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There’s an antique Packard automobile sitting in a prominent position at The National Packard Museum on Mahoning Avenue here in Warren. It’s a 1903 Packard Model F. It’s painted deep red with a wooden body, white rubber tires and a one cylinder engine under the rear engine cover. This is the car that had crossed the United States San Francisco to New York in 1983 in a re-enactment of that same feat performed by a 1903 Packard Model F, 80 years earlier. The 1903 crossing was to prove the reliability of the Packard automobile. The driver in 1903 was Tom Fetch, an employee of the Packard Motor Car Company. The 1983 driver was Terry Martin, craftsman, cabinet maker, author, historian, my friend and an antique automobile enthusiast.
Terry is a 1963 transplant from Chester, W.Va. Here in Warren, he ran a kitchen cabinet and equipment store on East Market across from Recovery Drug. Pursuing his hobby, in 1978 he authored a section of the Beverly Rae Kimes book “Packard, a History of the Motor Car and the Company” called “Packard, the Warren Years,” which tells the Packard automobile story up through 1903 when the automobile manufacturing part of Packard moved to Detroit. The Packard Electric entity remained in Warren.
If you travel down my street to the Mahoning River and look across, you’ll see the home and workshop of Terry Martin, age 77. Back in the early ’80s Terry was able to build up the 1903 Packard Model F that was to cross the U.S. from an existing chassis, engine and wheels he had collected, by building a beautifully crafted wooden body for it. It was an exact duplicate of the original 1903 Packard Model F called “Old Pacific” that had demonstrated its ruggedness and infallibility in 1903 by making that transcontinental trip.
As you may know, Packard Electric was founded in 1890 here in Warren by brothers William Doud and James Ward Packard. Almost as a side interest, they built the first Packard automobile in 1899. When someone called the Packard office to learn more about these beautiful, reliable automobiles, there were no descriptive brochures. So, J.W. told his secretary to tell him to “ask the man who owns one.” This became the slogan of the Packard Motor Car Company throughout its existence, which ended in 1958. After Terry had built up his duplicate of the ’03, it was said by some wag that we could “ask the man who clones one.” You may know that guy.
So let’s come up a bit closer to the present, say the late1980s. The public relations department at Packard Electric Division of General Motors was quite aware of Terry Martin’s feat with his practically self-constructed 1903 Packard Model F. Subsequently, the car was purchased from Terry by Packard Electric. Terry was contracted to drive the car in parades and accompany the vehicle to various old car shows both local and distant.
I was on the committee at Packard that had the responsibility for determining how our purchase should be used and displayed, and to develop a name for it. Since the original ’03 was called “Old Pacific,” it was suggested that it be called “Old Pacific II.” I objected, saying that I felt that some people with a “II” after their names were just watered down versions of the original. One member (we’ll call him Mark) said that he had a “II” after his name, and couldn’t understand the objection. Some wag on the committee (I wonder who?) said, “I rest my case.”
More recently, Packard Electric donated the car to The National Packard Museum.
Terry Martin is still building wooden automobile bodies for autos manufactured before 1912. He has been commissioned to build those bodies by antique auto enthusiasts throughout the U.S. and some foreign countries. He has shipped the completed bodies as far as England. When I asked Terry if he was about done with plying his craft, his reply was that he currently has commissions for four more hand-crafted wooden bodies.
If you have ever seen any of these beautifully wrought auto bodies that Terry so painstakingly builds, you wouldn’t want for him to hang it up any time soon.
Mumford, of Warren, is a community columnist. E mail him at columns@tribtoday.com