This one-of-a-kind 1938 Packard Twelve (Model 1608) Torpedo-Cabriolet by Kellner was custom built using the rear body section of a 1930 Renault Reinastella Torpedo Scaphandrier by the original owner, who is believed to be George “Geordie” Hormel II, heir to the meatpacking Hormel Foods Corp. and owner of the historic Wrigley Mansion in Phoenix, AZ. During the 1950s, this one-off custom Packard was at the Joy Brothers Motor Car Company in St. Paul, MN, undergoing a restoration that is mentioned in Vol. 3, No. 4 of The Cormorant (December 1957).
In the late 1950s, this custom Packard was purchased by J.B. Nethercutt, founder of the Nethercutt Collection in Sylmar, CA. He made a fortune in women’s beauty products as the co-founder of Merle Norman Cosmetics and used much of that wealth to assemble one of the world’s finest automobile collections. In 1961, this custom Packard was purchased by William F. Harrah, one of the pioneers of car collecting and a casino mogul, who had more than 1,500 cars in his impressive collection. The car remained in his collection for the next 24 years before it was sold during the Harrah Automobile Collection Sale in 1985 to Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s Pizza, who had his own world-class collection. The custom Packard was treated to a no-expense-spared restoration by Lon Krueger of Scottsdale, AZ. The car remained in the Domino’s Classic Car Collection until 1989 before joining the collection of Barrett-Jackson co-founder Tom Barrett.
After a short period, Barrett sold the car to the Blackhawk Collection, where it has been proudly displayed among some of the world’s finest collector cars and exhibited at the 2022 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. This is one of the finest, most significant Packards, and an automobile spectacular in history, performance and presentation. From the Don Williams Collection.
SCM Analysis
Detailing
| Vehicle: | 1938 Packard Twelve Torpedo-Cabriolet |
| Years Produced: | 1933–39 |
| Number Produced: | 32,000 (total Packard Twelve production) |
| Tune Up Cost: | $2,000 |
| Chassis Number Location: | Tag on right-hand side of engine compartment |
| Engine Number Location: | Machined pad on the engine block toward the back of the engine on the driver’s side |
| Club Info: | The Packard Club |
| Website: | http://www.packardclub.org |
| Alternatives: | 1930–37 Cadillac V12, 1930–37 Cadillac V16, 1928–37 Duesenberg Model J |
This car, Lot 1372.1, sold for $440,000, including buyer’s premium, at Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale, AZ, auction on January 27, 2024.
In and among the some 2,000 lots at Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale extravaganza this year were seven classics from the Don Williams Collection, honoring the long relationship between Williams and Barrett-Jackson CEO Craig Jackson. A name perhaps less well known to a younger generation, Williams was an heir to earlier grand classic collectors such as Henry Austin Clark, Bill Harrah and Tom Barrett. From a modest start selling classics on Los Angeles’ La Cienega Boulevard in the late 1960s, he very much grew up with the classic-car hobby, eventually joining Barrett and Russ Jackson before partnering with real-estate investor Ken Behring to create the Blackhawk Museum in 1981.
Breaking barriers
In typical understatement for someone who once owned more Bugattis than anyone and was the first to break the million-dollar barrier with a Figoni-bodied Duesenberg J, Williams disarmingly referred to himself as “just a glorified used-car fanatic.” Quick to see unmet opportunities, he held early collector-car expositions and auctions in Japan and Switzerland in the late 1980s, eventually taking them to China as well. Yet Williams always maintained a sense of humility. “Don was a real car guy,” recalled Amelia Island Concours founder Bill Warner. “He really cared about people; he was quiet in his demeanor, but incredibly strong in automobile culture.”
Williams’ keen eye for design as well as a respect for automotive milestones drove many of his acquisitions, including our subject car. “Don had always wanted the car,” says Blackhawk curator Brian Murphy. “Here, everybody stopped by to look at it — it was one of a kind.” Drawing most of that attention was Kellner’s patented Scaphandrier “torpedo” body, a sporting dual-cowl design developed by the Paris-based coachbuilder initially for its Boulogne-Billancourt neighbor Renault, where it was fitted to their 40 CV chassis as well as its successor, the Reinastella.
Scaphandrier is a French term normally used to describe a traditional steel-helmeted diving suit. Translated to body design, the three portholes on the diver’s helmet were analogous to the windows that surrounded the rear compartment, with the lateral windows set at an angle to a narrowed windscreen, giving it a rakish proportion that was emphasized by polished metal strips on the door caps. When combined with a relatively short fabric top that covered only the rear compartment, the proportions were more close-coupled than a traditional dual-cowl phaeton.
Proof in the provenance
If provenance is critical to a solid sale, then Williams’ Packard had it in spades, from J.B Nethercutt all the way to Blackhawk. Yet its history between its presumed creation and acquisition by Nethercutt is at once intriguing and frustrating. Many sources have attributed the car’s original ownership to George “Geordie” Hormel, grandson of Minnesota meatpacking baron George Hormel (and notably first husband to French actress and dancer Leslie Caron). Passion for Packards was a Hormel family trait; grandfather George passed his rare 1934 Packard Twelve LeBaron Runabout Speedster to son Jay and ultimately to Geordie.
Given that Geordie would have been only 10 in 1938, however, it seems unlikely that he was the car’s first owner. We don’t know when the Scaphandrier body joined the Packard chassis, but we do know from a December 1957 Packard Club newsletter that Geordie had at that time put the car in the care of longtime St. Paul Packard dealer Joy Bros. The article references the Packard components as a 1932 chassis, a 1937 engine and a 1938 radiator shell and front fenders, complicating its true timing.
As for the Kellner side of the story, its shops and records were collateral damage from a 1942 Allied bombing run on the nearby Renault plant. Peter Larsen, co-author (with Ben Erickson) of the fascinating and exhaustive The Kellner Affair, has unearthed no further details on the car’s backstory. As noted, Kellner’s Scaphandrier bodies were primarily developed for Renault (but also Hispano-Suiza and Rolls-Royce), so it is entirely likely that the rear half of a Renault body was at some point mated to the Packard chassis and front compartment — just as was done with a Duesenberg Model J that was given the same treatment. We just don’t know when (or where) this took place, though, Larsen says, “the style and design of the body is likely to be a 1930–1931 Scaphandrier design — not later.”
Cooling classics
That the Packard’s origin story begs further investigation doesn’t detract from its singular presence. Especially when compared to the more conservative designs from American coachbuilders for those few carriage-trade customers who withstood the depths of the Great Depression. Respected for their understatement as well as their engineering prowess, Packard Twelve Sport Phaetons of similar stature (though without the fancy coachwork) have fluctuated between $200,000 and $400,000. This example, though, combining lengthy ownership legacy, distinctive Kellner coachwork and strong Packard bones, seems especially well bought at $440,000, reflecting a cooling market for such rare and specialized classics. ♦
(Introductory description courtesy of Barrett-Jackson.)
