It Took 21st Century Techniques to Restore One of the Iconic Classics of the 1930s

Apr 21

By David Conwill

History in books is important, but history in the form of relics makes those recitations of fact come alive. That’s especially true for the uninitiated, for whom things like the California Gold Rush, Gilded Age millionaires, the Roaring Twenties, pre-Interstate America, the Great Depression, arctic exploration, gender barriers, and coachbuilt bodies might be entirely academic if not for the preserved objects representing those times and themes.

This Packard is a relic encapsulating all of those things. Its first owner, Louise Arner Boyd, was a California millionaire and arctic explorer at a time when women, even heiresses to gold-mining fortunes, were not expected to do those things (See Hemmings Classic Car, #244— January 2025 or visit hmn.com/boydpackard for her story.) The continued survival of her car, a 1934 Packard Twelve Individual Custom Dietrich Convertible Sedan, is a testament to the company that built it and the desirability of its products even absent this level of provenance, plus an important means of rendering her pioneering but almost-forgotten story tangible to future generations.

The Packard Motor Car Company

Although perhaps best known today for the crumbling shell of its Detroit factory that was only recently removed from the city (hmn.com/packardplant), Packard was founded in Warren, Ohio, in 1899 by the same brothers who had previously founded Packard Electric (itself ultimately to become a part of General Motors and supplier of the vaunted “Packard 440” spark plug wires of the 1950s and ’60s). As wealthy men in the 1890s, they were as interested in the high technology and luxury goods of their time as comparable folks today. Back then, that meant the automobile.

Brother William Packard bought three, starting in 1898: two highly unsatisfactory French-built cars and a Cleveland, Ohio-built Winton, based on Winton’s good reputation at the time. Whether William purchased a lemon or not isn’t known, but it is known that his brother, James, on hearing of his brother’s misadventures driving the 50 miles home to Warren from the Winton factory and inspecting the machine himself, had numerous suggestions as to how it could be improved. Relating this to Alexander Winton, however, offended the automaker and led to the not-too-kind suggestion that if James thought he could do better, he should found his own car company. The brothers did so, driving their first prototype on November 6, 1899. Within a couple of years, the “Ohio Automobile Company” had taken on the name of its founders and investors had persuaded them to move their operation from Warren, Ohio, to Detroit, where that massive factory was constructed on East Grand Boulevard.

While Cadillac has long proclaimed itself “The Standard of the World,” in reality that claim was originally about engineering, not prestige. In the era before the Great Depression, true prestige in the U.S. market was held by three American nameplates: Pierce, Peerless, and Packard. The so-called “Three P’s” sold at a rarefied price point akin to Rolls-Royce. Only the most-expensive Cadillacs were in the same class, while Pierce, Peerless, and Packard had no lesser models or marques associated to dilute their prestige. It would prove a fatal flaw once the market crashed, but in the Aughts, Teens, and Roaring Twenties it was a boon.

Peerless was the first to go, succumbing almost immediately, in 1931. Pierce attempted to unite with volume-maker Studebaker (which resulted in the first Studebaker Land Cruiser—a kind of down-market Silver Arrow) but was spun off again in the latter’s own bankruptcy, winding down as a manufacturer of travel trailers and going defunct in 1937. Packard sucked it up and introduced down-market Packard-branded cars, eventually even reintroducing a six-cylinder model for 1937. The company weathered the Depression but for reasons that are still debated, went under in the 1950s, merging with Studebaker and then disappearing entirely after 1958. Some blamed the cheaper Packards for dragging down the whole operation, but it’s debatable if Packard would have survived to World War II without it.

