The car that is likely to be one of the showstoppers at the Palos Verdes Concours d’Elegance at Trump National Golf Course on September 18 and 19 doesn’t look like much at the moment. It’s a hulk sitting on a rack in a dusty workshop in El Segundo, lit eerily from below with droplights and occasional showers of sparks where a restorer is grinding an axle bracket.
But to the practiced eye of Gene O’Hara, who has been working on this car for years, it is a thing of beauty.
“In the collector car world, everybody has their brand, but Packard is generally regarded as the best car made in America. They weren’t the equal of the best European cars, but they were definitely better than the other American high-priced cars,” he said.
This 1948 Packard Woodie is one of only 1,248 made that year, and it was in awful shape when Stanley Zimmerman of the Automobile Driving Museum of El Segundo bought it. The car had been forgotten in a leaky garage for 30 years. The once-beautiful hardwood that adorned the vehicle was in bad shape. Happily, it was put in the hands of the only person who believed it could be saved. Gene O’Hara, manager of the museum’s restoration shop, understood why others were skeptical.
“This car was stored under the worst possible conditions. The back end was so rotten that if you flicked your finger against the wood, bits would fly into the air like dandelions. Nobody, professional or amateur, thought it could be repaired. I managed to save it all. When we’re done, this car will have every piece of wood it left the factory with. I have my own technique – really a series of techniques that other people do, but I put them together in my own way.”
O’Hara has a lot of experience with the old cars, gave an interesting history of Woodies, which started out as economy vehicles and eventually became recognized as an art form.
“Henry Ford was asked to make low-cost transportation to get people to and from train depots, which was why they were called station wagons. They made the doors out of wood rather than steel, because it was cheaper. They caught on, and Pontiac, Chevrolet, Mercury, everybody started making them. Chrysler and Ford both started offering wood on passenger cars. Ford called it a Town and Country, Chrysler called it a Huntsman.
“Woodies really became a style thing in the 1960s. That’s when you start seeing fake wood versions. Surfers started identifying Woodies with surfers when the Beach Boys posed with a couple of Woodie Fords. The cars came to be identified with the California dream.”
Unfortunately, California sun, beach dampness and salt air aren’t the best environment for polished woodwork, as many South Bay homeowners have found.
“Woodies required a lot of maintenance, even under the best of conditions. Wood cracks, expands, stretches and shrinks in a different way than the metal it’s attached to. The car companies used whatever was left over at the mill – oak, ash, hickory, whatever – so there are a lot of variations even in the same model year. They mixed the different colors and grains to get a nice effect. There are three different kinds in this car. The wood on this particular car was ornamental, not structural – it was an overlay on the doors.”
The look of wood extends to the interior of the car – the look, but not the reality – it’s a wonderfully detailed paint job that fools the eye.
“It had a real wood exterior, but simulated wood dashboard and window frames. I’m going to be using the same kind of technique that they did to simulate the wood graining in some places where I had to repair the actual wood, just to preserve the look of it.”
O’Hara has been a car restorer since he was 18 years old, and has a perspective on the craft that may surprise some people.
“The whole restoration thing started after WW2 when wealthy people decided they wanted to save these cars as art. There were so many variations in those prewar days, choices for coachwork, custom wood and crystal interiors. Some companies even offered summer and winter bodies so you could change them with the seasons. They were falling into disrepair by the 1950s, and restorers responded to both their history and their craftsmanship. Nowadays we’re even preserving ‘50s and ‘60s mass-produced cars.
“The hot rod craze started when working class people started customizing their cars, because they couldn’t afford the exact car they wanted. Now we all work together, and the one thing we have in common is appreciating quality workmanship. I’ve never approached this from any other perspective than that this was art, and fine art.”
O’Hara has been working on the 1946 Packard with the attitude of an artist who is more concerned about quality than speed. By the time he’s done he will know as much about the car as anyone but the designer.
“I shepherded the restoration from undoing the first bolt. I’ve been on it for three or four years, but not steadily – there was a problem with the title, so we put it in storage until that was resolved. If you count the work alone, it’s about six months so far.
“It’s going to be on display at the Palos Verdes Concours d’Elegance, and I’m going to be giving some lectures and demonstrations. I’m going to tell people how to restore this type of automobile without separating the frame from the body. As bad as it was up above, it’s fine below – we could actually do more harm than good by removing it from the frame.”
The Packard Woodie will still be a work in progress when it is displayed at the concours on September 19.
How, I asked Gene, will today’s vehicles stand up to 65 years of use, and will we see modern cars in some concours event in 2074?
“To me this is a modern car. I was schooled working on prewar cars. Generally speaking, the older a machine is, the better it is. It may not go as fast, but it’s easier to keep going, easier to repair. You can repair this vehicle with basic materials, steel bars and sheet metal, where with a modern car you have to have the exact piece. These will survive longer because they’re more repairable.”
For more information about the Palos Verdes Concours d’Elegance visit www.pvconcours.com.
For more about the Automobile Driving Museum visit www.automobiledrivingmuseum.org. The museum is located at 610 Lairport Street, El Segundo.Hours: Tuesday through Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides on Sundays only. B
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