Fotografia
In 1920 gold-mine owner John Franklin Boyd
died and left his entire estate—$3 million and a manse in San Rafael,
California—to his only living daughter, Louise. One might have expected a
society lady of the time to spend the rest of her days idly spending the
principal, but Louise Arner Boyd, it would soon be proven, was different. She
loved adventure—not merely funding the expeditions of others, but being in the
thick of it, visiting new and different nations and exploring their rugged
terrain. She traveled the world in search of new ideas and new discoveries,
most prominently to the Arctic Circle, an area in which she became a respected
expert after seven painstakingly planned research junkets and the publication
of two well-received books. Today an area in Greenland adjacent to a glacier
she studied is known as Louise Boyd Land.
She was still a lady, of
course; she loved to attend balls, often wearing on her gown the Légion d’Honneur medal
that France awarded her for searching for the lost explorer Roald Amundsen. She
traveled widely, doing so in style, staying at the best hotels she could find
and usually traversing new-torn paths in her own chauffeured automobile. According
to J.M. Fenster’s Packard:
The Pride, in 1934 Miss Boyd’s automobile was this Packard Twelve,
an individual custom convertible sedan by Dietrich, one of the most lush and
expensive models available. It was built to her order, with a division window
twixt the front and rear seats and reading lights to allow her to make notes
during the journey.
In 1935 Boyd traveled with the car and her family’s longtime
chauffeur, Percy Cameron, to Poland as a delegate of the United States
government to the International Geographic Congress in Warsaw. The American
Geographical Society asked her to extend her stay and undertake a photographic
study of rural Poland’s various cultures and ethnic groups, and she did so.
Driven by Cameron, the Individual Custom Packard carried Boyd alongside
horse-drawn carts on roads that had likely never seen an automobile, much less
one so grand. It fit into few garages, but that was no matter, because there
were few garages. At the monastery at Ławra Poczajowska, the Packard spent the
night in the courtyard, with one of the bearded, hooded monks slumbering inside
to prevent its theft.
At the end of the
journey, Boyd, Cameron, and the Packard returned triumphantly to the U.S., and
her meticulously detailed report and over 500 photographs were published in
1937 as Polish
Countrysides, many including this car.
Louise Boyd eventually
moved on to other adventures and other automobiles, but remained true to
Packards, as well as to Dietrich; Raymond Dietrich later customized a 1952
sedan for her. The Individual Custom Twelve that had served faithfully in
Europe remained in the United States. According to Edward J. Blend’s The Magnificent Packard Twelve of
Nineteen Thirty-Four, later owners were Richard Jenkins of New
Jersey and Phillip Goddard of Iowa.
The car was then acquired
by the late Bill Hirsch of Newark, New Jersey, who beautifully restored it to
original condition. Hirsch was very proud of the Packard, which he showed
extensively; to this day, the logo of his automotive finish and upholstery
supply company is the unmistakable profile of this Packard. In his ownership
the car was photographed by Roy Querry and appeared as one of twenty special
automobiles described at length in J.M. Fenster’s Packard: The Pride,
published in 1992. It was also used as the basis for the highly regarded model
of the individual custom convertible sedan produced by the Franklin Mint.
In 1999 the car was acquired by the present owner, in whose
superb collection it has resided for twenty years. He notes that it was used on
at least four CCCA CARavans, while remaining in fine enough condition to
achieve its AACA Senior First Prize in 2000, followed by, in 2001, its CCCA
Premier First and the AACA’s Joseph Parkin Award, recognizing it as the most
outstanding Packard in its division.
The car was freshened in 2015, receiving a cosmetic restoration
by Colour Restoration of Longmont, Colorado, in time for exhibition at the
Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, where it was an award winner in the
legendarily rigorous American Classic Open Packard class. The following year it
received the Don Sommer Award as Most Significant Classic at the Concours
d’Elegance of America at St. John’s, an impressive achievement in a year that
saw the attendance of numerous other significant Dietrich designs.
Simply put, today Louise Boyd’s Packard remains an automobile
worthy of its original owner—the sleek embodiment of adventurous spirit,
meticulous preparation, and faultless good taste.Fonte : https://rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/mo19/monterey/lots/r0078-1934-packard-twelve-individual-custom-convertible-sedan-by-dietrich/781468
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