Regardless, 125 years after its founding, high-end Packard products of the Classic era, 1915 to 1947, are certainly the collector darlings. It’s easy to see why, looking at a 1934 1108 like this one: luxury is everywhere, so is style and so is sophistication. All ’34 Packards received peaked headlamps to mimic the vee’d but still tombstone-shaped radiator shell (a Packard hallmark since 1904) and split windshield, but only a few were equipped with more than eight cylinders and fewer still received Individual Custom bodies like this. In fact, Louise Boyd’s Twelve is believed to be one of just a dozen (out of a total of 960 total Twelves built for 1934) Dietrich convertible sedans ordered on the long-wheelbase chassis. With a $6,555 list price then (over $150,000 today, when adjusted for inflation), it’s easy to see why few could afford a car like this during the worst years of the Depression.

The Packard V-12 Engine

“Unfettered by price limitations,” read the 1939 Packard Salesman’s Data Book, “the Packard Twelve reflects all that is best in Packard engineering, precision workmanship and quality materials. It is the result of nearly 40 years’ experience in building the world’s finest motor cars.”

It was, Packard continued, “built to meet the rigid requirements of those who can afford and insist upon having the finest things in life,” fully measured up to “the most exacting standards” and “for years” had been “the favored choice of first families both in America and abroad.”

The 1933-’39 Packard V-12 was a product of the “cylinder wars” of the early 1930s. When Packard began production at the turn of the century, most cars used single-cylinder engines or perhaps twins. The earliest Packards were singles, and in 1903 the company introduced an inline four, which it produced through 1912. Packard helped pioneer the straight-eight engine in the United States, introducing the nation’s first flathead straight-eight in 1924. Interestingly, that engine replaced a V-12, introduced in 1916 to replace the company’s first straight-six engine (released in 1913) and called the “Twin Six” to differentiate it from the outgoing “Single Six.”

From an engineering perspective in that era, a straight-eight was generally a preferable arrangement to a V-12. The hard part in the early days was making a crankshaft long enough to connect eight cylinders without winding up or breaking; the shorter crank of a V-12 is approximately the same length as that of an inline six, giving it relatively more stiffness. Once that was worked out, Packard dropped the twelve-cylinder idea until those engines came back in vogue with the 1930 Cadillac and 1931 Marmon V-16 engines, plus the 1931 Pierce-Arrow V-12. Peerless, already on the ropes, instead replaced its traditional V-8 engines with a supplier-built straight-eight for 1930. Even Franklin, typically known as a maker of expensive-but-lightweight cars, and Lincoln (previously a V-8 user) introduced a V-12 for the 1932 model year. Packard was the last to the party, bringing back the Twin Six moniker for 1933 and simply billing V-12 powered cars as “Twelves” thereafter.

The 1933-1939 Packard V-12 was an L-head engine with a 67-degree angle between the cylinders. The 1934 version displaced 445.5 cu.in. thanks to a 3-7/16-inch bore and 4-inch stroke, boasted a 6.0:1 compression ratio, and was rated 160 hp at 3,200 rpm. Its displacement fell between that of the Cadillac V-16 and V-12, but it easily outpowered the latter, coming within 5 cu.in. of the V-16. The Packard Twelve engine was smaller and less powerful than Pierce-Arrow’s 462-cu.in., 170-hp V-12 engine but surpassed the 448-cu.in., 150-hp engine of the Lincoln Model K. Mixing fuel and air on top of the Packard engine was a Stromberg EE-series two-barrel carburetor (the same series as the Stromberg 97 of hot-rodding fame) with an automatic choke, same as the Pierce-Arrow. The Lincoln also had a Stromberg, but it was a manual choke unit.

For 1935, the Twelve would go on to gain a quarter inch of stroke, raising displacement to 473.3 cu.in. In its final year, 1939, the Twelve was rated at 175 hp at 3,200 rpm with the standard 6.3:1 compression ratio or 180 hp with the optional 7.0:1-compression aluminum cylinder heads. The company would famously go on to produce an Americanized version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 during the war years, but when vehicle production resumed in 1946, the Twelve was gone for good and the six-cylinder was available only for taxi buyers. The straight-eight once again became Packard’s star player until the 1955 introduction of Packard’s fully modern, OHV V-8, a short-lived design that was nevertheless good enough in concept that Chevrolet contemplated buying its tooling rather than pursuing what was ultimately the design of the 348- and 409-cu.in. W-motor big-block V-8s of the late ’50s and early ’60s.

