Barn find, NEW PROJECT, Packard Hawk....Pics soon

Well I was out at one of my favorite old car wrecking yards today, when i Hear from the owner that the state has seized his land and all of his inventory. His yard has been in the same place since the 20's with the majority of his cars from the mid 50's, but now the land is considered prime realestate by the city, they want it for a new housing development.
So back to the topic, after a 30min bitchfest, the owner walks me over to an old barn, throws open the doors and pulls an old burlap cover off of a '54 or '55 Studebaker Golden hawk. Tells me that he was saving it for his retirement, but since the state wants everything crushed within 60 days, and since everything has been seized, he can't leagaly sell anything without facing big fines and jail time, He tells me to get back with a trailer and $1000 "donation" after closing and the car is mine.

Now this Car is 100% complete down to the supercharger and hub caps, only very slight rust starting in the front fenders and a half way decent interior for sitting in a barn for 30 years. So yeah, that is a preview of my newest project, haven't tried to see if it turns over, or if the motor is stuck and the only pictures I have are on my camera,Will have them developed tomorow hopefully. Sorry if this is a rambleing mess, just a little excited over this find.

 

...I'm patient...still waitin'...and waitin'...did I say I was patient?...

 

ok....so now im running through internet sites looking for pictures of a restored Goldenhawk from 55....and it looks like the 1st year was 56 for it. I am now very confused My car has the original fiberglass hood and front grill area, the numbers match on the motor to the car...but this car is not a '56.

 

Thats insane....how can people do that just come in and sieze some sh!t only to build more homes....that pisses me off esp to hear that they are crushing stuff off with in 60 days.....

 

Well on a good note...he has a federal court date in 2 weeks, if all goes well me might get a chance to liquidate all he has before the crusher comes through....if thats the case I will be posting a mass amout of pics for everyone to see. He has a lot of very rare cars still in the yard.

 

Ok, im a moron....I rechecked the Vin# and found out I have a '58 Packard hawk, not a studebaker hawk. Heres a teaser pic of what this car looks like restored.

 

All that info I wrote doesn't apply to the Packard...

They should have called it the Packard Catfish, though, it looks more like one of those than a Hawk. It's a lot more rare than the Stude - 588 made and that's it. At least it has the Stude 289 (is it supercharged?) so it won't have the understeer problems of the '56 GH. They're worth decent money, too, you still got an excellent deal.

My only suggestion would be that if you plan on any major changes, sell this and get a Studey version to cut up - those are a lot more common, I can even scrape one up here locally.



That's some nasty eminent domain law there - he doesn't get paid, they just take his land and all his property and that's that? The guy has lived there and paid taxes for years from the sound of it. Thats not the America I thought I lived in. Maybe we should set up a fund to help with his legal bills. It's crazy that he can't even sell his property to pay lawyers, etc.. They're not taking the land for a road or a school, but so someone can build houses and increase the tax base.

I think he has a shot of getting a favorable decision unless it gets appealed into the 9th circuit court. The way it stands now it was left up to individual states to handle, although if they get that new justice to the Supreme Court supposedly even that decision could be reversed.

Let's not let this turn into a major political debate though (off topic) - I think it's fairly safe to assume most of us here will agree this is pretty wrong. You might be able to get this on TV/radio, PM me if you want some suggestions on who to try to get a hold of.

 

Glad you got the car, but what they are doing to that yard owner really sucks. Hard to believe thay can take all his invantory and crush it without trying to sell it.

 

What yard is this?

 

Yes this is the supercharged version, the only plans I have so far are for a stock bodied, stock interior car, rebuilt engine and a set of torque thust II's...make a nice resto-rod out of it. And as far as the land issues go, it all started from his Ex-wife, who is a land developer, who claims she deserves the land in the devorce. its been a 2 year battle up until 2 weeks ago when the state got involved.

 

Denis McBride out in grantsville......

 

Women, can't live with 'em, can't afford OJ's lawyers. Someone posted that on here a while back....

 

Sounds awful lot like her new boyfriend is a state official in the housing development department.

Isn't there a law against crushing heritage or historically important vehicles, or desecrating buildings and other sites with historic significance?

 

Ya know i asked him that question....all of the "hystorical" parts of his land were burned down in '86 (used to be an old grass strip airport back in the 'teens to the 40's) and since none of the cars are licensed, the state classifies them as junk/abandoned, even though the are on his land.

 

If the owner wants to fight it, have him contact the Institute for Justice. They specialize fighting in eminent domain abuse.

www.ij.org

Institute for Justice
901 N. Glebe Road
Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203
p 703.682.9320
f 703.682.9321

 

Just a bit of info, every packard in 58 was supercharged.

 

Only the Packard Hawks were supercharged. None of the sedans, hardtops or wagons were.

 

Eminent domain sucks now because there is now precedent that says a municipality may seize land and resell it to an entity entirely in order to increase their tax base.

Why play host to a nasty old junkyard (or historic building!) when a shiney, new Wal-Mart will draw in lots of family-friendly businesses and make the city/township/whatever much more money in taxes?

He'll get paid - probably less than fair market value, though.

I think this has already been through the Supreme Court and lost - otherwise that's what I'd like to see Alito getting grilled on.

 

Packard Hawks are really wild cars, you're a lucky SOB! I think it'll look great with Torq Thrusts, but Astro Supremes get my vote.

