Packard Super Eight Convertible Sedan, 1940
Packard Super Eight
Packard Super Eight•
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Chassis No.: 13772130
Auction: Monterey 2018
Auction date: August 25, 2018
Lot No.: S45.1
$148,500 | Sold
- Exterior: Yellow
- Body: Convertible Sedan
- AACA Senior award
- 1st in class at Palo Alto Concours d’Elegance
- Formerly owned by Acadamy Award-winning screenwriter, director and producer Billy Wilder
- Purportedly used by Wilder to chauffeur Ginger Rogers and her mother to and from the set of ‘The Major and the Minor’
- L-head 356/160 HP engine
- 3-speed selective snychromesh transmission
- Column-mounted shifter
- Finished in Yellow with Tan top
- Dual side mount spares with metal cases
- Accessory mirrors mounted on spare cases
- Goddess of Speed mascot
- Painted steel wheels with chrome hubcaps and beauty rings
- Wide Whitewall tires
Once owned by Academy Award-winning screenwriter, director and producer Billy Wilder, it’s been rumored that this car was used to chauffer Ginger Rogers and her mother to and from the set of “The Major and the Minor” in 1941. Having earned an AACA Senior Award and First in Class at the Palo Alto Concours d’Elegance, the imposing nature of this large Packard is slightly tempered thanks to the passive, relaxed, cool quality of the light yellow paint and tan top. Inside, passengers are greeted in typical Packard fashion, with luxuriously padded seats upholstered with grained and styled coverings in a unique turquoise blue color with gray carpeting.
A wood-grain dashboard hosts a clock and gauges to monitor vehicle vitals, as well as the accessorial switches and knobs all upon a stylized yellow field set into the wood grain. Motivated by the venerable 356/160 HP L-head inline 8-cylinder engine, power is sent to the rear axle by a 3-speed selective synchromesh transmission with the “Handi-Shift” column-mounted shifter. Equipped with metal cased, dual side-mount spares with accessory mirrors mounted atop, the Goddess of Speed mascot adorns the top of the grille on this Packard.
Rolling on color-matched painted steel wheels with chrome hubcaps and beauty rings wrapped with whitewall tires, the details seem never ending on these Super Eights. Packard’s introduction of the One-Twenty would encourage the company to continue producing vehicles for the mid-price market as sales outpaced senior Packards by an astonishing 3.5 times. In 1938, the Six would supplant the One-Twenty as the bargain Packard, and by 1939, it would outsell all other Packards combined. Super Eights were an interesting model as they were the top model before entering the lofty world of 12-cylinder motoring and borrowed from minor-model Packards and senior-level Packards.
It’s no wonder the creator of a film titled “The Major and the Minor” would choose a Super Eight as his ride of choice.
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