Dietrich

Raymond Dietrich turned 40 in 1934, and he was arguably at or near the peak of his career as a car designer at that point—but he no longer worked at the firm which bore his name. Born in The Bronx to an upholsterer, Ray was artistic from a young age and worked his way through school, landing at Brewster & Company in 1913 as a draftsman rather than a designer and seeing firsthand the improvisational tone that much of coachbuilding had at that time. He saw the future, however, that lay in blueprints, standards, and the other aspects of mass-production that had already begun to infiltrate automaking.

After World War I, Ray partnered with another Brewster employee, Thomas Hibbard, to start a freelance design firm. The intent was to propose designs to clients and then arrange with coachwork facilities to build the design on a contract basis. While both Dietrich and Hibbard are today well-remembered names, at the time both men were unknowns, so they opened their company with the name LeBaron, Carrossiers.

While LeBaron developed a reputation for itself and made a partnership with Locomobile in the Durant organization, long-term financial success eluded the founders. Hibbard quit, moving to Paris to co-found Darrin & Hibbard. In 1925, Murray Body Corporation, a major body supplier in Detroit, attempted to purchase LeBaron and relocate it to Detroit from New York City. When that didn’t work, the company made a personal offer to hire away Ray. Murray proposed to set up a new firm, Dietrich, Incorporated, and give Ray 50 percent ownership. Dietrich, Inc. would have its own factory, its own staff, and was guaranteed a lucrative contract to provide designs and bodies for Lincoln. Ford Motor Company president Edsel Ford even arranged for Ray to rent an apartment near his own home in Detroit. Dietrich resigned from LeBaron, selling his shares to a partner, and moved to Michigan.

The initial arrangement with Murray soon soured somewhat, as Murray executives apparently felt they’d been pressured into the deal as a personal favor to Edsel Ford. Murray had its own capable designer, Amos Northup, on staff already and shuffled off Dietrich to a corner of their existing plant and essentially ignored it. Ray persevered, however, staffing his operation with experienced friends hired away from LeBaron and within two years the new company was turning a profit and growing. Dietrich, Inc. quickly expanded from a niche supplier of semi-custom Lincoln bodies with work from various Packard dealers who remembered Dietrich from his time at LeBaron. In 1927, Dietrich took over all of Franklin’s design work.

Soon, Dietrich was supplying custom bodies for Chrysler, Dodge, Franklin, Lincoln, Packard and Studebaker chassis, plus semi-custom production bodies for Chrysler, Lincoln, Packard, and Pierce-Arrow. Building 18 to 25 bodies per week, or over 1,000 per year, Dietrich, Inc. was soon the largest semi-custom body supplier in the country. The firm became known particularly for its convertible-sedan bodies like the one on Louise Boyd’s car. A convertible sedan builds on the traditional touring car/phaeton model, replacing snap-on side curtains with roll-up glass windows for greater visibility and weather protection.

Interestingly, Ray Dietrich may have gotten a forewarning about the impending economic crash. The usually lucrative business of replacement bodies abruptly dropped by half in 1929, months before the October stock-market crash. When the crisis finally unfolded, Murray’s inclination was to radically downsize its subsidiary. Ray Dietrich’s objections cost him his job as company president in September 1930 and he was soon out entirely, working once again as a freelancer. Dietrich operations were removed to a Murray plant and Dietrich badges soon designated a body no different from a standard Murray convertible sedan or Victoria except that it was finished to a higher standard with more-expensive materials.