There was a very good feature article on Packard Hawks a few issues ago in either Hemmings Muscle Machines or Hemmings Classic Car, sorry I can't remember exactly which at the moment.

Gotta love a car with upholstery on the OUTSIDE of the doors.



.

 

I love those fish mouthed bastards

 

True, it was the 1957 model year that all the cars had the supercharger. It was probably available in '58, though, if you asked nicely.

 

Somehow I Just KNEW when I first read your post that it would be MCBrides place , I was hoping it would NOT be but I just had this sinking feeling!!
That yard should be on the historical register or something --- certainly not crushed. Shit!!!
I was visiting that yard in the early 60's back when his Dad or Uncle had it --- wouldn't sell anything . He was an Electrolux vacuum salesman in SLC --found out that if you bought a vacuum cleaner from him he would sell you a car out of the yard.
There was a 34 Chev convert, complete except for the W/shield that I wanted so I bought a vacuum cleaner.
Now I was like 20 years old & married , working at the Ford dealer, making a whole $60 dollars a week, had a new mobile home , a year old (1960) Ford Convert, & an Olds powered 40 Ford Cpe so there was not much money left over---- had to put the vacuum cleaner on monthly payments-- now I couldn't afford the 34 that he had agreed to sell me minus the Engine , tranny & rear end for the princely sum of $25.00!! It was agreed that when the vacuum cleaner was paid off ( a year) I would then get the car.
Finally the electrolux was paid for & I contacted him about the car, Mr McBride was Hopping mad , told me to go take a look at the yard & What the Bastards from California had done a couple of weeks before.
I should point out that the yard was about 40 miles out of SLC , not fenced & no one was living there -- it was always unattended--had been for years.
I went out & saw that there were a bunch of cars GONE , a Willis coupe, 32 Plymouth Cpe, Cord sedan, several Model a's, 40 Chevy cpe, 41 Ford ,MY 34 CHEV, & some others I can't remember. Someone had come in with Flat bed trucks & helped themself to a pot full of cars. He ,as far as I know never found out who did it .
One thing they did not get was a complete almost pristine Oakland Roadster that was sitting in a shed that had pretty well caved in on the car--- I had gotten in a looked at it --but at 20 was too dumb to be interested in it .
I have somewhere a ton of pictures of cars in that yard in years gone by , both my kids grew up visiting the yard just to look -- My daughter would rather go to a junk yard than the zoo!!
Never was easy buying anything from there & last I saw it, (1990 91?) was still unfenced & open. I did get a 49 Merc body --most of it at least & the frame out of there at that time . Yes I bought it , Dennis even had a title for the remains. Was building it with & for for my son, when it got stolen out of my garage here in Las Vegas. stll have the Hood , Decklid & Dash for it .
There were some Incredible cars in there, sometime in the 50's I think a fire went thru & burned a lot of cars pretty bad, but it was still a dreamscape for a car lover.
I DO HOPE he wins in Court & can Save it & I WOULD contribute to a legal fund if it would help.
Dave

 

That would have been at least the second fire , there had been a fire that had happened prior to the 60's as well. At that time there was still a house & some other buildings on the property--no one lived there, but the buildings were there.
Used to be the skeleton of either a Stinson Reliant or a Staggerwing Beech sitting on the top of a little hill, & he must have collected every Cord he saw , there were Cord hulks every where, still a few chunks there in the 90's.
There were a number of late 40 & early 50's Packards , 2 dr & 4 dr , a 40's Pontiac cpe, the remains of another Packard Hawk, an almost cherry 55 Dodge hardtop, these are just a few of what I remember from when I got the 49 out of there in the 90's.
DAM SHAME --The whole MESS!!!!
Dave

 

Here is an article about it I found on the web.
http://www2.tooeletranscript.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=7955&Itemid=2

 

Ain't the Internet amazing?
Thanks Al !!

Dave

 

Man that really sucks I'd be so pissed if the city was seizing MY land that i had for a damn long time. Also congrats on the new ride, but I'd kinda feel bad for the guy since he was probaly looking forward to his retirement with that car..

 

That's just not right. The Government has NO right to take land and then give it to private corporations. If it's for a park or a public use, then it could be seen as okay. But taking someone's land to give to real estate developers? What, are we under a plutocratic dictatorship now? Wasn't there a big debacle over the Kansas Speedway and eminent domain before it was built?

Congrats on the car though.

 

The second fire, that was stated by some kids playing with fireworks, wiped out about 3 achers of his teens- late 30's collection of cars, said after that he had the whole group scraped. As far as the cords, he still has 3 or 4 bodys still kicking around in the yard, and one Cherry restored '37 supercharged Westchester cord sitting in his garage(can be seen in a few of the press photos from the '98 hot august nights show, along with 3 others, one owned by one of my highschool buddys dad) Like I said, the majority of his cars now are all late 40's to early 70's, with the bulk being in the mid 50's. If you ever wanted a 50's packard, stude, nash, hudson or any other off brand like that, he is the man to talk to. And yes, there are the remains of another packard hawk out there im going to try and get off him if he gets a chance to liquidate, along with a stude golden hawk with some pretty bad front end damage but it still has the packard 352 under the hood with all the supercharger stuff striped off and all of the goldenhawk specific interior stuff.

 

It would have been great and very interesting too have seen some pictures from that yard.

 

Oh for the love of God, don't cut that beautiful thing up. They only made 588 of those.
That is one of my all time favorite cars.
Good luck with it.