trim is there, a lot of it is stainless and looks really good. The glass is all there and good. The dash and steering column is all there and good. The upholstery was attacked by a hoard of ravenous angry trash pandas and completely destroyed. The only good thing i can say is we vacuumed and lysoled it and i have sat in the car and didnt get a staph infection in my butt hole, so i got that going for me, which is nice.
I thought maybe there might a guy out there that needs a parts car, or whatever. Or swap in an engine and drive it. Whatever. It is a big cool car. Its got a straight eight flathead, you dont see those much anymore. Its got A pillar spotlights. Its pretty cool. And the price is way, WAY negotiable. So bring a trailer and go live our dreams of packardiness.
Carerra Pan Americana Challenge car anyone?
I didn't see a price in the ad. Where are you?
Price is $900 in the CL ad, he is in Ohio.
EvanB said:
Price is $900 in the CL ad, he is in Ohio.
Yeah, andy posted the ad without asking me what i thought it was worth. I think he went awful high on the price. If a person showed up with half that and a case of beer they would have a packard.
Thanks guys, still fumbling my way through this new board. Didn't notice the link.
Well, I need to stop looking at that. The grille alone has me thinking bad thoughts of resto-mods. The likelihood of that ever getting completed by me is negative 50%.
I REALLY need to stop looking at that. Or thinking about all the engines I have that would fit in there. Yeesh. And I have relatives in Dayton. Quarters look shot. How are the floors?
I keep coming back to this too. Dammit.
My late father - his first car was a straight 8 Packard. He sold it when joining the army during the Korean War. He swore the straight 8 was one of his favorite motors.
I used to know a guy who collected old Packards. He had a limo with a straight-8 that he'd take out from time to time. He did the "balance a nickel on the engine while it's idling" trick for me.
Oh, look! There's even a car club with that name. How cute.
dculberson said:
Well, I need to stop looking at that. The grille alone has me thinking bad thoughts of resto-mods. The likelihood of that ever getting completed by me is negative 50%.
You might notice in the pics that one side of the grille looks different than the other. Thats because when drug it home acouple years ago we cleaned up one side to see how much life was left in the chrome. It actually shined up pretty nice. We stopped there because shining all the chrome on a 54 packard would be quite a feet. There is miles of it.
volvoclearinghouse said:
I REALLY need to stop looking at that. Or thinking about all the engines I have that would fit in there. Yeesh. And I have relatives in Dayton. Quarters look shot. How are the floors?
All of the engines you have would fit in there. At the same time. I will get you an answer on the floors, i cant remember and its not stored at my house. Yeah the quarters are shot. Amazingly the doors open and close as good as a new car.
EDIT; There is a hole about 4"×10" where the drivers floor meets the rocker, the rest of the front is good. We never removed the rear carpet so i cant say about that.
If someone does buy it and doesn't want the motor, I'll swing by eventually wherever and pick it up!
Surprised no hot rod guys scarfed up that flattie 8.
The engine would need a full rebuild. We pulled the head and cylinders that had valves open when it got parked are really rusty. One had the valve head broke off. I assume that happened while running and thats why it got parked in the barn. But thats all just a guess on my part, i have no idea of the cars history for sure.
Its definitely a cool engine. If the car ends up at the scrap yard im going to keep the cyl head for a garage decoration. Its a four foot long slab of cast iron that says "Packard Thunderbolt" in big letters. How cool is that?
Nice. I'm glad I know how annoying it is to title a no title car in Ohio.
I can't believe it's not gone yet! That is so cool.
