Even though production moved to Detroit, Michigan soon after the dawn of the 20th Century, Packard tops my list of Ohio’s finest products, and the motorcars they produced in the 1920s and ’30s rate among the world’s finest horseless carriages of the day. This 1934 Packard Dietrich Victoria in Plainfield, New Jersey seeks an owner from a shallow pool of buyers qualified to complete a project of this significance. The auction listing here on eBay needs a $70,000 bid to get the ball rolling, and at least that much more in the restoration effort.
Today, if you factory-order an Aston-Martin or Bugatti, your personal choices may result in a truly unique vehicle truly unlike any other. Coach builders like Dietrich provided buyers unconstrained by budget even more options. Once you selected the Packard chassis with the wheelbase and powertrain to suit your needs, the à la carte experience continued with myriad body configurations and interior appointments. Eighty years later, your chances of finding a Dietrich-bodied Packard in a local wrecking yard are akin to sharing a Manhattan cab with Pope Francis. Even if you did find one, the custom-formed body panels wouldn’t fit your car, so you craft wooden bucks and bend, form, stretch, and shrink flat sheet metal to the necessary shape of the missing panels.
Speaking of interior appointments, this one seems mostly a blank slate, offering the new owner an opportunity to put on airs (within reason) to consider the tastes of 1930s rich and famous Packard owners.
Knowing the fabulous Packard V12 powered this stunning Dietrich-bodied convertible may further torment anyone already itching to click “Place Bid,” at their probable folly. This article at Hemmings described the task of rebuilding one as requiring “a lifetime of experience.” For those lacking in the knowledge and parts inventory required, the seller offers a more complete Packard V12 engine for additional cost. The 445.5 cubic inch twelve made 160 HP and 322 lb.ft. of torque at as low as 1,400 RPM. Finishing this project cannot be done (well) on a learn-as-you-go basis. However, in time, it will become a rolling beauty once again. What do you think about this example of Ohio’s best?
Wow, Todd, that’s quite a find! Proof that true classics are still out there.
I wonder why the seller’s not including the complete V12 in the deal – another Packard in the garage, perhaps?
Hopefully, it will be faithfully restored by an owner/driver.
Greed is all it’s about on the extra engine
Yep! Just ask a man with a HEMI
The asking price is high considering work needed to restore. Contact Packard club for name of expert restoration shop, and have DEEP pockets. But what a car in the end
I live near Plainfield and I must say this is a surprise – sort of. Although quite the place to be in the teens, twenties and apparently the thirties, Plainfield suffered quite the downturn in the sixties. The once stately manors of the “Queen City” were divided into four-plexes, then toothpicks.
The Packard set now lives a county or 2 north of there. I bet the owner could close the deal by offering free towing to Hibernia, NJ. It’s about 45 miles away and home of a truly first rate restoration facility with what could become the fastest debit card machine in the northeast. The Kanter brothers are also up there and likely knew of this sleeping beauty.
Oh – one more thing about Plainfield – Dudley Moore liked it. He died there in the not-so-stately manor pictured above. Definitely not a “10”
Nice car, but personally I’d rather have a 34 Ford coupe. Little more affordable too.
Wow!!! Spectacular car and one of a small handful of cars that were/are among the absolute best that the world has ever produced. Well worth the price of admission but cars like this are not just about mere money. I’ll be watching for this one at Pebble Beach in a couple of years.
Breathtaking car and evocative of a particular time. But 70K will never finish that car unless you stab a 350/TH400 in it. In which case you should be imprisoned immediately afterwards.
Out of sheer curiosity, I did a little quick research on values for 1934 packard dietrich convertible victorias. It seems a similar but restored car sold at auction back in 2007 for $577,500. Another similar restored car won Best of Show at Pebble Beach in 2013 but before that, in 2012, yet another restored and similar car failed to sell at the Amelia Island R/M Auction for a high bid of $2.2 million bucks. I daresay that today, that figure could probably be doubled at least. All of a sudden, that eBay starting bid price of $70,000 is starting to sound pretty damn reasonable, eh?
Dirk, do you have any idea what restoration costs would be on this thing? I rountinely watch guys put $100K into a 67 GTO or a 57 Chevy, i doubt you could restore the drivetrain on this thing for $100k
If the finished product is going to be worth 3 or 4 million, what’s a couple hundred thou into the drive train? It makes a helluva lot more economic sense to put $100K into a car like this than into a dime-a-dozen 67 GTO or a 57 Chevy.
It’s a great deal, but unfortunately I don’t have the price of admission, let alone the means to take it to its proper level. Maybe the Isetta from a few days ago.
You guys realize it is reproduction coachwork, right? Granted it’s metal and not fiberglass but is basically a kit car.
If it was real it would be a million dollar pile of parts.
Where do you get that idea? It looks pretty genuine to me.
The trunk is definitely not as supplied, but the rest looks quite original…
what there is of it. When I was a kid, one of my uncles owned this exact model Dietrich, in excellent condition, in Garden Grove, California. My dad tried buying it from him many times but eventually gave up. Our family car at the time was a ‘34 Packard dual-cowel phaeton Super Eight.. This was in the early 50’s when this car would have been worth Zero Dollars. 😱
Easy. Nobody sells a real Dietrich on eBay. And I don’t mean a production bodied Packard that happens to have a Dietrich plate on it. This car is supposed to be the custom Dietrich with v-windshield. Restored it is easily a 2.5-3. million dollar car. If it was real. But it is not.
Btw, the metal gives it away too.
Why not? eBay can be a fantastic advertising medium for a car like that. His starting bid is $70K but we have no idea what his reserve, or selling price is. He has no bids, as I would expect, but you can bet he has inquiries. What’s wrong with the metal? It’s steel just as it should be. If you can tell 1934 steel from 2018 steel from a photograph, you’re pretty good.
Ok, here is another clue. When you are selling a potential 7 figure car, you point out in the ad that “yes, this is a genuine custom Dietrich with a known history back to 19**”.
Also, eBay is a horrible market for something like this if it was actually real. There are probably 2 dozen genuine customers that would pay the 1 million plus for a real Custom Dietrich project. They are not trolling Barn Finds or eBay. You are just devaluing it by putting it out there with a bunch of 5-10k cars.
But of course, this car is not real. So eBay is not a bad market.
You make some excellent points. I think, a few years back, Ebay was still a good place to sell rare cars and get a decent price for them. I sold a project 1961 300G for $18k, which was right about what the car was worth at the time.
I can say that in recent years, Ebay has absolutely sucked for trying to sell much of anything over, say, $10k. I’ve had better luck getting close to my ask price selling on CL than on Ebay in the last few years.
The one thing Ebay does offer, however, is international exposure. So even if said vehicle doesn’t sell on the Ebay auction, it may sell after it has ended. Have done that a few times.
However, IF this was a real Dietrich, I would think the seller would have much better luck selling this through the great Packard club. But of course, then that would reveal that it’s not a real Dietrich. Wah-wah.
As pointed out by my friends, the easiest clue to the new coachwork is the lack of cutouts for the hood doors or the door handles. If I was a little smarter I would have said that up front.
Perfect car for a Hollywood star/starlett to have it restored and drive it and show it. They have the cash and what a nostalgia piece it would be plus possible investment to boot.
AJ – Another telling point that this IS a replica, is the rear fender. Look at the photo showing the rear 3/4 view. Notice the change in the bare metal of the fender, the lighter shade of metal closer to the body is the new metal, added to the former closed sedan body fenders to extend them to the new trunk area.