There was no place for Dutch Darrin , customizer of the 1940 Packard One Eighty , to go but home .
After 15 splendid years of designing exclusive full - custom automobile bodies in Paris – first in partnership with fellow American Thomas Hibbard , then with a banker named Fernandez – he sensed the mean solar day of such highly individualised motor gondola was passing . So , in 1937 , Howard Addison Darrin , hold 40 age sooner in Cranford , New Jersey , desolate the " City of Lights " for the " City of Angels . "
Darrin set up in Hollywood , there to mode custom-make variations of output cars he felt would appeal primarily to the free - spending film community . One of his other ideas was to cut the roof off of a " third-year " Packard Eight / One Twenty coupe , supervene upon it with aconvertibletop , and take down the hoodline .
This he did several time for a guest list that would have made for quite a okay course credit roll at the end of a Tinseltown blockbuster . Then the Packard Motor Car Company , that right citadel of luxury - category motoring locate in severely - work Detroit , commence wind of what Dutch Darrin was doing in sun - drenched , fun - loving California .
Packard management elected to give its sanction to Darrin ’s exertion , pack the customs models ( which also include a four - door convertible security and a notchback four - door sedan ) in its 1940 catalogue and placing a chrome script of Darrin ’s signature on the cars .
But there were condition . Dutch favored the One Twenty for being light and easy to modify , but the company want him to build most of the cars on the Custom Super Eight ( or One Eighty ) chassis . The $ 4,593 Convertible Victoria , as the two - door soft top was billed , rode a 127 - column inch wheelbase .
Aside from sectioning the hoodlum and radiator eggshell to lour its profile , the Victoria had cut - down doors . Despite the " roadster " look of its thin windscreen shape , it was a reliable convertible with roll - up side windows . The Darrins were the first Packards without run board . Initially build up in the former Auburn body industrial plant in Indiana , yield afterwards shift to Ohio funeral - car builder Sayers & Scoville . Queen Victoria were made until 1942 .
The restored 1940 Darrin Victoria feature here is owned by David Miller , of Orange , California . It is powered by a 356 - three-dimensional - in cubic decimeter - head straight - eightengine . The powerplant ’s 160horsepowerare drive through a three - speedtransmissionwith overdrive .
