5,000 Z06 Miles

Packard

I took delivery of my Z06 23 months ago today. On Thursday I passed 5,000 miles of my own doing. Of course, that’s not a lot of driving, about 2,600 miles a year on average.

Some would say no one should drive a car like mine. Others would say I haven’t driven it enough. I think in this polarized world it’s very easy, too easy, to appeal to one side and make the other side angry. I think the truth often lies in making both sides angry.

 

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It’s too bad that 56PackardMan has seemingly vanished. I wonder if he knows about this development as chronicled in this Classic Cars piece, “Packard plans a comeback, starting with a watch.”

Apparently, James Ward Packard liked watches, collected them and even designed them. Also, plans are afoot to bring back a Packard car, but the watch is first.

For you Packard fans out there, which year/model would you like to see brought back? New federal regulations, finally created and implemented to make the Limited Vehicle Production Act (or whatever it is called) a reality, make such a comeback possible albeit at no more than 325 cars a year.

Of course, I am partial to the 1956 Packard line: the Caribbean, the Four Hundred, the Executive. I suspect, however, that the magnificent cars of the 1930s may be the ones to be “resurrected.” From RM Sotheby’s a picture of a 1956 Packard Caribbean convertible:

 

See the source image

 

Such a car was included in my Ultimate Garage 2.0. You will be surprised to read it is not a lock for 3.0.

You might want to read this review of The Packard Story by Robert Turnquist. The number of books about Packard is amazing to me, but then again, I seek them out.

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This opinion piece by George Will is titled, “Progressives want a new New Deal. The old one failed at its main task.” In it, Will quotes FDR’s Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, from his testimony for the House Ways & Means Committee in May of 1939,

 

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong . . . somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. . . . I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!”

 

Here is more from Will:

 

“Morgenthau was mistaken about one thing: When Roosevelt took office in March 1933, the unemployment rate was 25.4 percent. But about the spending Morgenthau was correct: By 1936, for the first time in peacetime history, the federal government’s spending was larger than the combined spending of all states and localities. And credit Morgenthau’s candor: The New Deal failed at its principal task of putting the nation back to work. The 1939 unemployment rate was worse than the 16.3 percent of 1931 [my note: 1939 unemployment was 17.2%], and worse than the 11.7 percent peak unemployment during the severe but short recession of 1920-1921. In 1939, the Depression had lasted longer than any prior U.S. contraction. In 1940, with the pre-war surge of military spending underway, the unemployment rate was 14.6 percent, more than eight points higher than today’s.” [my correction: this piece was written when US unemployment was about 10 percent during the tighter grip of the damn virus, Will wrote “four points higher”]

“Historical data seems powerless to dent progressive nostalgia for the New Deal’s fictitious triumph of economic revival through job creation.”

 

Blind adherence to ideology and excessive allergy to the facts are never a good thing, but they are more alive and well than at any other time, in my opinion. Quoting Huxley once again, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Oh, George Will wrote a cover blurb for the book I co-authored about the greatest baseball teams of all time. In my presence, he would tell his companions–friends and family–that I knew more about baseball than anyone else he knew. I guess the baseball industry decided that my age and “lack” of coding skills were far more important than my aptitude and knowledge.

 

#5000Z06Miles

#PackardWatch

#1956PackardCaribbeanConvertible

#TheMythOfTheNewDeal

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Published by rulesoflogic

Empiricism over ideology!

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14 thoughts on “5,000 Z06 Miles”

  1. 56Packardman is still among the living, I’ve seen some comments on BaT on a couple of the Studebakers listed on there.

    I enjoyed his website and IIRC it’s where I learned about your site. Perhaps he will wander back here someday.

    I’m not certain you can solve most problems simply by throwing money at them. There has to be some rational plan on HOW to spend that money. Sadly, rational rarely enters the equation.

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    1. Good to “hear” from you, DDM, and good to know that 56PackardMan is still among the living.

      Something that applied to sports teams applies in almost every context: it’s easy to spend money, but it’s difficult to spend it wisely.

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  2. I’ve seen this baseball knowledge first hand for over 30 years. Amongst my friends, I would be considered the Babe Ruth of baseball knowledge. But compared to you, I am the Tom Shopay to your Babe.

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  4. Thank you for the link to my review sir!
    I’m a little torn on a Packard comeback, likely putting too much thought into it.
    I’m not sure you could take an existing chassis and style a body with Packard cues. I mean, the marque has been gone so long, I think anything that suggests ‘Packard’ clashes horribly with any current styling. The Packard Twelve concept wasn’t too bad, but I’m not sure it had enough to be something people would clamour for.
    I’d say maybe a reborn 1930s Twelve style, sort of an Excalibur/neo-classic design could do well. I do think though they have to concede to electric power, as I can’t see how they could find or build a chassis and ICE package that would allow profitability. Maybe people wouldn’t care if it had a modern V8, but, somehow I think people would be disappointed not having a 12. Not having ICE would also disappoint but, electric allows for easier packaging I think. Plus, people spend on Teslas, so maybe electric would speak better to the market anyway.

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    1. You’re welcome, Mark.

      As much as I admire defunct American makes, I don’t really think the Packard name can be brought back. That name has no meaning to anyone in the demographic companies covet.

      Liked by 1 person

  6. I’ve always liked Will. He comports himself with class and eloquence. Also, as evidenced by his departure from the R party, places his conscience above tribal affiliation. Glad to see him turn up on your site.

    I know that sometimes the clicking of a different parameter here and there on FRED can generate slightly different data (for example, CPI vs. CPI core, or even PCE). Is it possible the differences between your numbers and his are the result of that kind of incongruity?

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    1. Good to “hear” from you, Josh. The difference between numbers simply stems from the fact that his piece was written months ago. Data change…

      I am always reminded of something I think Louis Armstrong said, “There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.” At present, I am enormously dismayed at vaccine ignorance, for example. Can people really be that dense and ignorant? I guess that explains how all liars…I mean, politicians…have followers.

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      1. Ah, gotcha. I missed that part on when he wrote his.

        I’m dismayed by the vaccine stuff too, but also the general unwillingness to “follow the science” when it doesn’t confirm one’s priors. And I don’t see it getting any better, even when the distance of years would hopefully make people more willing to embrace objectivity. Sigh.

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      2. I think that “social media,” by far, is the biggest culprit in the state of affairs in which we find ourselves. Can we prosecute Zark Muckerberg?

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