1937/8 Packard Twelve Town Car By Rollston: A Packard Fit For The Dodge Family

Anna Thompson Dodge was the widow of Horace, the younger of the famously roisterous (and rich) Dodge Brothers. When Horace passed away in 1920, less than a year after his beloved brother John, he left Anna a spectacularly wealthy woman who became even more wealthy upon selling her husband’s auto concern. Let’s just say she could afford this Packard Town Car.

Anna waited several years after Horace’s death before remarrying, and by that time the sale of her husband and brother-in-law’s company had made her one of the wealthiest women in the world. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that her second husband, actor and realtor Hugh Dillman (who was fourteen years younger than she was), “taught her how to enjoy her wealth.” I imagine he did. They would divorce in 1947.

Mrs. Dodge (Dillman) was an enthusiastic patron of the arts, which is always a worthwhile pursuit. This painting of her is in the collection of the Detroit Historical Society and is titled Anna Thompson Dodge, Depicted as Madame Pompadour. For those who haven’t brushed up on their French monarchical history, Madame Pompadour was the “official chief mistress” of Louis XV. Given her allegedly tempestuous second marriage, along with some children and grandchildren who sometimes found the spotlight in regrettable ways, perhaps being depicted as a mistress in the Louis’ tumultuous reign felt appropriate to Anna.

I found Mrs. Dodge’s Packard Town Car at the Classic Car Club of America’s museum on the campus of Gilmore Car Museum. The placard near the car itself indicates that this is a 1937 model, but the club’s website calls it a 1938. In reality, it isn’t really either; Packard simply lists it as a Sixteenth Series car, a Model 1608 to be specific. The picture in the upper right hand corner of the placard shows the Town Car in front of Anna’s estate, which was called “Rose Terrace II,” the second mansion of that name in the Dodge family, the first being razed in 1930.

Rose Terrace II was located in Grosse Pointe, where most of the auto barons lived. It was Anna’s residence until her death in 1970 (at either 99 or 103, depending on whom one believes). Sadly, the mansion was torn down in 1976 because no buyers could apparently be found and no institutions wanted to take on its care and maintenance.

This picture of three Packards parked at Rose Terrace II in its halcyon days shows that Mrs. Dodge preferred that marque, and according to the museum, the featured Town Car was her favorite of the fleet.

Until recently, the Town Car was owned by one Dr. Charles Blackman, who purchased it in 2005 and recently donated it to the Classic Car Club of America, which was able to assemble the various pieces so the car could be displayed at a show this past summer. This image shows, if nothing else, the great divide between the wealthy and working classes. The chauffeur would sit on a nondescript bench seat with nothing more than a cloth top to shield him from the elements.

On the other hand, this page from the Packard Custom Car Catalog shows the luxurious passenger compartment of the Rollston “All-Weather Town Car, Style No. 495,” which was mounted on Packard’s 139-inch wheelbase Super Eight or Twelve chassis. It is, of course, somewhat more sumptuous than the chauffeur’s trappings.

The Classic Car Club of America says that Mrs. Dodge’s Town Car is a Model 1608, so (as I mentioned) it belongs to the Sixteenth Series, which was produced from September 10, 1937, to September 20, 1938. According to Robert Turnquist’s The Packard Story, the shipping weight of a Rollston Town Car was 5,735 pounds, more or less what a new Tahoe weighs. This car is a twelve-cylinder model with a 473-cubic-inch L-head engine that produced a heady 175 horsepower and was capable of pushing a large-series Packard to 95 miles per hour. The cylinder banks were separated by a 67-degree angle, which was “found to be the neutral position where the power impulses do not synchronize with the natural frequencies of the crankshaft at any speed.”

All that smooth, vibration-free power was channeled through a “silent synchronized” three-speed manual. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Dodge’s chauffeur was able to shift imperceptibly, but the Packard’s prodigious torque meant that the shift to third could most likely have been made by the time the car was traveling 20 miles per hour.

Before being purchased by Dr. Blackman in 2005, Mrs. Dodge’s Packard had been stored in a barn for forty long years, and that time has manifested itself as small rust “speckles” on the passenger side only, meaning that the big Packard Twelve most likely endured those forty years with that side facing the elements. But that’s what I like about it. The Classic Car Club Museum has the Packard parked near a nearly pristine 1938 Cadillac V16 Town Car as a counterpoint to the Packard and its patina. Although the Cadillac is beautiful, it was Anna Dodge’s Packard that I was drawn to.

Because of that, I learned a lot more about the wife of Horace, one of the famous Dodge Brothers who loved each other so much that they died in the same year and were buried in a giant mausoleum where they could hang out and rough things up for eternity. The brothers’ wives went on to lead interesting lives of their own, with Anna, her children, and her grandchildren providing plenty of family drama and intrigue even past Anna’s passing in 1970. (It’s fitting that the New York Times article about her death warned that “conflicts over [her] $100 million estate [were] predicted.”) In essence, their family resembled many of ours; they just had more money and fancier things than most of us. And Anna in particular had good taste in cars.

Thanks to the Grosse Pointe Historical Society, the Schoolfield Country House blog, and The Classic Car Club of America Museum for background information on Anna Dodge, her house, and her car.