The death of an Eastern Washington collector this spring set the wheels in motion for the return of the Packard Request, the Dick Teague designed dream car that has been mostly a specter for nearly a quarter century. Robert M. Pass bought the Request from the estate of reclusive collector Larry Dopps, who owned it since 1973. Pass, whofounded Passport Transport and is president of the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, Ind., paid a cool $150,000 for the one-off that marked the end of Packard.
When he bought the car, Pass was reluctant to speak of a long-term relationship with the Request–and with good reason. He already has turned it over to an undisclosed collector for an undisclosed sum.
“With this deal, the Request will never be sold again,” said Pass, adding that was his main consideration. He conceded that he made “a little money” on the deal but said the future of the car was all that mattered.
The Request is undergoing a frame-off restoration and should be ready for the August 2007 Meadowbrook Concours d’Elegance, where it’s expected to be shown with the other Packard prototypes.
“It was restored 20 years ago,” says Pass. “It’s in pieces and needs everything.
“A 30-footer?” he said in response to a question about how closely one could look to see faults. “No, it was more like a 50-footer.”
The sale and restoration opens another chapter in the car’s colorful history, which saw it spirited out of the factory to prevent its destruction and driven to work daily, until crashed, by a bartender in Portland, Ore. It spent years under a tarp in a back yard before Dopps found it and went to work.
The Request was designed by Teague in 1955, when cash-strapped Packard launched a new line and needed a show car to promote it. Teague was a major player in Detroit, working for Packard from 1951-58 and American Motors until 1984.
In creating the Request for the 1955 Chicago Auto Show, Teague listened to owners who wanted a “real” Packard. He grabbed the third Packard Four Hundred coupe off the line (No. 5587-1003) and sent it to Creative Industries of Detroit, a hot-rod shop that built one-offs.
In less than 90 days, Creative produced the aptly named Request, which blended the trademark Packard grille into the new model.
Finished in pearlescent white and copper and with a salmon and white interior, it had a fiberglass hood and the words Packard Request on each side on the fenders and the trunk. Bumpers were cast in huge loops on each side of the vertical grille, which curved under the car. The 400-pound front end was balanced by the electronic torsion bar suspension.
The Request was warmly received, but after merging with Packard, Studebaker had decided there would be no more big Packards. Packard’s “Black Bess,” a test model from 1958, the last year for Packard production, was cut up. The Request was to be next.
But legend has it that an executive drove the Request out of the factory in broad daylight and had it shipped to his mistress in Oregon. The story goes that her son drove it to his job as a bartender, until he hit a parked car and it, too, was parked.
Dopps and a friend bought the car in 1973 for the $2,500 asking price from Walter King, who had owned it since 1959. They completed a restoration the next year and the car was photographed before disappearing. It popped up only once at a Packard show in Oakland in 1983.
The Request has been kept in a canvas garage in Pasco, Wash., for 23 years. With only 14,805 miles on the clock, the 352-cubic-inch engine still runs smoothly, and the Request remains all show car. It has clear window glass. There is no body number on the firewall, which is still in primer, and the paint and trim plate on the door jam is blank.
Karen Dopps says she still can’t quite believe the Request is gone, after living with it for 27 years. But other things came up.
Her husband had arranged to sell the car to famed collector Bill Harrah, but then Harrah died unexpectedly and his collection was dispersed. Later, Dopps, reluctant to sell, asked as much as $325,000 for the Request but was more interested in discussing it with collectors who tracked him down.
“I guess he really didn’t want to sell it. He loved it,” says his widow wistfully.
The new owner may or may not come forward when the car resurfaces at Meadowbrook in Michigan next August.
“That’s back in the heartland, where it was made and where it belongs. Nobody has seen it here for 50 years,” Pass says.
For the asking
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1955 PACKARD REQUEST
– $20,000 prototype
– Engine: 352-ci V-8
– Based on a Packard Four Hundred coupe
– Grille from borrowed from 1930s Packards
– Cloisonne hubcaps borrowed from a 1948 Custom Eight with chrome wire wheels.
– Despite 400 pounds of front bumpers, a new self-leveling torsion-bar suspension was able to balance the Request, though the space between the grille and the road was less than 6 inches.
