Packard’s Fourteenth Series of 1936 saw the company’s final true phaetons and touring cars, most prominently built on the Senior Super Eight and Twelve chassis in ever-vanishing numbers, as the market for such wonderfully impractical open styles had all but dried up in The Great Depression. They had largely been replaced by more conservative convertible sedans, except among the wealthiest families who could still afford to keep a phaeton at the summer place. Accordingly, the surviving open 1936 Twelves are among the most desired of their kind.

The car offered here was reportedly acquired in the late 1980s from the Packard-collecting McGowan brothers of Branford, Connecticut, by respected enthusiast Bill Lassiter of West Palm Beach, Florida. Mr. Lassiter’s in-house restoration shop, led by Jack Dietz, undertook a full restoration of the Packard. Reported to have been acquired for the collection as a standard phaeton, with a body purportedly transplanted from a Super Eight, during restoration it was fitted with a second cowl and windshield, as well as new vehicle number and body tags to suit the Sport Phaeton configuration. The body was finished in the iconic color of Packard Cream with red striping over a tan leather interior with matching carpets, and accessorized with wind wings, a driver’s side C.M. Hall spotlight, covered, side-mounted spares, and the classic Packard Cormorant mascot atop the radiator.

After restoration the car won an Antique Automobile Club of America National First Prize and the Classic Car Club of America scored it a perfect 100 points, both in 1993. It spent several years as one of the premier automobiles of the Lassiter stable.

When he dispersed the majority of his cars, Mr. Lassiter sold the Packard in 1999 to Lew Lazarus, the once-prolific vintage automobile trader in Illinois. Several years later it was briefly part of the famed John O’Quinn stable in Houston, Texas, before being acquired by the Petersen Automotive Museum in 2005. Displayed in the Petersen for the last 20 years, including some time as a feature of the Vault, its restoration is older but still highly attractive, with the interior in particular remaining in excellent order and less than 68,800 miles recorded at the time of cataloguing. After sorting, the Packard would prove a tempting entrant for various regional concours as well as CCCA CARavans, where it would provide excellent, comfortable open-air driving pleasure.

It is a beautiful machine, the very vision of a classic Packard.