By 1933, Ray Dietrich’s 1929-vintage designs were considered increasingly out of date in the face of a sudden consumer preference for streamlined shapes—a process ironically kicked off by Amos Northup’s own design for the Murray-supplied 1931 Reo Royale body. Murray contracted with Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky to update the old designs inexpensively. De Sakhnoffsky managed to create an impression of greater length, in particular through the use of slanted windshields. For the same reason, he also favored discarding side-mount spares in favor of rear mounts, though not every customer (Louise Boyd included) opted for such a break with tradition.

For 1935, Packard introduced new bodies. With Ray Dietrich gone from his eponymous firm, Murray began to de-emphasize his name. Dietrich badges appeared on some 1935, 1936, and even 1937 Packard bodies, but the connection to the designer was gone.

Lost And Found

A Packard Twelve is never really “lost” but in the case of Louise Boyd’s car, its past had become buried. Just as a $100,000 luxury car from 2007 may be worth only $6,000 today, the market for even so fine a vehicle was greatly diminished by the time Ms. Boyd traded it in during the early Fifties. The San Francisco Packard dealer that took it in trade likely refurbished it to appeal to a younger market and until it fell back into the hands of collectors in the mid-1960s, it suffered a few indignities. Those early collectors, too, were less able to verify a car’s original equipment than we are today and more likely to view an old car as a blank canvas for self-expression on some level than as a piece of history to be restored exactingly for posterity. Consequently, by the time the car turned up at the Monterey Car Week auctions in 2019, it was considerably different from its original or current forms, both in terms of historical authenticity and sheer aesthetics. For one thing, it was very blue: blue paint, blue top, chrome wheels shod in black-wall tires, and a gray interior. For another, years of compromises and questionable restoration practices had degraded the originality.

Luckily, not long afterward, it joined the JBS Collection in Elkhart, Indiana. The collector-benefactor at the head of JBS is Jack Boyd Smith, Jr. Jack’s no relation to Louise Arner Boyd, but he certainly felt an affinity for the name, and he was very impressed by her credentials as a near-forgotten pioneering female explorer. If there’s one thing Jack demands of his collection, it’s that everything in it be exquisitely and exactingly restored. He immediately tasked the team at La Vine Restoration in Nappanee, Indiana, with tearing down the Packard, evaluating it, and putting it back together as closely as possible to how it existed during its most famous trip—a European driving tour emphasizing Poland and the surrounding countries just five summers before the German invasion of Poland set off World War II.

Some finds were rather pedestrian and expected with any old car: A replacement fender installed at some point of the past sprung out of shape when dismounted and had to be heavily metal worked; the dark paint visible in 1930s photography was determined to be black, thanks to certain areas having never been exposed in previous restorations. Other finds were quite shocking: Period images showed a distinctive but puzzling radiator mascot on the Packard that was long gone by 2019. Not only did they figure out that it must be a polar bear, to mesh with Louise Boyd’s arctic-explorer persona, but they actually managed to track it down in the collection of the Marin Historical Society in San Rafael, California, which is housed in the Boyd family mansion’s 1870s gatehouse. The original mascot was precisely 3D scanned and replicated in metal then painted in white enamel, just like the original.

Hard Work Rewarded

Five years after it came up for sale, Louise Boyd’s Packard Twelve made its triumphant return to Monterey Car Week as an entrant in one of the classes commemorating the 125th anniversary of Packard’s founding. Pitted against much brighter cars with more flamboyant coachwork, the conservative car of the nearly forgotten explorer did not place in its class but was honored with two special awards: the Gwen Graham award for “most-elegant convertible present” and the Briggs Cunningham trophy for “most-exciting open car present.” The excitement no doubt stems from its adventurous history and that of its first owner, while the elegance is certainly baked into any Packard Twelve and a worthy reminder that Louse Boyd wasn’t just an adventurer, but a society lady as well, who was a patron of the arts in San Francisco to the end of her life.

It’s reassuring to know that Louise Arner Boyd’s Packard Twelve has returned to factory fresh perfection and will be around for decades to come, telling the story of its first owner and of Packard’s place in motorcar history.

Alex Laniosz