THE CHICAGO TWELVE: TIMELESS LINES

Packard produced only about ten five-passenger phaetons on the grand 1107 Twelve chassis of 1934. Vehicle number 731-11, offered here, was the second, and was delivered by Packard of Chicago on 28 February 1934. Historian Edward J. Blend, in his seminal book The Magnificent Packard Twelve of Nineteen Thirty-Four, recorded the original owner as Albert Harris, a prominent Windy City banker, financier, sportsman, and philanthropist, recorded in his 1958 obituary as “a powerful [voice] in shaping the city’s history.”

The Packard’s next known owner, Edward Eagle Brown, was president of the First National Bank of Chicago, and used it as his “summer” automobile; the “winter” car was the famous Duesenberg Model SJ town car built for Ethel Mars. (He was, it should be said, a lucky man.) Brown sold the Packard in the early 1950s to pioneering NBC weatherman Clint Youle, from whom it passed in 1973 to Bill Buddig, the renowned and beloved enthusiast from Illinois. In 2017 Mr. Buddig’s friends and fellow CCCA members, Lee Gurvey and Ray Levy, recalled the Twelve as being an excellent original car, down to a former owner’s monogram on the doors, that was driven and enjoyed as-is for some years. Mr. Buddig then endeavored to have his great friend Fran Roxas restore his favorite car in its original color scheme and options—an unusually easy task, given the Packard’s very intact condition. After restoration, the car was a CCCA Senior Premier winner, as well as First in Class at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

In 1999 the Packard was sold by the Buddig estate to the late Bill Jacobs, from whom it passed to a very private collection in Southern California. In 2017 it was sold from that collection to a longtime Packard enthusiast in Texas, who found the restoration still in overall excellent condition but nonetheless had Stone Barn of Vienna, New Jersey, freshen it cosmetically. Afterward the car joined its present owner’s distinguished stable in 2021. It remains in utterly magnificent order throughout, still with original frame, engine, and steering box, and accessories such as covered dual side-mounted spares, a correct Packard luggage rack and trunk, and the standard “feathered bail” radiator cap, choice of a conservative banker.

“Timeless Lines Add to Desirability” was how Mr. Blend captioned a photograph of the 1107 Twelve phaeton in his book. Known history, wonderful purity, and an impeccable restoration add even more to this car, making it one of the finest survivors from Packard’s greatest year.