1928 Packard 443 Custom Eight Runabout

Richard Dix standing next to a 1928 Packard model 443 (form the collection of the author)

From the beginning, the stars born of the Hollywood movie industry have wanted to be seen in the best cars available. Richard Dix, seen posing with a 1928 Packard 443 custom eight roadster, was just such a leading man. Born Ernest Brimmer, he studied to be a surgeon, but his talent for acting blossomed in dramatic club at school. Dix went on to be one of the few stars to transition from silent pictures to the “talkies”.

This picture is dated February, 25^th, 1930 and the featured Packard would already have been a used car. The shot is clearly taken on the set of a movie lot; if you look carefully, you can see the backdrop is a prop. I suspect that the car may actually belong to Dix – check out the custom figurine that’s been added to the motometer - and that the image might be taken at the RKO lot in Los Angles. Dix had just left Paramount to sign with RKO in 1929.

Packard introduced the fourth series cars (443) in July of 1927. The custom eights were offered in nine standard body styles – all on the 143-inch chassis. This Packard runabout, style number 312, is one of those standard body styles. The car has a 385 cubic inch straight eight engine developing 109hp. Packard produced 7,800 model 443’s in 1928 and this car would have sold new for $3,975.

Although Packard had dealers in both Beverly Hills and Hollywood, the most prolific dealer was Earle C. Anthony, Packard’s west coast distributor. I don’t know if this Packard came out of the showroom on 1000 S. Hope Street, but it very well may have been. Today, I can only imagine what it must have been like to see cars like this Packard rolling through the streets of Hollywood. 

The Stutz Super Bearcat

1932 Stutz Supe Bearcat (from the author's collection)

 

Wearing a set of Goodrich Silvertown whitewall tires, distinguished by the double diamonds seen on the side wall, the shortened chassis of the Stutz Super Bearcat is clearly apparent. At only 116 inches, the wheelbase was a full foot and a half shorter than the standard offering. As a point of comparison, today’s Ferrari FF rides on a 117.7 inch wheelbase. The cut-down chassis and Weymann style fabric body (designed by Gordon Buehrig) were both focused on weight reduction, but the heart of the car was the DV-32 straight–eight engine. The twin overhead cam, four valves per cylinder engine produced 156 horsepower – a 40% increase over the old “vertical eight” that it was based on. Not the most powerful engine of the era, regardless the Super Bearcat had one of the best power-to-weight ratios of the time.

From its inception in 1911, the Stutz Motor Car Company was all about racing. Although Stutz halted factory-supported racing in 1929, Stutz cars continued to be raced by privateers. The 24 Hours of Le Mans saw numerous Stutz cars competing until 1932. The Blackhawk version of the Stutz Vertical Eight came to dominant AAA stock car racing, winning the championship in 1927. Stutz also competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the sole Stutz losing its lead on the final lap to one of the factory-entered Bentleys in 1928. The best showing of any American entry until Ford’s GT40 claimed victory thirty-eight years later. The Stutz DV-32 engine, in a different chassis, raced at LeMans as well – achieving a 5th place finish.

Harry Stutz, founder of his namesake company, had departed back in 1922. Fred Moscovics had brought a newfound success to the Stutz brand upon his arrival, buy even his engineering prowess couldn’t halt the economic decline initiated by the stock market collapse of 1929. Kept alive by the personal fortune of Charles Schwab, who held controlling interest, the company soldiered on until closing its doors for good in 1934.

These cars were quite expensive at the height of the depression and only about twenty are thought to have been made – fewer than a dozen are thought to survive. The last Super Bearcat to come to auction was sold by Bonhams at Amelia Island earlier this year. It sold for $1,012,000.